er
unbelief could not injure any one else, and devote his life to leading
her to light; go away from his people, whom God had committed to him, and
whom he had betrayed, leave them, stained with the sin he had permitted
to grow unchecked among them, and give his very soul to Helen, to save
her. But the temptation was conquered. When the faint, crystal brightness
of the dawn looked into his study, it saw him still kneeling, his face
hidden in his arms, but silent and at peace. God had granted his prayer,
he said to himself. He had shown him the way to save Helen. At first he
had shrunk from it, appalled, crying out, "This is death, I cannot, I
cannot!" But when, a little later, he went out into the growing glory of
the day, and, standing bareheaded, lifted his face to heaven, he said,
"I love her enough, thank God,--thank God." A holy and awful joy shone in
his eyes. "God will do it," he said, with simple conviction. "He will
save her, and my love shall be the human instrument."

After that had come the days when John had written those imploring
letters to his wife, the last of which she had answered with such entire
decision, saying that there was no possible hope that she could ever
believe in what she called a "monstrous doctrine," and adding sorrowfully
that it was hard even to believe in God,--a personal God, and she could
be content to let doctrines go, if only that light upon the darkness of
the world could be left her.

Then he had sent his last letter. He had written it upon his knees, his
eyes stung with terrible tears; but his hand did not falter; the letter
was sent. Then he waited for the manifestation of God in Helen's soul:
he distrusted himself and his own strength, but he never doubted God;
he never questioned that this plan for converting his wife was a direct
answer to his prayers.

Now, when he saw Dr. Howe, he had a moment of breathless hope that her
uncle had come to tell him that Helen had found the truth. But almost
before the unreasonableness of his idea struck him, he knew from Dr.
Howe's face that the time was not yet.

"I am glad to see you," he said, a little hurriedly; the thin hand he
extended was not quite steady.

The rector's forehead was gathered into a heavy frown. "See here," he
answered, planting his feet wide apart, and still holding his hat and
stick behind him, "I cannot give you my hand while you are ignorant of
the spirit in which I come."

"You come for Helen's sake," Jo