But to this appeal no answer came from the far-off grave across the sea, though the hands still seemed beckoning with a never-tiring persistence which moved and troubled him greatly. Had he been at all tainted with spiritualism as it exists in modern times, he might perhaps have sought through mediums to know what his love would tell him, but he was free from superstitions of all kind, except this one, that Rossie was calling to him, and that ere long it would be granted him to join her in the world beyond. And to this end he tried to make himself ready, praying earnestly as he never prayed before that God would lead him to himself in any path he chose, so that it conducted him at last to Heaven, where Rossie was. Well he knew that if he would find that rest, all sinful affections must be overcome, and he be made humble and submissive as a little child. At first, however, it was very hard to be submissive and humble, and harder still not to hate the man who had blasted his whole life, and who seemed to be riding triumphantly in the high and pleasant roads of success. But gradually the hardness began to give way as the new life within him became clearer and brighter, and though he could not bring himself to like the doctor or find pleasure in his society, he could endure his presence, and no longer crossed the street to avoid meeting him if he saw him coming in the distance, and that was about all the progress he could make with him. He distrusted and disliked him, and never on any occasion went near the Forrest House, which, as the summer advanced, the doctor filled with his friends from New York, men of his own class, who were as unlike Everard as he was unlike his former self when he rebelled hotly against his fate and blamed the Almighty for having dealt so hardly with him. He did not feel that way now, and every Sunday found him an occupant of his father’s old pew, where Rossie used to sit, and where he now knelt and prayed earnestly for grace to bear whatever might be in store for him, feeling, it is true, that nothing worse could happen to him than had already happened,—the loss of Rossie and the loss of his estate. From Josephine he seldom heard. She was still in Indianapolis with her friends, but she did not write him often, and never asked for money. He had sent her a Rothsay paper which had in it a column and a half of matter concerning the disposition of the Forrest property, and the new proprietor, but she had made no comment. That she could not live at the Forrest House he knew, and that she would not return to Rothsay he devoutly hoped, and so he grew more quiet and contented each day, though there was ever with him a sense of bitter pain and a constant thought of the grave across the sea where Rossie was buried.