ys with us! I dare say
you and I might think that the fervour of this night's work had better
have been converted into good works and given to the poor; but our
opinion is not specially likely to be the true one. What do we know?
Walking here in the dark, we can't even see our way along this road."

It was an apt illustration, for their eyes were becoming so dazzled by
the occasional lightning that they could make no use of its brief flash,
or of the faint light of night that was mingled in the darkness of the
intervals.

Although he smarted under the slight she put upon him, he was weary of
opposing her, because he loved her. "I am sorry that nothing I say meets
with your approval," he said sadly.

It was lack of tact that made him use the personal tone when he and she
had so far to travel perforce together, and she, being excited and much
perturbed in spirit, had not the grace to answer wisely.

"Happily it matters little whether what you say pleases me or not."

She meant in earnestness to depreciate herself, and to exalt that higher
tribunal before which all opinions are arraigned; still, there was in
the answer a tinge of spite, telling him by the way that it did not
distress her to differ with him. It was not wonderful that Trenholme,
self-conscious with the love she did not guess at, took the words only
as a challenge to his admiration.

"Indeed you wrong me. It was long ago I proved the value I put upon your
advice by acting upon it in the most important decision of my life."

She had so long tacitly understood what her influence over him at that
time had been that she could not now be much affected by the avowal.

"Indeed, if you recklessly mistook the advice of a vain child for
wisdom, it is to be hoped that Providence has shaped your ends for you."

He did not understand her mood; he only thought of protesting his long
loyalty to her. "It is true," said he, "that Providence has done more
for me than I have done for myself; but I have always been glad to
attribute my coming here to your beneficent influence."

Her heart was like flint to him at that moment, and in his clumsiness he
struck sparks from it.

"Yet when I remember how you tried to explain to me then that the poor
parish in which you were working might be offering the nobler life-work
for you, I think that you were wiser than I. In their serious moments
people can judge best for themselves, Mr. Trenholme."

He had noticed that, in the r