My promise! I got up and paced the room with rapid steps--that cruel promise. Was I never to be free from it? All my life was it to drag me back from happiness and bind me fast in misery? If it was broken, what worse could come of it than this? It would not haunt me any longer then. No one would reproach me--no one would suffer by it. At all events I must take my chance of that. A broken promise! Why, it was not fit to weigh for a moment against the happiness of two whole lives. I should forget it, I must, surely in a little while; if not, who cared? A whole storm of dark thoughts came sweeping over me; thoughts that I cannot recall even now without a shudder--anger against Cuthbert--bitter rebellion against my fate--a mocking contempt for myself that I had kept the promise sacred hitherto. What promise ever held true? I thought. Master Caleb's old puzzle came back to me,--how the cup of water that was given in Christ's name was in no wise to lose its reward; yet it had caused my mother's death, and following step by step, from that one act came all my troubles. That had proved false then, like all the rest, false as I was myself. Did it prove false? The very saying of the holy Name--the sacred words--the remembrance of my mother's trustful face--of Dorothy's quietly-spoken confidence--all this calmed me, and in the black darkness I fell suddenly on my knees, and said-- 'Oh, Mother's God, who wert to her a sure refuge, come now and help me!' As I prayed, a strange feeling came upon me that my prayer rose up even into the presence of a merciful listening God. The storm did not cease, the trouble was not rolled away, but there came a little rift into the dark clouds over me, a little speck of light shone through the blackness, as if a voice said, 'Oh, thou poor soul, be comforted; I will help thee!' I think that was my first real prayer. The next day was Sunday. The storm had quite passed over before the sun rose, and the grass sparkled with silver rain-drops. The river swept past beneath, with a fuller flow; the robins made the air bright with their merriment, rejoicing that, as they hopped from twig to twig, they shook down showers of lazy brilliant drops from off the boughs. It seemed strange that such a storm could pass, and leave no deeper traces behind. Over my life, too, a storm had come last night, but it was followed by no sunny morning. I was quieter, however, for my mind was made up. Weary with much thinking I put off until the afternoon that which I felt I ought to say to Hildred. She, and Clifford's two boys, Robin and Walter, walked home together after church, and little Jock and Phillis were with me. As we passed under the yew tree, I asked Hildred to stay with me for a few minutes. The children went on, and Hildred and I were both silent, listening to their merry voices as they died away. I did not know what to say first.--At last I asked her abruptly, if she remembered how Cuthbert bade her good-bye here.