by Louis and gave him the plainest talk on the subject of personal
purity the boy had ever had. And the effect on him in all his after life
was even more than either Paul or Esther had dared to hope. Paul never
did a better hour's work. When he was through, Louis was completely
broken. In the moment of his cry to his father for help, Paul kneeled by
him, put his arm around him and prayed for him such a prayer of appeal
and hope and good cheer that Louis Douglas will never forget. The whole
thing was the beginning of a new manhood for the boy. And when the next
day he plucked up courage to confess to his mother, one of the hardest
things he ever did in all his life, the entire unfolding of his mother's
love, her passionate appeal to his better nature, her cry to him to seek
God's help in overcoming all, overwhelmed him. Again the boy caught a
glimpse of the mightiness of father and mother affection and young as he
was he came from that soul yearning of Esther with a manly determination
in his boyish heart not to disappoint either father or mother in the
struggle he would make to be true to the high calling. For as the time
slipped away many and many a time he was reminded of the black pit on
the edge of which he had almost slipped, to fall into its slimy and
murky abyss, and perhaps never again come up into the pure sweet air of
God under his blue sky and its silver stars. O Louis, you will never be
able to measure the rescue your father and mother made for you at that
crisis when your soul was wandering over the treeless moor of passion.

CHAPTER X

FELIX BAUER sat at his bench in the electrical machine shop at Burrton
just about to open a letter which had been left there late in the
afternoon. The shop men sometimes brought one another's mail up from the
village and Bauer, who often worked at his task without going out to
tea, was glad to get his occasional letters before he finished his bench
work late into the night.

Bauer's mail was not very frequent nor very heavy. After that vacation
at the Douglas home, he had come back to Burrton and plunged into the
work in a vain endeavour to forget Helen Douglas. He did not forget her
in the least and did not try to pretend that he ever could. He had never
ventured to ask if he might write to her, but Mrs. Douglas had dropped a
friendly note now and then for which he was grateful and Paul had sent
him a copy of Heine, which Bauer had admired on the library shelves at