as I remember how her
new-found happiness lit up her eyes with joy, and how the colour came
into her beautiful cheeks. God alone knows how happy we were. We had
been kept asunder by a cruel hand, and had been brought together again
by long and bitter struggles, struggles which would never have been but
for the love of God and the love in our hearts. Then, when our joy was
fullest, a choir from a neighbouring church began to sing--

"Christians, awake, salute the happy morn,
Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born."

It was indeed, a happy Christmas morn to us. The darkness had rolled
away, and the light of heaven shone upon us.

When I left shortly after, I asked whether I should come the next day,
or rather when daylight came, and spend Christmas Day with her.

"You must not be later than nine o'clock," she said, with a glad laugh,
while my heart seemed ready to break for joy.

I have nearly told my story now; the loving work of months is almost at
an end, and soon I must drop my pen. I am very happy, happier than I
ever hoped to be. My new-found strength not only brought me freedom from
my enemy, not only enabled me to accomplish my purpose, but gave me
fuller and richer life. Gertrude and I live under brighter skies than we
should do had I not been led through so terrible an experience. Thus the
Eternal Goodness brings good out of evil.

Voltaire is on the Continent. I do not think that he has ever returned
to England; while his mother, who still lives the same kind of life as
of yore, supplies him with money. It appears that she has means which
were unknown to her friends, and thus she keeps him supplied. Of course
the relationship between them explains their being in league in
Yorkshire. She was ever seeking to serve him then; she is still trying
to do the same. She never speaks to me. But for me, she says, her son
would have married Gertrude, and then she would have lived with her
Herod, who would have been a country gentleman, not the poor outcast he
is now.

Kaffar has gone back to Egypt. He stayed in London a few days after the
scene on Christmas Eve, and I gave him house-room in my old lodgings;
but he tired of England, so I sent him back to Cairo. I think he is a
far better man than he was, but I am not at all sorry that he dislikes
England. He writes sometimes, but I never receive his letters without
thinking of the terrible night on the Yorkshire moors--of the dark
waters, the red hand, and the terr