sail and out to sea, and face the storm. What quarter is
it from?"

"It comes from a woman."

"Ah, David, that is bad to buffet. I have been through it. It was
that storm which brought me here. I know all about it."

[Illustration: GROAT.]

"Please, minister, I think not. It is Nanna Sinclair."

"I thought so. You love her, David?"

"Better than my life."

"And she does not love you?"

"She loves me as I love her."

"Then what is there to make you miserable? In a few months, David,
you will marry her and be happy."

"Nanna will not marry me in a few months--she will not marry me at
all."

"Nanna ought not to trouble a good man with such threats. Of course
she will marry. Why not?"

Then David told the minister "why not." He listened at first with
incredulity, and then with anger. "Nanna Sinclair is guilty of great
presumption," he answered. "Why should she sift God's ordination
and call in question results she is not able to understand? Marriage
is in the direct command of God, and good men and women innumerable
have obeyed the command without disputing. It is Nanna's place to
take gratefully the love God has sent her--to obey, and not to argue.
Obedience is the first round of the ascending ladder, David; and
when any one casts it off, he makes even the commencement of
spiritual life impossible."

He spoke rapidly, and more as if he was trying to convince himself
than to console David. His words, in any case, made no impression.
David listened in his shy, sensitive, uncomplaining way, but the
minister was quite aware he had touched only the outermost edge of
feeling. David's eyes, usually mild and large, had now his soul
at their window. It was not always there, but when present it
infected and went through those upon whom it looked. The minister
could not bear the glance. He rose, and gently pushed David into
a chair, and laid his hands on his shoulders, and looked steadily at
him. He could see that a gap had been made in his life, and that the
bright, strong man had emerged from it withered and stricken. He
sat down by his side and said:

"Talk, David. Tell me all."

And David told him all, and the two men wept together. Yet, though
much that David said went like a two-edged sword through the
minister's convictions, he resented the thrust, and held on to his
stern plan of sin and retribution like grim death, all the more so
because he felt it to be unconsciously attacked. And when David said:
"