LETTICE, away in her western home, had no such comfort as Prue; no loving mother-arms to enfold her; no gentle mother-lips to kiss away heart-ache. Those who have never known this sweetest of all earthly comforts cannot realise the emptiness of not having it; and the grief of conscious loss is not theirs. But Lettice did sorely feel the need of some such love and sympathy. She had comfort: the highest comfort: a love deeper than even mother-love; a tenderness exceeding even mother-tenderness; because the love and the tenderness were Divine. But while Divine comfort is in a sense all-sufficing, it cannot do away with the human need for human sympathy. The Son of God Himself, as Man of Sorrows, though He had angels to comfort Him, yet experienced this lonely human craving; and so much the more fully He can understand its strength in the "children of earth." True, we never need stand where He stood; because, while He was absolutely cut off from all human sympathy, while there was literally "none" among His brother-men to comfort Him. We may have always, in unlimited measure, the most Human sympathy of Christ,—our Lord and Master, yet truly our Brother-Man! But the full realisation of this fact is not to many so vouchsafed, as that it shall entirely take the place of need for other human sympathy. And Lettice was very lonely. Dr. Bryant's confidence in her had broken down under the stress of Theodosia's discovery. He now looked upon Lettice as guilty of the theft. It was to him a bitter grief: scarcely less, if indeed not more, than to Lettice. For she had the full consciousness of innocence to bear her through; while he had the pain of believing himself utterly disappointed in her. Once only he spoke on the subject; and that was on the morning after their excursion. Gravely and sadly, he avowed his fixed belief, refusing to hear denial. "No other view of the matter is possible," he said. "Assertions are useless, unsupported by the slightest evidence. What have you to bring forward in your defence? Absolutely nothing. All these weeks you have not even attempted to clear yourself, and I have endeavoured to trust you in the face of all appearances; but this is too much. The very fact that you will speak now, when you would not before, seems to me an additional argument against you. Your past silence I do not understand, coupled with your present denial; but whatever your motives may be, or may have been, I can feel no doubt whatever as to your guilt." "I did not take it," she said, her lips hardly able to frame the words. "Hush! No more useless denials. At least you can abstain from further untruth. For the present, the matter must be dropped. When you can resolve to confess freely what you have done, then I will hear. Then you shall have my forgiveness, though you can never again be to me what you have been, because the old trust is no longer possible. But until then, you are under my displeasure."