Cis was amazed to find herself enjoying this supper, served beautifully by the quiet-footed, deft Ellen, before the deep red glow of the smouldering logs. She ate heartily, and lay back in her low, cozy chair afterward, feeling better able to cope with life. But with the return of strength, came the revival of her longing for Rodney, the conviction that, cost what it would, she must return to him. “Now I must tell you, please,” Cis said to Miss Braithwaite, and she replied: “Now you may. It is better to tell me before you try to sleep.” She sat without looking at Cis, shading her face with her hand, which was one of strong individuality, rather than actual beauty; not speaking, but giving the impression of absorbed attention to the history which Cicely was giving her. She briefly passed over her early phases, amply telling Miss Braithwaite her pitiful love story. “And now I must decide,” she ended. “Rodney or the Church. It’s not fair, aside from anything else, to leave him when he was so truthful to me. But I want him! I must go to him! I left him in our home, alone! When I was in the church I thought, perhaps, I’d stick to the Catholic Church, but no, no, no! Telling you about him has made me see. It must be Rodney; I’m his wife. See, that’s his ring, made for me, Miss Braithwaite.” “Yes, dear,” said Miss Braithwaite quietly. “A ruby. The Church wears red on the festivals of her martyrs. How good God is to you, how He loves you! In choosing Him you will save the poor fellow whom you love, but whom God loves more, my Cicely! Your sacrifice will bring Rodney back at last. Don’t you know that is the way these miracles are wrought? How fine that it was such as you whom Rodney loved when he was an outcast from God! It might so easily have been a weak girl who did not love Rodney truly, tremendously, as you can, as you do, and so who would have renounced her Faith; sealed Rodney’s doom; gone with him into sin, degradation, the awful hatred of each other which waits upon those who debase love. With a living wife Rodney cannot marry. Cis, dear, you are not really hesitating! You are not going into that horrible abyss. It is only your torn heart crying out, but your will is God’s. Little Cicely, be glad that you can suffer for Our Lord. It is He Who stands between you and the breaking of His unmistakable law. He is going to bring Rodney back because you will ask it, who have offered Him the sacrifice of a broken heart. Don’t let yourself imagine that you are hesitating in your loyalty to Our Lord! Fancy, turning Our Lord out of your life for the sake of anyone, or everyone whom He has made! Wouldn’t it be a lonely world, dear, if we drove out of it that great white Figure which towers above us, just before us at every step? Cicely Adair to say: ‘Go away from me, Lord Jesus, with Your wounds and beauty! With Your love, beyond anything that I can mean by love!’ Unthinkable, child! Come now, dear one; come to bed. Sleep and rest,