Dennis's feelings were also deeply touched, and the dew of sympathy gathered in his own eyes. In the gentlest accents be said, "Oh, that you could trust that merciful, mighty One who invites all the heavy laden to come to Him for rest!" She looked up and saw his sympathy, and was greatly moved. In faltering tones she said: "You feel for me, Mr. Fleet. You do not condemn me in my blindness and unbelief. I cannot trust Him, because I am not sure He exists. If there was such a God I would gladly devote my whole being to Him; but I trust _you_, and will do anything you say." "Will you kneel on these sands with me in prayer to Him?" he asked, earnestly. She hesitated, trembled, but at last said, "Yes." He took her hand as if they were brother and sister, and they kneeled together on the desolate beach. The glow of sunset was lost in the redder glow of the fire that smouldered all over the ruins, and still raged in the northwest, and the smoke and gathering gloom involved them in obscurity. Though the weary, apathetic fugitives regarded them not, we believe that angelic forms gathered round, and that the heart of the Divine Father yearned toward His children. When they rose, after a simple prayer from Dennis, in which he pleaded almost as a child might with an earthly father, Christine trembled like a leaf, and was very pale, but her face grew tearless, quiet, and very sad. Dennis still held her hand in the warm, strong grasp of sympathy. Gently she withdrew it, and said, in a low, despairing tone: "It is all in vain. There is no answer. Your voice has been lost in the winds and waves." "Wait the King's time," said he, reverently. "You addressed him as Father. Would a good father keep his child waiting?" "Yes, sometimes He does; He is also King." After a moment she turned to him the saddest face he ever looked upon, and said, gently, again giving him her hand, "Mr. Fleet, you have done your best for me, and I thank you all the same." He was obliged to turn away to hide his feelings. Silently they again sat down on the beach together. Weariness and something like despair began to tell on Christine, and Dennis trembled when he thought of the long night of exposure before her. He bent his face into his hands and prayed as he had never prayed before. She looked at him wistfully, and knew he was pleading for her; but she now believed it was all in vain. The feeling grew upon her that belief or unbelief was a matter of education and temperament, and that the feelings of which Dennis spoke were but the deceptive emotions of our agitated hearts. To that degree that the Divine love seemed visionary and hopeless, she longed for him to speak of his own, if in truth it still existed, that she could understand and believe in. If during what remained of life she could only drink the sweetness of that, she felt it was the best she could hope for--and then the blank of nothingness.