But there was anguish in the thought. His beautiful lady who loved him! That he who held her so dear, who only asked to protect her from pain and ill, that he should be the one to cast a slur upon her! But there was no way out of it. He sobbed against his pillow. And in the silence came the stammered, half-choked words, "Annette, Annette!" But only the room heard them, which had heard the same appeal on a September night just a year ago. CHAPTER XL "Twice I have stood a beggar Before the door of God." EMILY DICKENSON. "I don't find either of you very helpful," said Aunt Harriet plaintively. Her couch had been wheeled out under the apple tree, and her sister and niece were sitting with her under its shade after luncheon. During the meal Aunt Harriet had at considerable length expounded one of the many problems that agitated her, the solution of which would have robbed her of her principal happiness in life. Her mind, what little there was of it, was spasmodically and intermittently employed in what she called "threshing out things." The real problems of life never got within shouting distance of Aunt Harriet, but she would argue for days together whether it was right--not for others but for her--to repeat as if she assented to them the somewhat unsympathetic utterances of the Athanasian Creed as to the fate in store for those who did not hold all its tenets. "And I don't believe they will all go to hell fire," she said mournfully. "I'm too wide-minded, and I've lived too much in a highly cultivated society. The Miss Blinketts may, but I don't. And I know as a fact that Mr. Harvey does not believe it either.... Though, of course, I _do_ accept the Athanasian Creed. I was able to assure Canon Wetherby so only yesterday, when I discussed the subject with him. He said it was the corner-stone of the Church, and that in these agnostic days we Church people must all hold firmly together, shoulder to shoulder. I see that, and I don't want to undermine the Church, but----" "Suppose you were to leave out that one response about hell fire," said Annette, "and say all the rest." "I am afraid my silence might be noticed. It was different in London, but in a place like Riff where we, Maria of course more than I, but still where we both stand as I may say in the forefront, take the lead in the religious life of the place, good example, influential attitude, every eye upon us. It _is_ perplexing. For is it quite, quite truthful to keep silence? 'Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie.' How do you meet _that_, Annette? or, 'To thine own self be true, and it will follow as the night to day'--I mean as the day to night--'thou canst not then be false to anybody.' What do you say to _that_, Annette?" Annette appeared to have nothing to say, and did not answer. Aunt Maria, slowly turning the leaves of a presentation volume from Mr. Harvey, said nothing either.