"I cannot give it up," he said at last. "There must be some way by which the truth can be made clear to you. Perhaps the Lord will show it to me. There is no pain too great for me to bear, to find it out; no, even the anguish of remorse, if it brings you to God! Oh, you shall be saved! Do the promises of the Eternal fail?" He came over to her, and took her hands in his. Their eyes met. This sacrament of souls was too solemn for words or kisses. When they spoke again it was of commonplace things. It was hard for her to leave the little low-browed house, the next morning. John stopped to gather a bunch of prairie roses from the bush which they had trained beneath the study window, and Helen fastened them in her dress; then, just as they were ready to start, the preacher's wife ran back to the study, and hurriedly put one of the roses from her bosom into a vase on the writing-table, and stooped and gave a quick, furtive kiss to the chair in which John always sat when at work on a sermon. They neither of them spoke as they walked to the station, and no one spoke to them. Helen knew there were shy looks from curtained windows and peeping from behind doors, for she was a moral curiosity in Lockhaven; but no one interrupted them. Just before she started, John took her hand, and held it in a nervous grasp. "Helen," he said hoarsely, "for the sake of my eternal happiness seek for truth, seek for truth!" She only looked at him, with speechless love struggling through the pain in her eyes. The long, slow journey to Ashurst passed like a troubled dream. It was an effort to adjust her mind to the different life to which she was going. Late in the afternoon, the train drew up to the depot in Mercer, and Helen tried to push aside her absorbing thought of John's suffering, that she might greet her uncle naturally and gladly. The rector stood on the platform, his stick in one hand and his glasses in the other, and his ruddy face beaming with pleasure. When he saw her, he opened his arms and hugged her; it would have seemed to Dr. Howe that he was wanting in affection had he reserved his demonstrations until they were alone. "Bless my soul," he cried, "it is good to see you again, my darling child. We're all in such distress in Ashurst, you'll do us good. Your husband couldn't come with you? Sorry for that; we want to see him oftener. I suppose he was too busy with parish work,--that fire has kept his hands full. What? There is the carriage,--Graham, here's Miss Helen back again. Get in, my dear, get in. Now give your old uncle a kiss, and then we can talk as much as we want." Helen kissed him with all her heart; a tremulous sort of happiness stole over the background of her troubled thoughts, as a gleam of light from a stormy sunset may flutter upon the darkness of the clouds. "Tell me--everything! How is Lois? How are the sick people? How is Ashurst?"