"And what will you do about it?" To Huntoon this spectre, raised suddenly, as from mental death, seemed like the embodiment of his own conscience risen to confront him. "What can I do?" he asked. Again Neville drew his hand across his forehead, as though he were striving to clear away the mist that still clouded his faculties. "Ingle--Calvert--St. Mary's," he repeated, as though the words were talismans to prevent his mind from slipping away again. "Ay, 'tis a coil--a grievous coil. I see not what I can do. I have no authority to act, and there is no time to call the Council together--" "For you I know not. For me one thing is clear, I must go." "Surely the Calverts and their friends have not treated you so well that you owe them either aid or warning." "I must go." Neville seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Huntoon, and to fear most of all that he should lose the power that floated just before him, still tantalizingly beyond his grasp. "Why must you go?" "There is some one there who needs me. I cannot recall her name, but I seem to see her face and I hear her voice. I wish--I wish--I could call her by name." Piteously he turned to Huntoon, seeking aid. "Is the name you seek _Elinor_--_Elinor Calvert_?" "God bless you! Yes; _Elinor_. Say it again to me if my mind wanders. Elinor! Oh, I do love thee! That face of thine--it has hovered in my dreams, but I thought it was an angel's. I remember it now, and with that smile on it and those words of thine, 'I think if thou shouldst put thine arms around me and whisper it in my ear I should believe!' Oh, Elinor, my love! Dost thou love me, dear, still? But the wall still stands between us." "What wall?" "The smirch upon mine honor. She would have been mine in spite of it, but I swore an oath to God never to call her wife unless I could offer her a name as clear in the sight of men as in His." The strong man bowed his face upon his arms and wept, silently at first, then with hard, heart-rending sobs, and Huntoon stood by awed and helpless. It was the birth-cry of a soul beginning life for the second time. At length the sobs ceased, and Neville rose and stood upright, looking inches taller than before, as though a miracle had been wrought and thought had added a cubit to his stature. He smiled, and the smile was sadder than the tears. "Help me, Huntoon," he said, "for I am as a little child, and I have a man's work before me." Huntoon struck hands with him, and a force of vital will-power seemed borne on that electric current of sympathy. "Fear not!" he said. "If God has work for you, He will furnish strength to do it." "Amen!" cried Christopher, bowing his head. When he lifted it again his face was as the face of an angel,--the angel of the sword. Turning, Huntoon was aware that Romney and Peggy and Elizabeth were standing in the doorway and looking in bewilderment from him to Neville.