know? That terrible
morning, she had come this way, rushing swiftly to her death: she was
caught and dragged back from Hades, to be there-after--now, driven
slowly toward it, like an ox to the slaughter! She could not avoid her
doom--she _must_ encounter that which lay before her. That she shrunk
from it with fainting terror was nothing; on she must go! What an iron
net, what a combination of all chains and manacles and fetters and
iron-masks and cages and prisons was this existence--at least to a
woman, on whom was laid the burden of the generations to follow! In the
lore of centuries was there no spell whereby to be rid of it? no dark
saying that taught how to make sure death should be death, and not a
fresh waking? That the future is unknown, assures only danger! New
circumstances have seldom to the old heart proved better than the new
piece of cloth to the old garment.

Thus meditated Juliet. She was beginning to learn that, until we get to
the heart of life, its outsides will be forever fretting us; that among
the mere garments of life, we can never be at home. She was hard to
teach, but God's circumstance had found her.

When they came near the brow of the hollow, Dorothy ran on before, to
see that all was safe. Lisbeth was of course the only one in the house.
The descent was to Juliet like the going down to the gates of Death.

Polwarth, who had been walking behind with Ruth, stepped to her side the
moment Dorothy left her. Looking up in her face, with the moonlight full
upon his large features, he said,

"I have been feeling all the way, ma'am, as if Another was walking
beside us--the same who said, 'I am with you always even to the end of
the world.' He could not have meant that only for the few that were so
soon to follow Him home; He must have meant it for those also who should
believe by their word. Becoming disciples, all promises the Master made
to His disciples are theirs."

"It matters little for poor me," answered Juliet with a sigh. "You know
I do not believe in Him."

"But I believe in Him," answered Polwarth, "and Ruth believes in Him,
and so does Miss Drake; and if He be with us, he can not be far from
you."

With that he stepped back to Ruth's side, and said no more.

Dorothy opened the door quickly, the moment their feet were on the
steps; they entered quickly, and she closed it behind them at once,
fearful of some eye in the night. How different was the house from that
which Juliet had