Montrose clenched his hands on seeing the girl he loved so roughly handled, but he could do nothing against the authority of her father. With one last sorrowful look, Alice disappeared and Enistor followed, leaving the unfortunate young man alone with his misery. The wicked atmosphere of the house seemed to bear down upon him with such force that he could almost feel the physical pressure. But this probably was imagination, as he was not sufficiently clairvoyant either to see or hear or feel the unseen. But in this agonising moment when it seemed that he was being swept away by a flood of evil, his thoughts turned swiftly to Eberstein. In that man he hoped to find aid, but even as he dwelt on the doctor's assistance a line from one of the Psalms flashed insistently into his mind. "Vain is the help of man" was the phrase, and he became vividly aware by some sixth sense that salvation could only come from the Great Power of Love as manifested in the Lord of Compassion. So intolerable a sense of his peril seized him that, almost unconsciously, the cry for help issued from his lips. "Oh, Christ!" he breathed audibly. "Lord help me, lest I perish." It might have been that the intense agony of the moment opened his interior senses, for he became conscious that some glorious light, not of the world, was enfolding him in its radiance. It welled--so he believed--from the golden heart on his breast, as if the stored-up sacramental power was issuing forth to do battle with the dark influence. But be this as it may, Montrose became aware that the gloom was receding, that the evil was being baffled, and that he was growing stronger by virtue of some higher force to resist the terrors pressing in upon him. The radiance which clothed him as with a garment gradually died away, and he found himself standing in the common light of day; but the peaceful, holy, uplifting feeling remained. He knew his innocence, and he knew also with profound thankfulness that God would make that innocence apparent to others. The trouble prophesied by Eberstein had indeed arrived, and very terrible it was; but behind the clouds which environed him shone the sun of righteousness, and its glory would sooner or later dispel the gloom. Having arrived at this knowledge in some way which he was wholly unable to explain, Montrose left Tremore and descended to Polwellin.