es. You're right, you dear, kind old
boy; but--"

"We can do nothing," I went on. "Even if she is ill, or in danger, we
can do nothing till we have news of her. But she is in God's hands, as
we all are, little woman."

"I do pray for her, Maurice," she avowed piteously. "But--but--"

"That's all you can do, dear, but it is much also. More things are
wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Keep on praying--and
trusting--and the prayers will be answered."

She looked at me through her tears, lovingly, but with some
astonishment.

"Why, Maurice, I've never heard you talk like that before."

"I couldn't have said it to any one but you, dear," I said gruffly; and
we were silent for a spell. But she understood me, for we both come from
the same sturdy old Puritan stock; we were both born and reared in the
faith of our fathers; and in this period of doubt and danger and
suffering it was strange how the old teaching came back to me, the firm
fixed belief in God "our refuge and strength, a very present help in
trouble." That faith had led our fathers to the New World, three
centuries ago, had sustained them from one generation to another, in the
face of difficulties and dangers incalculable; had made of them a great
nation; and I knew it now for my most precious heritage.

"_I should utterly have fainted; but that I believe verily to see the
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. O tarry thou the Lord's
leisure; be strong and He shall comfort thy heart; and put thou thy
trust in the Lord._

"_Through God we will do great acts; and it is He that shall tread down
our enemies._"

Half forgotten for so many years, but familiar enough in my
boyhood,--when my father read a psalm aloud every morning before
breakfast, and his wrath fell on any member of the household who was
absent from "the reading,"--the old words recurred to me with a new
significance in the long hours when I lay brooding over the mystery and
peril which encompassed the girl I loved. They brought strength and
assurance to my soul; they saved me from madness during that long period
of forced inaction that followed my collapse at the police court.

Mary, and Jim, too,--every one about me, in fact,--despaired of my life
for many days, and now that I was again convalescent and they brought me
down to the Cornish cottage, my strength returned very slowly; but all
the more surely since I was determined, as soon as possible, to go in
search of Ann