Lady Jim could find no direct answer. "Parsons have nothing to do with worldly matters," she muttered, averting her eyes. "Very true. But if I can offer spiritual consolation----" "Take it to Lady Canvey. She needs it more than I do." "I doubt that, or the call would not have come." "It's a false alarm, padre," she said jeeringly. "I don't want to be preached at, and you're suffering from indigestion, or softening of the brain." "Well, Lady James," said Lionel, rising with a sigh, "your limitations may lead you to look at the matter in that light. But if I can do nothing for you, I can only retire, after asking your pardon--as I do--for my intrusion"; and he made for the door. Her mood changed with feminine rapidity, and she beckoned imperatively that he should remain. Disguise it as she would to Kaimes, his sudden coming on the top of her late puzzling experience drove her to acknowledge that something outside the material was at work. Leah was too clever a woman to deny the existence of more things in heaven and earth than came within the scope of her knowledge. "It is the duty of you parsons to pry into the secrets of souls, I suppose," she said, leaning her elbow on the chair arm, and her chin on her hand. "But what interest can you have in my soul--if I have one?" "I, as other servants of the Master, interest myself in all souls." "That you may save them?" "Only Christ can do that." "I may deny His power to do so--I may deny Him." "And so fall as Peter fell," said Lionel, sadly. "Yet he repented with bitter weeping." "I am not a tearful woman," she retorted, and turned to look into the fire. She did not wish to meet his eyes when she spoke the ensuing acknowledgment. "You are a good man, Lionel, and--and--you may be able to help me." Kaimes resumed his seat. "I hope so; but I can only point the way to a better Helper, and One more powerful." She continued to gaze at the burning coals. "I was frightened a few minutes before you entered," she said abruptly. "By what?" "That is the question you must answer. By something which made me see what a horrid nature I have." Lionel was silent for a few moments, not quite sure of his speech. "The Unseen presses closely around us," he remarked at length, "and at times reveals itself. For instance, a contemplated sin may be prevented by a spiritual influence informing the intelligence how terrible the consequences of such a sin may be." "It was the sin itself rather than its consequence which frightened me," murmured Leah, so softly that Lionel caught but one word. "What is that you say about sin?" Lady Jim's cunning made her shirk confession. "Nothing--oh, nothing," she said hurriedly; "only it seems to me that everything pleasant is a sin in your eyes." "Dead Sea Fruit," replied Kaimes, earnestly; "fair to the eye, foul to the taste. If you turn devoutly to the spiritual, the material pleasures of this world lose their attractiveness."