d a most solitary life, hardly seeing a human
being, other than his housekeeper, from month to month. Do you wonder
what could make him so stern and sad? Here is his story:--

One sweet and golden summer day, a man stood by the bedside of his
wife,--he, crushed and heart-broken; she, faint and dying, but calm
and loving and comforting. She held his hand, and whispered brokenly
such words as she could only hope to comfort him with; and the last
faint whisper which trembled on her lips was, "Oh, Richard, don't
fail--don't fail to--to find Him and cling to Him, and come--come
up--too." And with that she was dead. And the man left the bedside,
and went out into the summer fields, where the birds were flitting and
the bees droning and the wide earth seemed brimming with life and joy,
and prayed that he might die too, since she was gone. But the birds
sang on as joyously as ever, and the sun shone no less brightly
because of the sorrow in the earth, and after his first tears were
shed, his heart began to grow hard and bitter, and he put away the
dying whisper, and went back to the dear dead face, cold and stern.
His friends came to console him, but he would not listen, and after it
was all over, and the gentle face hidden forever under the brown
earth, he began to think of fleeing to some spot where he might find
rest and quietness, and hide himself from all thoughts of the dear one
who had left him, smothering his sorrow, and living as if she had not
been. "I have been robbed," he said, bitterly; "all my happiness has
been stolen from me. I can't seek Him; I will not. Oh, if there is a
kind and merciful God, why has he stricken me? why has he taken all
the joy out of my life? why has he left me without a comforter in the
world?" So, without seeking for a Comforter, without striving to "find
Him," as the dear voice had whispered, he turned away and strove to
crush out the love and the tender memories which haunted his heart,
and most of all that dying whisper which said, "Don't fail--don't fail
to find _Him_."

Grown suddenly stern and morose, Richard Trafford looked about him for
a refuge where he might flee from all society, and most of all from
the spot where _her_ presence seemed yet to linger. He discovered wild
and solitary Culm Rock, and purchased the old stone house. Here, he
thought, with the everlasting sound of the sea in his ears, with all
the wildness and barrenness about him, and apart from the rest of
man