“I am going to leave you with Paul,” Mrs. Mayfield said, suddenly catching her breath as if in pain. “I have something to do up-stairs. Listen to him, my child. He has comforted me, and he can comfort you. You must not allow yourself to become hard like this. Oh, you mustn't--you mustn't, darling! You'll break my heart.” “Oh, I don't know what to do--I don't know what to do!” Ethel shook with dry sobs, and there was a fixed stare in her beautiful eyes. “I can't think of Jennie being gone--being put away like that, when she had so much to live for, and when the happiness of so many depended on her recovery.” Without a word, and with an appealing and significant backward glance at Paul, Mrs. Mayfield moved away. “Would you like to walk down to the spring?” Paul proposed, gently. “The air is so fresh and invigorating, and breakfast won't be ready for some time yet.” She listlessly complied, walking along at his side like a drooping human flower in movement. He heard her sighing constantly. He did not speak again till they were seated at the spring, then he said: “Your mother overrates my power of giving consolation; there is nothing helpful that any mortal can do at such a time. I cannot give you my faith. It came to me only after years and years of suffering, sordid misery, and dense spiritual blindness. But I want to try, if you don't mind. I'd give my life to--to save you pain, to turn you from your present despair. Will you listen to me if I'll tell you some of the things that I passed through? You can't see it as I do, Ethel, but I am absolutely positive that your cousin is now a thousand times happier than she was--happier than you or I, or any one on earth.” “Oh, I know what you will say,” Ethel wailed, softly. “I believed such things once, as you know. But I haven't been frank with you, Paul. Seeing your beautiful faith which brought you back here in such a wonderful way, I could not bear to let you know the truth; but I have been in doubt for a long time, and now I have nothing to hold to--absolutely nothing. You might argue a thousand years and you could not--kind and gentle though you are--convince me that a just and merciful God would allow my poor cousin to suffer as she suffered, and cause me to feel as I feel only through my love for her. If there _is_ a good God, He is powerless to avert such as that, and a creator who is not omnipotent is no God at all. We are a lot of helpless material creatures staggering through darkness, dragging bleeding hearts after us, and yearning for what can never be ours. That's the awful, repulsive truth, Paul. It's unpleasant, but it's the truth.” “I will tell you what I passed through after I left here, if you will let me,” Paul began, a look of pained sensitiveness clutching his mobile features. “It is hard to have you--of all persons--know to what depths of degradation I sank; but I feel--something seems to tell me--that my story may help you. Will you hear me?”