her wont, to still the voice of conscience
which clamored loudly of the wrong, and urged a restoration of the
letter to the place whence it was taken.

But the golden moment fled, and when, later in the evening, Anna went
up to her chamber and opened the book which the rector had brought,
she never suspected how near she had been to the great happiness she
had sometimes dared to hope for, or dreamed how fervently Arthur
Leighton prayed that night that, if it were possible, God would grant
the boon he craved above all others--the priceless gift of Anna
Ruthven's love.

CHAPTER III.

SUNDAY.

There was an unnatural flush on the rector's face, and his lips were
very white when he came before his people that Sunday morning, for he
felt that he was approaching the crisis of his fate; that he had only
to look across the row of heads up to where Anna sat, and he should
know the truth. Such thoughts savored far too much of the world which
he had renounced, he knew, and he had striven to banish them from his
mind; but they were there still, and would be there until he had
glanced once at Anna, occupying her accustomed seat, and quietly
turning to the chant she was so soon to sing: "Oh, come, let us sing
unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of His
salvation." The words echoed through the house, filling it with rare
melody, for Anna was in perfect tone that morning, and the rector,
listening to her with hands folded upon his prayer-book, felt that she
could not thus "heartily rejoice," meaning all the while to darken his
whole life, as she surely would if she told him "no." He was looking
at her now, and she met his eyes at last, but quickly dropped her own,
while he was sure that the roses burned a little brighter on her
cheek, and that her voice trembled just enough to give him hope, and
help him in his fierce struggle to cast her from his mind and think
only of the solemn services in which he was engaging. He could not
guess that the proud woman who had sailed so majestically into church,
and followed so reverently every prescribed form, bowing in the creed
far lower than ever bow was made before in Hanover, had played him
false and was the dark shadow in his path.

That day was a trying one for Arthur, for, just as the chant was ended
and the psalter was beginning, a handsome carriage dashed up to the
door, and, had he been wholly blind, he would have known, by the
sudden sound of turning head