fell down upon my head in a curse.
Since then I have been what you now see me--a very honest, painstaking
clergyman; doing good, preaching, certainly not doctrine, but blameless
moralities, carrying a civil face to the world, and a heart--Oh God!
whosoever and whatsoever Thou art, Thou knowest what blackest darkness
there is _there!_"

She made no answer.

After a few minutes, Mr. Gwynne said, "You must forgive me, Miss
Rothesay."

"I do. And so will He whom you do not know, but whom you will know
yet! I will pray for you--I will comfort you. I wish I were indeed your
sister, that I might never leave you until I brought you to faith and
peace."

He smiled very faintly. "Thank you; it is something to feel there is
goodness in the world. I did not believe in any except my mother's.
Perhaps if she had known all this--if I could have told her--I had not
been the wretched man I am."

"Hush; do not talk any more." And then she stood beside him for some
minutes quite silent, until he grew calm.

They were on the verge of the forest, close to Olive's home. It was
about seven in the evening, but all things lay as in the stillness
of midnight. They two might have been the only beings in the living
world--all else dead and buried under the white snow. And then, lifting
itself out of the horizon's black nothingness, arose the great red moon,
like an immortal soul.

"Look!" said Olive. He looked once, and no more. Then, with a sigh, he
placed her arm in his, and walked with her to her own door.

Arrived there, he bade her adieu, adding, "I would bid God bless you;
but in such words from me, you would not believe. How could you?"

He said this with a mournful emphasis, to which she could not reply.

"But," he continued in a tone of eager anxiety, "remember that I have
trusted you. My secret is in your hands. You will be silent, I know;
silent as death, or eternity.--That is, as both are to me!"

Olive promised; and he left her. She stood listening, until the echo of
his footfall ceased along the frosty road; then, clasping her hands,
she lifted once more the petition "for those who have erred and are
deceived," the prayer which she had once uttered--unconscious how much
and by whom it was needed. Now she said it with a yearning cry--a cry
that would fain pierce heaven, and ringing above the loud choir of
saints and angels, call down mercy on one perishing human soul.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Never since her birth had Ol