Against this awful accusation Bayard had no reply; and the old Professor turned about ponderously, like a man whose body refused to obey the orders of his shocked and stricken mind. “How can I see my daughter, _my_ daughter, the wife of a man whom the Ancient Faith has cast out?” he pleaded piteously. He lifted his shrunken hands, as if he reasoned before an invisible tribunal. His attitude and expression were so solemn that Bayard felt it impossible to interrupt the movement by any mere lover’s plea. Perhaps, for the first time, he understood then what it meant to the old man to defend the beliefs that had ruled the world of his youth and vigor; he perceived that they, too, suffered who seemed to be the inflicters of suffering; that they, too, had their Calvary--these determined souls who doggedly died by the cross of the old Faith in whose shelter their fathers and their fathers’ fathers had lived and prayed, had battled and triumphed. Bayard felt that his own experience at that moment was an intrusion upon the sanctuary of a sacred struggle. He bowed his head before his Professor, and left the study in silence. But Helen, who had the small reverence for the theologic drama characteristic of those who have been reared upon its stage, put her beautiful arms around his neck and, laughing, whispered:-- “Leave the whole system of Old School Orthodoxy to me! I can manage!” “You may manage him,” smiled Bayard, “but can you manage _it_?” “Wait a day, and see!” said Helen. He would have waited a thousand for the kiss with which she lifted up the words. The next day she wrote him, at Windover, where he was dutifully trying to preach as if nothing had happened:-- “Papa says I have never been quite sound myself, and that he supposes I will do as I please, as I always have.” There followed a little love-letter, so deliciously womanly and tender, that Bayard did not for hours open the remainder of his mail. When he did so, he read what the Professor of Theology had written, after a night of prayer and vigil such as only aged parents know. “MY DEAR BAYARD,” the letter said,--“Take her if you must, and God be with you both! I cannot find it in my heart to impose the shadow of my religious convictions upon the happiness of my child. I can battle for the Truth with men and with demons. I cannot fight with the appeal of a woman’s love. I would give my life to make Helen happy, and to keep her so. Do you as much! Yours sincerely, “HAGGAI CARRUTH. “P.S.--We will resume our discussion on the views of Professor Kammelschkreiter at some more convenient season.” XXVI. Early June came to Windover joyously that year. May had been a gentle month, warmer than its wont, and the season was in advance of its schedule.