"I am sure of that," he said, "but the thing that has been worrying me most to-day is--at present--absolutely a private affair. Then there is another--I have been letting myself be anxious about your brother, and that is very bad for him as well as me. When I was treating him this morning all sorts of doubts kept coming into my mind. Half the time I was fighting them, instead of giving myself entirely to him." "Ah, but you never really doubted," she said. "I am sure that you denied them." "Yes, but I was feeble. I was a muddy, choked channel for the flowing of Divine Love. And I am now. I have to be continually dusting and cleansing myself. I have been having fears." "Specific ones? Fear of some definite event?" "Yes; I'm afraid I have gone as far as that. I have had fears of some violent access of error coming upon him, and I have no reason for fearing. Because if it did occur I should know quite well what to do. There couldn't be anything to fear really. I guess he's been getting well so quickly and smoothly that I have allowed myself to wonder whether it could be true, though, of course, I knew it was. But that's so like feeble mortal mind! The very fact that our needs are answered so abundantly and immediately makes us wonder if it is real!" Maud got up. "What would you do if he had a relapse?" she asked. "I couldn't say now, and I certainly mustn't allow myself to contemplate it. But if it came, it would surely be made quite clear to me how to demonstrate over it. We are never left in the lurch like that; it's only the devil who plays his disciples false, and lets them have fits of remorse just when they want to amuse themselves." The flames on the hearth leaped up or died down in response to the great blasts outside which squalled and trumpeted over the house, or paused as if to listen in glee to the riot that they caused. The wind was like a wild creature that, with frightened hands, rattled at the fastenings of the windows as if seeking admittance, till a tattoo of sleet silenced it or drove it away. Then a low, long-drawn whistle of alto note would sound in the chimney, and suddenly rise siren-like to a screech of demoniacal fury, or, like a passage for drums, the rattle of the leafless branches of the tortured trees mixed with the sound of the surf a mile away seemed to portend some deadly disaster. All hell seemed loose in this infernal din of the elements. Bertie Cochrane drew his chair close to the fire with a little shudder of goose-flesh. "I was awfully frightened by a storm once when I was a little chap," he said, "and it has left a sort of scar on my mind which is still tender. I always have to demonstrate to myself when there's a gale like this; I don't seem to be able to get used to them. My father died in the middle of that awful storm ten years ago, too. What a confession of feebleness, isn't it? But I don't think you would have guessed how I hated storms if I hadn't told you."