Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by Luke saying, as he had said on that moonlight night at Southwold, which seemed now so long ago: "Sing Rachel." Rachel hesitated. "I don't know what to sing," she said. "Sing what you sang at Southwold, on the sea. What a perfect night that was, do you remember?" Remember! Rachel could never forget it. How often had the thought of it saddened her. Somehow things had not been just as she had hoped and expected on that moonlight evening when she and Luke had been alone on the great wide sea. She had never had him quite so absolutely to herself since that day; ever since then she had had to share him with others. No, she could not sing those words just now. They seemed sacred to that wonderful time which they had spent in the pathway of the moon. "Not that Luke," she remonstrated. "Well sing something else," he said, not having noticed the slight tremor in her voice. "I want to hear your voice among the trees." "I'll sing the two last verses of your favourite hymn," she said. "Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm, Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire. O still small voice of calm." Luke did not move. He lay looking up at the green leaves above him. Then he said: "How is it you always know exactly the right words to sing? My soul has been full of strain and stress lately. A great deal of sadness is going on among my people. I need to let the peace of God rule my heart, and to listen to 'the still small voice of calm,' and to remember that there is my wife at home praying for me." Rachel forgot her own trials to think of his. "I did not know you had been so worried," she said, her voice full of sympathy. "Have people been horrid?" "No, not horrid to me; but the devil is playing havoc in the place, and it is a strain." Rachel felt ashamed. Luke had been enduring the strain and stress of battle with the enemy, thinking altogether of his people, while she had been engrossed in her own little trials, caused by an insane jealousy of the one who was the only person who could advise and help him. How small she was! How poor and mean! How unlike the good Christian that Luke supposed her to be. She was filled with shame and scorn of herself. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THE STUDY. Luke was beginning to feel acutely the great necessity of a study. When his mother had lived with him she had left the dining-room entirely for his use in the mornings, and had been careful not to interrupt him by going in and out. In fact, in those days they had kept no servant, and Mrs. Greville had been so busy in the house that she had not needed to use the room at all.