He started, alarmed at his own words, and gazed wildly round as if expecting that some one might have heard. But he was quite alone, and all was so dark right away ahead. Was there no such thing as hope for one stricken as he? The answer to his wild, mental appeal seemed to come from the far east, for he suddenly became conscious of a pale, pearly light which came from far down where sea and sky were mingled to the sight. That pale, soft light grew and grew, seeming to slowly suffuse the eastern sky, till all at once he caught sight of a fiery flake far on high, of another, and another, till the whole arc of heaven was ablaze with splendour from which the sea borrowed glistening dyes. And as he gazed the tears rose to his eyes, and seemed to quench the burning fire in his brain, as a fragment which he had read floated through his memory:-- "Joy cometh in the morning--joy cometh in the morning." Could joy ever again come to such a one as he? He asked the question half-bitterly, as he confessed that the dense blackness had passed away, and that hope might still rise upon his life, as he now saw that glittering orb of light rise slowly above the sea, and transform the glorious world with its golden touch. "No, no," he groaned, as he rose to go on at last to his desolate home. "I am broken with the fight. I can do no more, and there is no cure for such a blow as mine. Where could I look for help?" "Yes; there," he said resignedly. "I'll bear it like a man," and as he turned he rested his hand upon the rough granite wall to gaze down the path, and drew back with a curious catching of the breath, as he saw the light garments of a woman pass a great patch of the black shaley rock. Madelaine Van Heldre was hurrying up the cliff path towards where he had passed those long hours of despair. CHAPTER FIFTY TWO. A STRANGE SUMMONS. Madelaine Van Heldre closed the book and sat by the little table gazing towards her father's bed. Since he had been sufficiently recovered she had taken her father's task, and read the chapter and prayers night and morning in his bedroom--a little later on this night, for George Vine had stayed longer than usual. Madelaine sat looking across the chamber at where her father lay back on his pillow with his eyes closed, and her mother seated by the bed's head holding his hand, the hand she had kept in hers during the time she knelt and ever since she had risen from her knees.