l always be in trouble if
it sets itself above the United States. Dear Joel, I can't go, indeed I
_can't_ go!"

He spoke more softly now.

"Thank God I don't realise it yet--I mean, that we must part. You tell
me so and I hear you and my mind knows, but my heart hasn't sensed it
yet--I can feel it now going stupidly along singing its old happy song
of hope and gladness, while all this is going on here outside. But soon
the big hurt will come. Oh, Prue--Prue, girl!--can't you think what it
will mean to me? Don't you know how I shall sicken for the sight of you,
and my ears will listen for you! Prudence, Prue, darling--yet I must not
be womanish! I have a big work to do. I have known it with a new
clearness since that radiance rested above my head last night. The truth
burns in me like a fire. Your going can't take that from me. It must be
I was not meant to have you. With you perhaps I could not have had a
heart single to God's work. He permitted me to love you so I could be
tried and proved."

He looked at her fondly, and she could see striving and trembling in his
eyes a great desire to crush her in his arms, yet he fought it down, and
continued more calmly.

"But indeed I must be favoured more than common, to deserve that so
great a hurt be put upon me, and I shall not be found wanting. I shall
never wed any woman but you, though, dear. If not you, never any other."

He stood up.

"I must go in to them now. There must be work to do against the start
to-morrow."

"Joel!"

"May the Lord deafen my ears to you, darling!" and squaring his
shoulders resolutely away from her, he left her on the seat and went in.

The old man looked up from his Bible as his son entered.

"It's sore sad, laddie, we can't have the temple for your sealing-vows."

"Prudence will not be sealed to me, father." He spoke dazedly, as if
another like the morning's blow had been dealt him. "I--I am already
sealed to the Spirit for time and eternity."

"Was it Prudence's doings?" asked his mother, quickly.

"Yes; she has left the church with her people."

The long-faced, narrow-browed old man raised one hand solemnly.

"Then let her be banished from Israel and not numbered in the books of
the offspring of Abraham! And let her be delivered over to the
buffetings of Satan in the flesh!"

CHAPTER V.

_Giles Rae Beautifies His Inheritance_

By eight o'clock the next morning, out under a cloudy sky, the Raes were
ready and eage