She did not spare him, and deeply she searched his conscience. Self-convicted already he was, yet his guilt looked freshly hideous worded by her, as look wounds, known to the senses of night, discovered by the eye of day. For a whole dreadful hour Rhoda listened to the murmur of voices. Then they ceased, and Lois came. 'Thank God, child!' was all she needed to say. 'Heaven forgive me! Can you? can he? Let me go to him--I must. Ah me!--can he forgive me?' Lois held the door and turned her. 'He has nothing to forgive,' she said, and her face frightened questions. From among some poor hoards Lois drew out a tiny cross of gold. It was Christian's, sole relic left of his young unknown life. As a little lad he had played with it and lost it, and Lois finding it had taken it into keeping. Now she took it to him. 'I will ask no renewal of a broken promise--no. I want no hard thing of you, only this: when temptation to deadly sin is overbearing, before you yield, unfasten this and fling it from you into the sea. You will? Christian, answer--say, "I will."' 'What worth has any word of mine?' he said in his despair; but her arms were round his neck fixing the knot, and stayed to clasp, but her rare terrible sobs rose as she cried, 'Oh, God help you, my son!' and 'I will, I will!' flew strong to assure her that that word would never have to be fulfilled. Near was the time that would put him to the test, and he knew it. A day passed and a day passed, out of eternity into eternity, and the moon filled up to Diadyomene's account. 'Rhoda,' he said, 'do you know what day this is?' 'Christmas Eve.' 'Yes--but to my mother--her child was born----' 'Yes,' said Rhoda hurriedly, and bent her head: she for the first time knew her own birthday. 'Listen, Rhoda! She has aged and weakened so; the day and night of prayer and fasting she has now begun I fear may outdo her strength. Will you keep ever at hand to listen and be careful of her?' 'And you?' asked Rhoda. 'I may not stay. I cannot.' She flashed a look of amazed indignation, for instinctively she knew that he would be leaving his mother to seek the strange-named woman, and such filial misconduct in him was hardly credible. No kind word or look would Rhoda grant him. He never felt the lack: his mother's blessing he did greatly desire, but he dared not intrude on the day of her mourning to ask it. Short was the day and long the way, but over soon by some hours was he footing it. The singular incidence of the day encouraged belief that a special mercy of Heaven was ordering his goings for the comforting of a long sorrow. Ah! God grant her a soul from the sea, and ah! God grant it by me for a token. All his steps were taken to prayer, and the least thing he asked of his God was that, though his sins were so heavy, he might not die till he had seen that salvation. His head and his heart told him that if he failed in his high endeavour he must surely perish.