A shadow was on his face, pain in his eyes. Any one more merciful than the proud woman who loved him, and who would fain conserve his pride, might have pitied the sudden revulsion from the enthusiastic pleasure in the sacred themes of the sermon so late upon his lip and firing his eye--which she accounted merely the triumphs of Absalom Tynes--to this abasement and sorrow and prescient despair. “I kin wait on his will,” he said humbly. “Waal, ye better wait in silence,” Euphemia declared, near to the brink of tears,--angry and wounded and scornful tears. “‘Ask an’ ye shall receive, seek an’ ye shall find,’” he quoted pertinently, with that upbraiding look in his eyes which hurt her for his sake, and which she resented for her own. “How long! how long!” she cried impetuously. “Will ye spen’ yer life askin’ fur what’s denied ye, seekin’ fur what’s hidden from ye? The Lord’s got nuthin’ fur ye, Owen, an’ by this time ye oughter hev sensed that.” “Then I kin pray fur the grace ter take denial from his hands like a rich gift,” he declared, his face kindling with an illumined, uplifted look. “Oh, yer prayin’ an’ prayin’! I’m plumb wore out with it!” she cried, stopping still in the road; then realizing the advance of the others she walked on hastily, and with the affectation of a careless gesture she took off her bonnet and swung it debonairly by the string, lest any emotional crisis be inferred from her abrupt halt. “Owen Haines,” she said, with sudden inspiration, “ye air deceived by Satan. Ye ain’t wantin’ the power ter preach the gospel ter advance the kingdom. Ye want the power ter prance ez prideful ez a peacock in the pul-_pit_, like Absalom Tynes an’ them other men what air cuttin’ sech a dash afore the yearth ez keeps ’em from keerin’ much _how_ the nangels in heaven air weepin’ over ’em.” He recoiled from this thrust, for, however his charity might seek to ignore the fact, however his simplicity might fail to discern it, his involuntary intuition made him well aware that “prancing ez prideful ez a peacock” was not altogether foreign to the pulpit here or elsewhere, and that undue vainglory must needs wait on special proficiency. She felt that she struck hard in imputing to him a motive of which he knew himself to be incapable. Perhaps he would have pleased her better had he combined his religious fervors with any intention so practical, so remunerative, so satisfying to the earthly sentiment of one not too good to live in this world. It was eminently in keeping with that phase of his character which she most contemned that he should, with his cheek still flushed, with his eyes wincing and narrowing as from a blow, begin a vehement defense, not of himself and his motives, but of Absalom Tynes.