ear him with our ears,
and understand him with our reason, what grace would there be in
believing in him? Did not the minister say last Sabbath that our
life was hid with Christ in God, and that therefore God must first be
pierced ere we could be hurt or prejudiced? Then let us take what
comfort we can in each other's affection, David, and just try and
believe that God's ways are the very best of all ways for us."

"Sometime--perhaps--"

"And don't leave me, David. I can bear all things if you are near to
help and comfort me."

"Ay, ay; but women are different. I cannot fight the temptation when
I am in it; I must run away from it. Farewell! Oh, dear, dear Nanna,
farewell!"

He kissed the words upon her lips, and went hastily out of the house;
but when he had walked about one hundred yards he returned. Nanna
had thrown herself despairingly upon the rude couch made for Vala,
and on which the child had spent most of her life. There Nanna lay
like one dead. David knelt down by her; he took her within his arms,
kissed her closed eyes, and murmured again upon her lips his last
words of love and sorrow. Her patient acceptance of her hard lot
made him quiver with pain, but he knew well that for a time, at
least, they must each bear their grief alone.

Nanna's confession of her love for him had made everything different.
In her presence now he had not the power to control his longing
for reciprocal affection. He felt already a blind resentment and
rebellion against fate--a sense of wrong, which it was hard to
submit to. But how could he fight circumstances whose foundations
were in eternity? At this hour, at least, he had come to the limit of
his reason and his endurance. Again and again he kissed Nanna
farewell, and it was like tearing his life asunder when he put away
her clinging arms and left her alone with the terrible problem
that separated their lives.

There is something worse than the pang of keenest suffering--the
passive state of a subjugated heart. A dismal, sullen stillness
succeeded to David's angry sorrow. He avoided Barbara and shut
himself in his room. And his strong and awful prepossession in
favor of the Bible led him, first of all, to go to the book. But
he found no help there. His soul was tossed from top to bottom, and
he was vanquished by the war in his own bosom. For in our wrestling
alone angels do not always come. And David brought his dogmas over
and over to the Scriptures, and was crushed sp