ss, and his
sudden collapse of bodily endurance, his evident suffering and
deliberate walk frightened her. She feared he might have a fit and fall
downstairs. Colonel Booth had found his death in that way when he heard
of his son's accident on the railway. "All Yorkshiremen," she mused,
"are so full-blooded and hot-blooded, everything that does not please
them goes either to their brains or their hearts--and John _has_ a
heart." Yes, she acknowledged John had a heart, and then wondered again
what made him so anxious to have children.

But with all her efforts to make a commonplace event of her husband's
great sorrow, she did not succeed in stifling the outcry in her own
heart. She whispered to it to "Be still!" She promised to make up for
it, even to undo it, sometime; but the Accuser would not let her rest,
and when exhaustion ended in sleep, chastised her with distracting,
miserable dreams.

John walked slowly upstairs, but he had no thought of falling. He knew
that something had happened to the Inner Man, and he wanted to steady
and control him. It was not Jane's opinions; it was not public opinion,
however widespread it might be. It was the blood of generations of good
men and good women that roused in him a passionate protest against the
destruction of their race. His private sense of injustice and disloyalty
came later. Then the iron entered his soul and it was on this very bread
of bitterness he had now to feed it; for on this bread only could he
grow to the full stature of a man of God. His heart was bruised and
torn, but his soul was unshaken, and the hidden power and strength of
life revealed themselves.

First he threw all anger behind him. He thought of his wife with
tenderness and pity only. He made himself recall her charm and her love.
He decided that it would be better not to argue the fatal subject with
her again. "No man can convince a woman," he thought. "She must be led
to convince herself. I will trust her to God. He will send some teacher
who cannot fail." Then he thought of the days of pleasantness they had
passed together, and his heart felt as if it must break, while from
behind his closed eyelids great tears rolled down his face.

This incident, though so natural, shocked him. He arrested such evident
grief at once and very soon he stood up to pray. So prayed the gray
fathers of the world, Terah and Abram, Lot and Jacob; and John stood at
the open window with his troubled face lifted to the