"Donald," the voice was very low, and sweet, and--_strong_. "There was a time I thought to help you. I did my best and--failed. It is too late now. I am married. You who could not put aside your passion for the girl whose heart was yours, and whom you loved sincerely, could not, assuredly, put it by for the woman whose love, and life, and duty are pledged to another. Yet, you know I feel for you. You know what it is to be tempted, so alas! do I. Wait! stand back. There is this difference. You know what it is to _yield_; but I have that little mound back there"--she nodded toward the little flower-decked grave,--"the dead help me, the sleeper underneath is my strength. If _I_ were dead now, I would come to you, and help you. Do that which, living, I failed in doing. Come, now; let us go on and see yon moon rise over Dan. The others have gone long ago." They passed out, and the little gate swung to its place. The dead at Beersheba were left alone again. Left to their tranquil slumbers. Tranquil? Aye, it is only the living who are eager and unhappy. Down the shadowy road they passed, those two whose lives had met, and mingled, and parted again. Those two so necessary to each other, and who, despite the necessity, must touch hands and part. 'Tis said God makes for every human soul a counterpart, a soul-helper. If this be so, then is it true that every soul must find its counterpart, since God does not work by half, and knows no bungling in His work. That other self is _somewhere_,--on this earth, or else in some other sphere. The souls are separated, perhaps, by death, or even by some human agency. What of that? Soul will seek soul; will find its counterpart and perform its work, its own half share, though death and vast eternity should roll between. They passed on, those two wishing for and needing each the other. Wishing until God heard, and made the wish a prayer, and answered it, in His own time and manner. At the crossing of the roads where one turns off to Dan, the mountain preacher's little cabin stood before them. Nothing, and yet it had a bearing on their lives. On his, at all events. Before the door, leaning upon the little low gate, an old man with white hair and beard was watching the gambols of two children playing with a large dog. The cabin, old and weatherworn, the man, the tumbledown appearance of things generally, formed a strange contrast with the magnificence of nature visible all around. To Donald, with his southern ideas of ease and elegance, there was something repulsive in the scene. But the woman was evidently more charitable. "Good evening, parson," she called, "we are going over to Dan to watch the moon rise." "Yes, yes," said the old man. "An' hadn't ye better leave the gun, sir? There's no use luggin' that to Dan. An' ye'll find it here 'ginst you come back." "Why, we're going back another route," they told him; not dreaming what that route would be.