r I could help him to rewrite it. I never thought
of that before."

"Your course is perfectly clear, my dear Gresley," said the Archdeacon,
not impatiently, but as one who is ready to open up a new subject. "Your
tender conscience alone makes the difficulty. Is not Mrs. Gresley
endeavoring to attract our attention?"

Mrs. Gresley was beckoning them in to tea.

When the Archdeacon had departed, Mr. Gresley said to his wife: "I have
talked over the matter with him, not mentioning names, of course. He is
a man of great judgment. He advises me to burn it."

"Hester's book?"

"Yes."

"He is quite right, I think," said Mrs. Gresley, her hands trembling, as
she took up her work. Hester would never forgive her brother if he did
that. It would certainly cause a quarrel between them. Young married
people did best without a third person in the house.

"Will you follow his advice?" she asked.

"I don't know. I--you see--poor Hester!--it has taken her a long time to
write. I wish to goodness she would leave writing alone."

"She is coming home this evening," said his wife, significantly.

Mr. Gresley abruptly left the room, and went back to his study. He was
irritated, distressed.

Providence seemed to have sent the Archdeacon to advise him. And the
Archdeacon had spoken with decision. "Burn it," that was what he had
said, "and tell your friend that you have done so."

It did not strike Mr. Gresley that the advice might have been somewhat
different if the question had been respecting the burning of a book
instead of a letter. Such subtleties had never been allowed to occupy
Mr. Gresley's mind. He was, as he often said, no splitter of hairs.

He told himself that from the very first moment of consulting him he had
dreaded that the Archdeacon would counsel exactly as he had done. Mr.
Gresley stood a long time in silent prayer by his study window. If his
prayers took the same bias as his recent statements to his friend, was
that his fault? If he silenced, as a sign of cowardice, a voice within
him which entreated for delay, was that his fault? If he had never
educated himself to see any connection between a seed and a plant, a
cause and a result, was that his fault? The first seedling impulse to
destroy the book was buried and forgotten. If he mistook this towering,
full-grown determination which had sprung from it for the will of God,
the direct answer to prayer, was that his fault?

As his painful duty became clear t