stood before her, leaning to
look long into her eyes which never wavered while he read in them her
woman's fealty to her love for him.

He held out his hands, and she placed hers within them. He spoke, and
the voice was a prayer:

"My wife, Aileen--"

"My husband--" she answered, and the words were a _Te Deum_.

X

Octavius drew up near the shed and handed the reins to Father Honore.

"If you'll just hold the mare a minute, I'll step inside and look for
Aileen."

He disappeared in the darkening entrance, but was back again almost
immediately. Father Honore saw at once from his face that something
unusual had taken place. He feared an accident.

"Is Aileen all right?" he asked anxiously.

Octavius nodded. He got into the surrey; the hands that took the reins
shook visibly. He drove on in silence for a few minutes. He was
struggling for control of his emotion; for the truth is Octavius wanted
to cry; and when a man wants to cry and must not, the result is
inarticulateness and a painful contortion of every feature. Father
Honore, recognizing this fact, waited. Octavius swallowed hard and many
times before he could speak; even then his speech was broken:

"She's in there--all right--but Champney Googe is with her--"

"Thank God!"

Father Honore's voice rang out with no uncertain sound. It was a
heartening thing to hear, and helped powerfully to restore to Octavius
his usual poise. He turned to look at his companion and saw every
feature alive with a great joy. Suddenly the scales fell from this man
of Maine's eyes.

"You don't mean it!" he exclaimed in amazement.

"Oh, but I _do_," replied Father Honore joyfully and emphatically....

"Father Honore," he said after a time in which both men were busy with
their thoughts, "I ain't much on expressing what I feel, but I want to
tell you--for you'll understand--that when I come out of that shed I'd
had a vision,"--he paused,--"a revelation;" the tears were beginning to
roll down his cheeks; his lips were trembling; "we don't have to go back
two thousand years to get one, either--I saw what this world's got to be
saved by if it's saved at all--"

"What was it, Mr. Buzzby?" Father Honore spoke in a low voice.

"I saw a vision of human love that was forgiving, and loving, and saving
by nothing but love, like the divine love of the Christ you preach
about--Father Honore, I saw Aileen Armagh sitting on a block of granite
and Champney Googe kneeling before her,