morrow is not here, David; but it
will come, by God's leave. I dreamed a dream last night, and I look
for a change, cousin. But this or that, my desire is that God would
choose for me."

"That also is my desire," said David, solemnly.

"As for me, I have fallen into a great strait; only God can help me."

She was standing on the hearth, looking down at Vala. Tears were
in her eyes, and a divine pity and sorrow made tender and gentle her
majestic beauty. David looked steadily at her, and something, he
knew not what, seemed to pierce his very soul--a sweet, aching pain,
never felt before, inexplicable, ineffable, and as innocent as the
first holy adoration of a little child. Then he went out into the
still, starry night, and tried to think of Christina Hey; but she
constantly slipped from his consciousness, like a dream that has
no message.

VII

SO FAR AND NO FARTHER

David Borson was stirred to the very seat of life by the things Nanna
had told him. It did not enter his heart to doubt their truth. The
shameful deed of the first Gisli, and the still strong order of its
consequences, which neither the guilt of his children hastened, nor
their innocence delayed, nor their expiation arrested, was the
dominant feeling aroused by her narrative. The whole story, with its
terrible Nemesis, fitted admirably into the system of Calvinistic
theology, and David had not yet come to the hour in which faith
would crush down fatalism. The words of these ancient sagas went
singing and swinging through his brain and heart, and life seemed
so wonderful and bewildering, its sorrows so great and certain, its
needs so urgent and present, and heaven, alas! so far off.

There came to him also, as he slowly trod the lonely moor, the most
awful of all conceptions of eternity--the revelation of _a repentance
that could undo nothing_. He was righteously angry at Gisli's base
ingratitude; he was sorry for his sin; but others had doubtless
felt the same anger and sorrow, and it had been ineffectual. Helpless
and passive in the hands of destiny, a nameless dread, an urgent
want of help and comfort, forced him to feel out into the abyss
for something more than flesh and blood to lean on; and then he
found that God is best of all approached in indefinite awe and
worship, and that moments of tender, vague mystery, haunted by
uncertain presentiments, bring him near.

"Well, then," he said as he came to the door of his house, "the
wicke