John and Helen had not gone at once to Lockhaven; they spent a fortnight in wandering about through the mountains on horseback. The sweet June weather, the crystal freshness of the air, and the melodious stillness of the woods and fields wrapped those first heavenly days of entire possession in a mist of joy. Afterwards, John Ward felt that it had blinded the eyes of his soul, and drifted between him and his highest duty; he had not been able to turn away from the gladness of living in her presence to think of what had been, during all their engagement, an anxiety and grief, and, he had promised himself, should be his earliest thought when she became his wife:--the unsaved condition of her soul. When he had first seen her, before he knew he loved her, he had realized with distress and terror how far she was from what he called truth; how indifferent to what was the most important thing in the whole world to him,--spiritual knowledge. He listened to what she said of her uncle's little Episcopal church in Ashurst, and heard her laugh good-naturedly about the rector's sermons, and then thought of the doctrines which were preached from his own pulpit in Lockhaven. Helen had never listened to sermons full of the hopelessness of predestination; she frankly said she did not believe that Adam was her federal head and representative, and that she, therefore, was born in sin. "I'm a sinner," she said, smiling; "we're all miserable sinners, you know, Mr. Ward, and perhaps we all sin in original ways; but I don't believe in original sin." When he spoke of eternal punishment, she looked at him with grave surprise in her calm brown eyes. "How can you think such a thing?" she asked. "It seems to me a libel upon the goodness of God." "But justice, Miss Jeffrey," he said anxiously; "surely we must acknowledge the righteousness and justice of God's judgments." "If you mean that God would send a soul to hell forever, if you call that his judgment, it seems to me unrighteous and unjust. Truly, I can think of no greater heresy, Mr. Ward, than to deny the love of God; and is not that what you do when you say he is more cruel than even men could be?" "But the Bible says"--he began, when she interrupted him. "It does not seem worth while to say, 'the Bible says,'" she said, smiling a little as she looked into his troubled face. "The Bible was the history, and poetry, and politics of the Jews, as well as their code of ethics and their liturgy; so that, unless we are prepared to believe in its verbal inspiration, I don't see how we can say, as an argument, 'the Bible says.'" "And you do not believe in its verbal inspiration?" he said slowly. "No," Helen answered, "I could not."