been withdrawn by death, and did so with
a cold, passionless assurance which showed her that he had almost
resolved as to the future. He would see all lands that were to be
seen, and converse with all people. The social condition of God's
creatures at large should be his study. The task would be endless,
and, as he said, an endless task hardly admits of absolute misery.
"If I die there will be an end of it. If I live till old age
shall have made me powerless to carry on my work, time will then
probably have done something to dim the feeling." "I think," he said
again;--"I feel that could I but remember her as my wife--"

"It is impossible," said Mrs. Roden.

"But if it were so! It would be no more than a thin threadbare cloak
over a woman's shivering shoulders. It is not much against the cold;
but it would be very cruel to take that little from her." She looked
at him with her eyes flooded with tears, but she could only shake her
head in sign that it was impossible.

At last, just at the end of July, there came a request that he would
go down to Pegwell Bay. "It is so long since we have seen each
other," she wrote, "and, perhaps, it is better that you should come
than that I should go. The doctor is fidgety, and says so. But my
darling will be good to me;--will he not? When I have seen a tear in
your eyes it has gone near to crush me. That a woman, or even a man,
should weep at some unexpected tidings of woe is natural. But who
cries for spilt milk? Tell me that God's hand, though it be heavy to
you, shall be borne with reverence and obedience and love."

He did not tell her this, but he resolved that if possible she should
see no tears. As for that cheerfulness, that reconciliation to his
fate which she desired, he knew it to be impossible. He almost
brought himself to believe as he travelled down to Pegwell Bay that
it would be better that they should not meet. To thank the Lord for
all His mercies was in her mind. To complain with all the bitterness
of his heart of the cruelty with which he was treated was in his.
He had told Mrs. Roden that according to his creed there would be
a better world to come for him if he could succeed in taming the
selfishness of self. But he told himself now that the struggle to do
so had hitherto been vain. There had been but the one thing which had
ever been to him supremely desirable. He had gone through the years
of his early life forming some Utopian ideas,--dreaming of some
pe