h drained."

At the sound of her name, so long unuttered, she winced and writhed as
if some sensitive nerve had been suddenly pierced and torn; but
without heeding her emotion, Dr. Grey continued,--

"If your earthly lot has been stinted of sunshine, can you not bear a
little temporary gloom,--must you needs people it with adverse
witnesses, must you thicken the darkness with imprecations? You forget
that life is only the racecourse, not the goal,--that this world is
for human souls what the plain of Dura proved for the Hebrew trio who
braved its flames. Suppose you are lonely and bereft of the love that
might have cheered you? Was not Christ far more isolated and loveless?
In His fearful ordeal He was forsaken by God,--but to you remains the
everlasting promise, 'I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to
you.' O wretched woman! give your aching heart to Him who emptied it
of earthly idols in order to fit it up for His own temple.

'Is God less God, that thou art left undone?
Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth spun,
As in that purple.'"

Silently she listened, looking steadily up at his noble face, where
intense mental anguish had left unwonted pallor, and printed new
ciphers on brow and lips; and when his adjuration ended, she put out
her hand.

"That you do not condemn me is the most precious consolation you could
offer, for your good opinion is worth much to my proud, sensitive
soul. If all men were like you there would be no mutilated, ruined
lives, such as mine,--no nominal wives roaming up and down the world
in search of an obscure corner wherein to hide dishonored heads and
crushed hearts. God grant you some day a wife worthy of the noblest
man it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Good-by."

He did not accept the offered hand, and stood for a moment as if
struggling to master some impulse to which he could not yield. Perhaps
he dared not trust the touch of those gleaming, slender fingers that
had clasped a living husband's; or perchance he was so absorbed by
painful thoughts that he failed to observe them.

Laying his palm softly on her snowy head, he said tenderly,--

"Mrs. Carlyle, you have innocently, and I believe unconsciously,
caused me the keenest suffering I have ever endured; and I feel
assured you will not withhold the only reparation which you could
render, or I accept. Will you promise to consecrate the remainder of
your life to the service of Christ? Will you humb