ive felt such a bewildering weight of pain,
as when she awoke to the full sense of that terrible secret which she
had learned from Harold Gwynne. This pain lasted, and would last, not
alone for an hour or a day, but perpetually. It gathered round her like
a mist. She seemed to walk blindfold, she knew not whither. Never to
her, whose spiritual sense was ever so clear and strong, had come the
possibility of such a mind as Harold's, a mind whose very eagerness for
truth had led it into scepticism. His doubts must be wrestled with,
not with the religion of precedent--not even with the religion of
feeling--but by means of that clear demonstration of reason which forces
conviction.

In the dead of night, when all was still--when the frosty moon cast an
unearthly light over her chamber, Olive lay and thought of these things.
Ever and anon she heard the striking of the clock, and remembered
with horror that it heralded the Sabbath morning, when she must go to
Har-bury Church--and hear, oh, with what feelings! the service read by
one who did not believe a single word he uttered. Not until now had she
so thoroughly realised the horrible sacrilege of Harold's daily life.
For a minute she felt as though to keep his secret were associating
herself with his sin.

But calmer thoughts enabled her to judge him more mercifully. She tried
to view his case not as with her own eyes, but as it must appear to him.
To one who disbelieved the Christian faith, the repetitions of its forms
could seem but a mere idle mummery. He suffered, not for having
outraged Heaven, but for having outraged his own conscience an agony of
self-humiliation which must be to him a living death. Then again there
awoke in Olive's heart a divine pity; and once more she dared to pray
that this soul, in which was so much that was true and earnest, might
not be cast out, but guided into the right way.

Yet, who should do it? He was, as he had said, drowning in a black abyss
of despair, and there was no human hand to save him--none, save that
feeble one of hers!

Feeble--but there was One who could make it strong. Suddenly she felt in
her that consciousness which the weakest have at times felt, and
which, however the rationalist may scoff, the Christian dare not
disbelieve--that sense of not working, but being worked upon--by which
truths come into one's heart, and words into one's mouth, involuntarily,
as if some spirit, not our own, were at work within us. Such had