she had not yet resolved to yield.
Almost the moment she vanished from his sight, it dawned upon him that
she had a secret. As one knows by the signs of the heavens that the
matter of a storm is in them and must break out, so Polwarth had read in
Juliet's sky the inward throes of a pent convulsion.

He knew something of the doctor, for he had met him again and again
where he himself was trying to serve; but they had never had
conversation together. Faber had not an idea of what was in the creature
who represented to him one of Nature's failures at man-making; while
Polwarth, from what he heard and saw of the doctor, knew him better than
he knew himself; and although the moment when he could serve him had not
begun to appear, looked for such a moment to come. There was so much
good in the man, that his heart longed to give him something worth
having. How Faber would have laughed at the notion! But Polwarth felt
confident that one day the friendly doctor would be led out of the
miserable desert where he cropped thistles and sage and fancied himself
a hero. And now in the drawn look of his wife's face, in the broken
lights of her eye, in the absorption and the start, he thought he
perceived the quarter whence unwelcome deliverance might be on its way,
and resolved to keep attention awake for what might appear. In his
inmost being he knew that the mission of man is to help his neighbors.
But in as much as he was ready to help, he recoiled from meddling. To
meddle is to destroy the holy chance. Meddlesomeness is the very
opposite of helpfulness, for it consists in forcing your self into
another self, instead of opening your self as a refuge to the other.
They are opposite extremes, and, like all extremes, touch. It is not
correct that extremes meet; they lean back to back. To Polwarth, a human
self was a shrine to be approached with reverence, even when he bore
deliverance in his hand. Anywhere, everywhere, in the seventh heaven or
the seventh hell, he could worship God with the outstretched arms of
love, the bended knees of joyous adoration, but in helping his fellow,
he not only worshiped but served God--ministered, that is, to the wants
of God--doing it unto Him in the least of His. He knew that, as the
Father unresting works for the weal of men, so every son, following the
Master-Son, must work also. Through weakness and suffering he had
learned it. But he never doubted that his work as much as his bread
would be given h