ing that we would live apart. I should have
given you credit for more sense, indeed I should."

Helen did not notice the reprimand.

"Now tell me all about it," he continued. "You know you can trust me, and
I'll write your husband a letter which will make things clear."

Helen shook her head wearily. "You will not understand. Nothing can be
done; it is as fixed as--death. We can neither of us alter it and be
ourselves. Oh, I have tried and tried to see some way out of it, until it
seems as if my soul were tired."

"I did not intend to be severe, my child," the rector said, with
remorseful gentleness, "but in one way it is a more serious thing than
you realize. I don't mean this foolishness of a separation; that will all
be straightened out in a day or two. But we do not want it gossiped
about, and your being here at all, after having started home, looks
strange; and of course, if you say anything about having had a--a falling
out with Ward, it will make it ten times worse. But you haven't told me
what it is?"

"Yes, I'll tell you," she answered, "and then perhaps you will see that
it is useless to talk about it. I must just take up the burden of life as
well as I can."

"Go on," said the rector.

"John has been much distressed lately," Helen began, looking down at her
hands, clasping each other until the skin was white across the knuckles,
"because I have not believed in eternal punishment. He has felt that my
eternal happiness depended upon holding such a belief." Dr. Howe looked
incredulous. "Some weeks ago, one of his elders came to him and told him
I was spreading heresy in the church, and damning my own soul and the
souls of others who might come to believe as I did,--you know I told Mrs.
Davis that her husband had not gone to hell,--and he reproached John for
neglecting me and his church too; for John, to spare me, had not preached
as he used to, on eternal punishment. It almost killed him, uncle," she
said, and her voice, which had given no hint of tears since her return,
grew unsteady. "Oh, he has suffered so! and he has felt that it was his
fault, a failure in his love, that I did not believe what he holds to be
true."

"Heavens!" cried the rector explosively, "heresy? Is this the nineteenth
century?"

"Since I have been away," Helen went on, without noticing the
interruption, "they have insisted that I should be sessioned,--dealt
with, they call it. John won't let me come back to that; but if that w