"I don't wonder at that, the church is so little of a friend to herself," interrupted the curate, relieved to find her so composed, for as he came along he had dreaded something terrible. "He wants very much to see you. He thinks perhaps you may be able to help him. I am sure if you can't nobody can. But please don't heed much what he says about himself. He is feverish and excited. There is such a thing--is there not?--as a morbid humility? I don't mean a false humility, but one that passes over into a kind of self disgust." "I know what you mean," answered the curate, laying down his hat: he never took his hat into a sick-room. Dorothy led the way up the narrow creaking stairs. It was a lowly little chamber in which the once popular preacher lay--not so good as that he had occupied when a boy, two stories above his father's shop. That shop had been a thorn in his spirit in the days of his worldly success, but again and again this morning he had been remembering it as a very haven of comfort and peace. He almost forgot himself into a dream of it once; for one blessed moment, through the upper half of the window he saw the snow falling in the street, while he sat inside and half under the counter, reading Robinson Crusoe! Could any thing short of heaven be so comfortable? As the curate stepped in, a grizzled head turned toward him a haggard face with dry, bloodshot eyes, and a long hand came from the bed to greet him. "Ah, Mr. Wingfold!" cried the minister, "God has forsaken me. If He had only forgotten me, I could have borne that, I think; for, as Job says, the time would have come when He would have had a desire to the work of His hands. But He has turned His back upon me, and taken His free Spirit from me. He has ceased to take His own way, to do His will with me, and has given me my way and my will. Sit down, Mr. Wingfold. You can not comfort me, but you are a true servant of God, and I will tell you my sorrow. I am no friend to the church, as you know, but--" "So long as you are a friend of its Head, that goes for little with me," said the curate. "But if you will allow me, I should like to say just one word on the matter." He wished to try what a diversion of thought might do; not that he foolishly desired to make him forget his trouble, but that he knew from experience any gap might let in comfort. "Say on, Mr. Wingfold. I am a worm and no man."