“Well! Get him to come back, Sewell,” said Mr. Corey, with his whimsical imperiousness; “I can't get on without him. All my moral and intellectual being has stopped like a watch.” Sewell went to the boarding-house where Lemuel took his meals, but found that he no longer came there, and had left no other address. He knew nowhere else to ask, and he went home to a day of latent trouble of mind, which whenever it came to the light defined itself as helpless question and self-reproach in regard to Barker. That evening as he sat at tea, the maid came with the announcement that there was a person in the reception-room who would not send in any name, but wished to see Mr. Sewell, and would wait. Sewell threw down his napkin, and said, “I'll bring him in to tea.” Mrs. Sewell did not resist; she bade the girl lay another plate. Sewell was so sure of finding Lemuel in the reception-room, that he recoiled in dismay from the girlish figure that turned timidly from the window to meet him with a face thickly veiled. He was vexed, too; here, he knew from the mystery put on, was one of those cases of feminine trouble, real or unreal, which he most disliked to meddle with. “Will you sit down?” he said, as kindly as he could, and the girl obeyed. “I thought they would let me wait. I didn't mean to interrupt you,” she began, in a voice singularly gentle and unaffected. “Oh, no matter!” cried Sewell. “I'm very glad to see you.” “I thought you could help me. I'm in great trouble--doubt--” The voice was almost childlike in its appealing innocence. Sewell sat down opposite the girl and bent sympathetically forward. “Well?” She waited a moment. Then, “I don't know how to begin,” she said hoarsely, and stopped again. Sewell was touched. He forgot Lemuel; he forgot everything but the heartache which he divined before him, and his Christ-derived office, his holy privilege, of helping any in want of comfort or guidance. “Perhaps,” he said, in his loveliest way,--the way that had won his wife's heart, and that still provoked her severest criticism for its insincerity; it was so purely impersonal,--“perhaps that isn't necessary, if you mean beginning at the beginning. If you've any trouble that you think I can advise you in, perhaps it's better for both of us that I shouldn't know very much of it.” “Yes?” murmured the girl questioningly. “I mean that if you tell me much, you will go away feeling that you have somehow parted with yourself, that you're no longer in your own keeping, but in mine; and you know that in everything our help must really come from within our own free consciences.” “Yes,” said the girl again, from behind the veil which completely hid her face. She now hesitated a long time. She put her handkerchief under her veil; and at last she said: “I know what you mean.” Her voice quivered pathetically; she tried to control it. “Perhaps,” she whispered huskily, after another interval, “I can put it in the form of a question.”