up, somehow." The mists had quite cleared away, but
a violent headache made his words stumble. "I was just wondering,
Thalia--don't you think you might go home now? You've had a whole year
of it--and I really ought to go home--the mill--"

"Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!" she said, forgetting her part in
her indignation. "I am a Shakeress. You've no right to speak so to me."

He blinked at her through the blur of pain. "I wish you'd stay with
me, Athalia, I've got a--a sort of--headache. Never mind about being a
Shakeress just for to-night. It would be such a comfort to have you."

But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. She fled home in
the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated with herself whether she
should tell Eldress how her husband--no, Brother Lewis--had tried to
"tempt" her back to him. In her excitement at this lure of the devil she
even wondered whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce her
to stay with him? But even Athalia's imagination could not compass such
a thought of Lewis for more than a moment, so she only told the Eldress
that Brother Lewis had "tried to persuade her to go back to the world
with him." The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
forbidden him to speak to her!

Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. "That's not like Lewis. I wonder--"
But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went early in the
morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis's house. The poor fellow was
entirely in the mists by that time, shivering and burning and quite
unconscious, saying over and over, "She wouldn't stay; she wouldn't
stay."

"'Lure her back,'" said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. "Poor boy! It's
good riddance for him."

But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, and for many
days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, for they had all
come to love the solitary, waiting husband. Athalia, abashed, but still
cherishing the dear insult of having been tempted, took what little part
Eldress allowed her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven
weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted
nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old
Eldress Hannah's shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter
apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man
grew very confidential in those days of Lewis's convalescence; he showed
his simple heart with a generosity