ler Christian faith has still to create
around it those venerable associations and habits which buttress
individual feebleness and diminish the individual effort.

One early February morning, just before dawn, Robert stretched out his
hand for his wife and found her kneeling beside him. The dim mingled
light showed him her face vaguely--her clasped hands, her eyes. He
looked at her in silence, she at him--there seemed to be a strange sheen
as of battle between them. Then he drew her head down to him.

'Catherine,' he said to her in a feeble intense whisper, 'would you
leave me without comfort, without help, at the end?'

'Oh, my beloved!' she cited, under her breath, throwing her arms round
him, 'if you would but stretch out your hand to the true comfort--the
true help--the Lamb of God sacrificed for us!'

He stroked her hair tenderly.

'My weariness might yield--my true best self never. I know whom I have
believed. Oh, my darling, be content. Your misery, your prayers hold
me back from God--from that truth and that trust which can alone be
honestly mine. Submit, my wife! Leave me in God's hands.'

She raised her head. His eyes were bright with fever, his lips
trembling, his whole look heavenly. She bowed herself again, with a
quiet burst of tears, and all indescribable self abasement. They had had
their last struggle, and once more he had conquered! Afterward the cloud
lifted from him. Depression and irritation disappeared. It seemed to her
often as though he lay already on the breast of God; even her, wifely
love grew timid and awestruck.

Yet he did not talk much of immortality, of reunion. It was like a
scrupulous child that dares not take for granted more than it's father
has allowed it to know. At the same time, it was plain to those
about him that the only realities to him in a world of shadows were
God--love--the soul.

One day he suddenly caught Catherine's hands, drew her face to him, and
studied it with his, glowing and hollow eyes, as though he would draw it
into his soul.

'He made it,' he said hoarsely, as he let her go--'this love--this
yearning. And in life He only makes us yearn that He may satisfy. He
cannot lead us to the end and disappoint the craving He himself set in
us. No, no--could you--Could I--do it? And He, the source of love, of
justice----'

Flaxman arrived a few days afterward. Edmondson had started for London
the night before, leaving Elsmere better again, able to drive and