“I am very anxious about my daughter,” he said. “She has been a nervous child always, and over-sensitive. I returned yesterday after an absence of some three months in California, to find Alice in bed, wasted to a shadow, and constantly weeping. I cannot win her confidence—she has never confided to me. Perhaps it is my fault; perhaps I have not been at home enough to make her realise that the relationship of father and daughter is a sacred one. This morning when I was urging her to tell me what grieved her, she remarked that there was but one person to whom she could communicate this sorrow—her rector. So, my dear Dr Stuart, I have sent for you. I will conduct you to my child, and I leave her in your hands. Whatever comfort and consolation you can offer, I know will be given. I hope she will not bind you to secrecy; I hope you may be able to tell me what troubles her, and advise me how to help her.” It was more than an hour before the rector returned to the library where Preston Cheney awaited him. When the senator heard his approaching step, he looked up, and was startled to see the pallor on the young man’s face. “You have something sad, something terrible to tell me!” he cried. “What is it?” The rector walked across the room several times, breathing deeply, and with anguish written on his countenance. Then he took Senator Cheney’s hand and wrung it. “I have an embarrassing announcement to make to you,” he said. “It is something so surprising, so unexpected, that I am completely unnerved.” “You alarm me, more and more,” the senator answered. “What can be the secret which my frail child has imparted to you that should so distress you? Speak; it is my right to know.” The rector took another turn about the room, and then came and stood facing Senator Cheney. “Your daughter has conceived a strange passion for me,” he said in a low voice. “It is this which has caused her illness, and which she says will cause her death, if I cannot return it.” “And you?” asked his listener after a moment’s silence. “I? Why, I have never thought of your daughter in any such manner,” the young man replied. “I have never dreamed of loving her, or winning her love.” “Then do not marry her,” Preston Cheney said quietly. “Marriage without love is unholy. Even to save life it is unpardonable.” The rector was silent, and walked the room with nervous steps. “I must go home and think it all out,” he said after a time. “Perhaps Miss Cheney will find her grief less, now that she has imparted it to me. I am alarmed at her condition, and I shall hope for an early report from you regarding her.” The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was delirious, and calling constantly for the rector. Her physician feared the worst. The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the girl’s delirium.