penitent on his knees before the Maker he had outraged. The
crimes he had committed, especially if unsuccessful, or the sorrows
that had fallen upon him, would have sufficed to reduce nine-tenths of
ordinary men to a condition of humble supplication. For, generally
speaking, irreligion, or rather forgetfulness of God, is a plant of no
deep growth in the human heart, since its roots are turned by the rock
of that innate knowledge of a higher Power that forms the foundation
of every soul, and on which we are glad enough to set our feet when
the storms of trouble and emergency threaten to destroy us. But with
Philip this was not so. He never thought of repentance. His was not
the nature to fall down and say, "Lord, I have sinned, take Thou my
burden from me." Indeed, he was not so much sorry for the past as
fearful for the future. It was not grief for wrong-doing that wrung
his heart and broke his spirit, but rather his natural sorrow at
losing the only creature he had ever deeply loved, chagrin at the
shame of his position and the failure of his hopes, and the icy
fingers of superstitious fears.

The crisis had come and passed: he had sinned against his Father in
heaven and his father on earth, and he did not sorrow for his sin; his
wife had left him, murmuring with her dying lips exhortations to
repentance, and he did not soften; shame and loss had fallen upon him,
and he did not turn to God. But his pride was broken, all that
remained to him of strength was his wickedness; the flood that had
swept over him had purged away not the evil but the good, from the
evil it only took its courage. Henceforth, if he sins at all, his will
be no bold and hazardous villany which, whilst it excites horror, can
almost compel respect, but rather the low and sordid crime, the safe
and treacherous iniquity.

Ajax no longer defies the lightning--he mutters curses on it beneath
his breath.

On the evening of the double funeral--which Philip did not feel equal
to attending, and at which George, in a most egregious hatband and
with many sobs and tears, officiated as chief mourner--Mr. Fraser
thought it would be a kind act on his part to go and offer such
consolation to the bereaved man as lay within his power, if indeed he
would accept it. Somewhat contrary to his expectation, he was, on
arrival at the Abbey House, asked in without delay.

"I am glad to see a human face," said Philip to the clergyman, as he
entered the room; "this lonel