think, Mrs. Delancy, that Dr. Leigh has any sympathy with the higher
life, with spiritual things? I wish I could think so."

"With the higher life of humanity, certainly."

"Ah, that is too vague. I sometimes feel that she and those like her are
the worst opponents to our work. They substitute humanitarianism for the
gospel."

"Yet I know of no one who works more than Ruth Leigh in the
self-sacrificing spirit of the Master."

"Whom she denies!" The quick reply came with a flush in his pale face,
and he instantly arose and walked away to the window and stood for some
moments in silence. When he turned there was another expression in
his eyes and a note of tenderness in his voice that contradicted the
severity of the priest. It was the man that spoke. "Yes, she is the best
woman I ever knew. God help me! I fear I am not fit for my work."

This outburst of Father Damon to her, so unlike his calm and trained
manner, surprised Edith, although she had already some suspicion of his
state of mind. But it would not have surprised her if she had known more
of men, the necessity of the repressed and tortured soul for sympathy,
and that it is more surely to be found in the heart of a pure woman than
elsewhere.

But there was nothing that she could say, as she took his hand to bid
him good-by, except the commonplace that Dr. Leigh had expressed anxiety
that he was overworking, and that for the sake of his work he must be
more prudent. Yet her eyes expressed the sympathy she did not put in
words.

Father Damon understood this, and he went away profoundly grateful for
her forbearance of verbal expression as much as for her sympathy. But
he did not suspect that she needed sympathy quite as much as he did, and
consequently he did not guess the extent of her self-control. It would
have been an immense relief to have opened her heart to him--and to whom
could she more safely do this than to a priest set apart from all human
entanglements?--and to have asked his advice. But Edith's peculiar
strength--or was it the highest womanly instinct?--lay in her
discernment of the truth that in one relation of life no confidences are
possible outside of that relation except to its injury, and that to ask
interference is pretty sure to seal its failure. As its highest joys
cannot be participated in, so its estrangements cannot be healed by any
influence outside of its sacred compact. To give confidence outside
is to destroy the mutual confide