When Sunday came, with, oh, how faint a spirit, he took his downcast way to the little neighborhood church, built in a dense grove, full of shadows and the sentiment of holy peace, called St. John’s in the Wilderness, and his broken and contrite heart seemed all poignantly lacerated anew and bleeding, and found no comfort. It had all the agony of renunciation to think of his brother--his own other self, his twin existence--as translated to that far, spiritual sphere, which we cannot realize, or formulate aught of its conditions. His brother, alive, well, strong, loving and beloved, fighting his way dauntlessly through inadequate resources and restrictions, making and building of his own inherent values a place for himself in the world--that vital presence quenched! That loyal, generous, gentle heart to beat never again. It was a thought to make the senses reel. He wondered that reason did not fail before its contemplation. He felt his eyes grow hot and burn in their sockets, and only mechanically and from force of habit could he follow the service. Once, as his unseeing gaze turned restlessly from the chancel they fell upon Hildegarde, seated in her uncle’s pew. Her eyes were downcast, her face was sweetly solemn. A sense of calm radiated from her expression, her look of aloofness from the world. There arose in his mind the thought of Adrian’s faith in her genuine graces of character, which belittled even her charm and beauty, his wish that she might share the splendor of Ran’s restoration to fortune, when it should come full-handed to them, that she might grace the high estate of the lady of Duciehurst--oh, poor Duciehurst! He could but look upon her with different eyes for the thought. It was as a bond between them. He had regained his composure, grave and dejected--all unlike his former self--by the time the sermon was ended, and he waited for her at the door; together they walked silently to her uncle’s home under the deep rich shadows of the primeval woods.