But Ralph’s picture of what the husband really was behind his society mask had driven out all gentler thoughts, had filled the Scotsman’s heart with loathing, had over-clouded his whole world. Macneillie was, however, before all things, an honest man. He had not accepted conventionally the first religious truths put before him, he had thought much, he had waited patiently, had learnt by degrees, and the hard training of his life had borne its fruit--it was impossible now, that he should remain for long in darkness. It flashed upon him that his trouble came from having stepped out of the right order; for a time he had lost that absolute trust in God’s education of every human being, which had for many years been his stronghold. The words of Ralph’s letter came back to him--“brutes like Sir Roderick are enough to have staggered even your prophet Erskine of Linlathen.” The name of Thomas Erskine in itself awakened within him a whole train of memories, for he was one of the many thousands who have been rescued by the writings of that barrister, laird and saint from falling a prey to the spirit of unbelief which is the reaction alike from Calvinism and ceremonialism. Lying under the shade of the beech-tree, the fresh air from the hills playing softly about his uncovered head, he tried to picture to himself what Erskine would have thought of this mistaken marriage, with its unhappy results, and there came back to his mind a passage in “The Spiritual Order,” in which the writer spoke of the strange difficulty of retaining faith in God’s loving purpose when confronted with the evils of the lanes and closes of great towns which seem to be mere hot-beds of vice and profligacy. How look on those and still believe that education was God’s whole purpose in creation? “It would be impossible,” said Erskine, “did we not also realise that _there is no haste with God_.” Clearly then it was the imperfection of his own nature, the weakness--not the strength--of his love for Christine, which made him so desperately impatient at the thought of her suffering; for her sake he must learn to be “strong and patient,” learn to love with a diviner love, to wait with a more perfect trust. The letter had come to him like a call to arms, he was perfectly conscious that it marked a fresh turning-point in his life; he had learnt more of Christine and her difficulties than he had known for years, and the only way in which he could interpret the meaning of it all was that he should pray for her in her grievous need more unceasingly than he had yet done. And so the time passed by, and at the close of the six weeks’ engagement Ralph returned to Callander for the few days that remained before Macneillie’s company was to open at Southbourne with “The Winter’s Tale.”