. You will have to stand and suffer it. You
will have to stand! If you cannot, do not come."

"I stood it," he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh and
blood cannot stand. There is a limit----"

"The limit I shall fix," she said proudly. "Not you."

"But you will fix it?"

"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse.
You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feel
and be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak--if you are to come
here."

"But you will speak--sometime?"

"I do not know," she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting she
looked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please--and
remember!"

CHAPTER III.

THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE.

The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and
cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was
not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his
reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found
himself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy
branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of
the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the
breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains,
beyond which lay Chatillon and his home.

Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his
mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored
for him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face
change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips
blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for
the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he
had crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount of
evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of
the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and
end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one
presence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round white
arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--these
and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the
days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with his
eyes on the hills, but it was not

Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, forekno