Dr. Howe was walking hastily up and down the room, gesticulating as he talked. Helen's patient eyes followed him. Again and again she tried to point out to him her husband's intense sincerity, and the necessity which his convictions forced upon him. But the rector refused to think Mr. Ward's attitude worthy of serious consideration. "The man is insane!" he cried. "Send his wife away from him to force her into a certain belief? Madness,--I tell you, madness!" "I cannot hear you speak so of my husband," Helen said very quietly, but it caused Dr. Howe to conceal his wrath. "He'll think differently in a day or two," he said. "This nonsense won't last." Then Helen, having exhausted all her arguments to show that John was immovable, said, "Let me read you what he says himself; then you will understand, perhaps, how real it all is to him, and how he cannot help it." "Bah!" cried Dr. Howe, and certainly it was trying to have Helen attempt to excuse such folly. "I've no patience with--There, there! I didn't mean to lose my temper, but bless my soul, this is the worst thing I ever knew. See here, Helen, if the man is so determined, you'll have to change your views, or go back to your old views, I mean,--I don't know what you do believe,--that's all there is about it." Helen was unfolding John's letter, and she looked up at her uncle with a fleeting smile. "Change my views so that I can go back? Do you think that would satisfy John? Do you think I could? Why, uncle Archie, do you believe in eternal damnation? I know you pray to be delivered from it in the Litany, but do you believe in it?" "That has nothing to do with the question, Helen," he answered, frowning, "and of course I believe that the consequences of sin are eternal." "You know that is not what the prayer means," she insisted; "you have to put your private interpretation upon it. Well, it is my private interpretation which John thinks is sin, and sin which will receive what it denies." "Well, you must believe it, then," the rector said, striking his fist on the arm of his chair; "it is the wife's place to yield; and while I acknowledge it is all folly, you must give in." "You mean," she said, "that I must say I believe it. Can I change a belief? You know I cannot, uncle Archie. And when you hear what John says, you will see I must be true, no matter where truth leads me."