red uneasily. His
face was haggard, and behind his closed lids, somewhere in the centre of
thought and memory, a train of fiery words burned in an ever-widening
circle, round and round and round, ploughing, searing their way through
some obscure part of him that had heretofore been without feeling, but
was now all quick and alive with sensation.

"_You have made me--who was your choice, your wife, the head of your
house, the woman who brought your children into the world--you have made
me an object of pity; a poor, neglected thing who could not meet her
neighbors' eyes without blushing._"

Any one who wished to pierce John Hathaway's armor at that period of his
life would have had to use a very sharp and pointed arrow, for he was
well wadded with the belief that a man has a right to do what he likes.
Susanna's shaft was tipped with truth and dipped in the blood of her
outraged heart. The stored-up force of silent years went into the
speeding of it. She had never shot an arrow before, and her skill was
instinctive rather than scientific, but the powers were on her side and
she aimed better than she knew--those who took note of John Hathaway's
behavior that summer would have testified willingly to that. It was the
summer in which his boyish irresponsibility slipped away from him once
and for all; a summer in which the face of life ceased to be an
indistinguishable mass of meaningless events and disclosed an order, a
reason, a purpose hitherto unseen and undefined. The boy "grew up,"
rather tardily it must be confessed. His soul had not added a cubit to
its stature in sunshine, gayety, and prosperity; it took the shock of
grief, hurt pride, solitude, and remorse to make a man of John
Hathaway.

III

DIVERS DOCTRINES

[Illustration]

It was a radiant July morning in Albion village, and when Sue first
beheld it from the bedroom window at the Shaker Settlement, she had
wished ardently that it might never, never grow dark, and that Jack and
Fardie might be having the very same sunshine in Farnham. It was not
noon yet, but experience had in some way tempered the completeness of
her joy, for the marks of tears were on her pretty little face. She had
neither been scolded nor punished, but she had been dragged away from a
delicious play without any adequate reason. She had disappeared after
breakfast, while Susanna was helping Sister Tabitha with the beds and
the dishes, but as she was the most docile of children,