at he uttered a cry,
staggered back, and stood looking at her in worse perplexity still. He
had done the awful thing, yet had not done it! He stood as one bound to
know the thing that could not be.

"Don't be frightened, uncle," said Arctura. "I am not dead. The
sepulchre is the only resurrection-house! Uncle, uncle! thank God with
me."

The earl stood motionless. Strange thoughts passed through him at their
will. Had her presence dispelled darkness and death, and restored the
lost chapel to the light of day? Had she haunted it ever since, dead
yet alive, watching for his return to pardon him? Would his wife so
receive him at the last with forgiveness and endearment? His eyes were
fixed upon her. His lips moved tremulously once or twice, but no word
came. He turned from her, glanced round the place, and said,

"It is a great improvement!"

I wonder how it would be with souls if they waked up and found all
their sins but hideous dreams! How many would loathe the sin? How many
would remain capable of doing all again? But few, perhaps no burdened
souls can have any idea of the power that lies in God's forgiveness to
relieve their consciousness of defilement. Those who say, "Even God
cannot destroy the fact!" care more about their own cursed shame than
their Father's blessed truth! Such will rather excuse than confess.
When a man heartily confesses, leaving excuse to God, the truth makes
him free, he knows that the evil has gone from him, as a man knows that
he is cured of his plague.

"I did the thing," he says, "but I could not do it now. I am the same,
yet not the same. I confess, I would not hide it, but I loathe it--ten
times the more that the evil thing was mine."

Had the earl been able to say thus, he would have felt his soul a
cleansed chapel, new-opened to the light and air;--nay, better--a
fresh-watered garden, in which the fruits of the spirit had begun to
grow! God's forgiveness is as the burst of a spring morning into the
heart of winter. His autumn is the paying of the uttermost farthing. To
let us go without that would be the pardon of a demon, not the
forgiveness of the eternally loving God. But--Not yet, alas, not yet!
has to be said over so many souls!

Arctura was struck dumb. She turned and walked out upon the great
stair, her uncle following her. All the way up to the second floor she
felt as if he were about to stab her in the back, but she would not
look behind her. She went straight to her