s overbearing, before you
yield, unfasten this and fling it from you into the sea. You will?
Christian, answer--say, "I will."'

'What worth has any word of mine?' he said in his despair; but her arms
were round his neck fixing the knot, and stayed to clasp, but her rare
terrible sobs rose as she cried, 'Oh, God help you, my son!' and 'I will,
I will!' flew strong to assure her that that word would never have to be
fulfilled.

Near was the time that would put him to the test, and he knew it. A day
passed and a day passed, out of eternity into eternity, and the moon
filled up to Diadyomene's account.

'Rhoda,' he said, 'do you know what day this is?'

'Christmas Eve.'

'Yes--but to my mother--her child was born----'

'Yes,' said Rhoda hurriedly, and bent her head: she for the first time
knew her own birthday.

'Listen, Rhoda! She has aged and weakened so; the day and night of prayer
and fasting she has now begun I fear may outdo her strength. Will you
keep ever at hand to listen and be careful of her?'

'And you?' asked Rhoda.

'I may not stay. I cannot.'

She flashed a look of amazed indignation, for instinctively she knew that
he would be leaving his mother to seek the strange-named woman, and such
filial misconduct in him was hardly credible. No kind word or look would
Rhoda grant him. He never felt the lack: his mother's blessing he did
greatly desire, but he dared not intrude on the day of her mourning to
ask it.

Short was the day and long the way, but over soon by some hours was he
footing it. The singular incidence of the day encouraged belief that a
special mercy of Heaven was ordering his goings for the comforting of a
long sorrow. Ah! God grant her a soul from the sea, and ah! God grant it
by me for a token. All his steps were taken to prayer, and the least
thing he asked of his God was that, though his sins were so heavy, he
might not die till he had seen that salvation. His head and his heart
told him that if he failed in his high endeavour he must surely perish.

Over the wold came a harsh call, and again till he answered and stayed.
He was making for waste stretches, gashed athwart by long gullies
preventing any fair paths. Already, though but half a league forward,
tracks had grown rough and uncertain. The voice came from a mudded
hollow, where a loaded cart stuck fast, an old horse and an old man
striving with it in vain. Though loath to be hindered, Christian turned
aside to give help.