ntouched by grief or the dread of grief. It was a divine
madness. He threw off his clothes, admired his shapely body for a moment
as he poised on the bank, and flung himself in headlong with a shout. He
felt as he slipped through the water but he did not utter the thought,
that if this intoxication did not last he would never leave the pool. It
endured and increased. He swam about like a demented fish. On that far
shore where the reeds grew he paddled through the mud and thrust his
head among the sedges kissing them with laughter. In another place he
reached up to the high bank and pulled out a bunch of ferns which he
carried about with him. He roamed about the sandy bottom in one corner,
and thrust his nose and his hands into it, laying his cheek on the
smooth surface. He swallowed mouthfuls of the cool water, and felt that
he tasted joy for the first time. He tired his body with divings,
racings, leapings, and shouting.

When he leaped ashore and flung himself in the shade of the wood, the
intoxication had increased. So, not for nothing had he met the priest.
That encounter, the delay in the journey, the stay in the village, the
peculiar character of the man, his odd theory, were like elements of an
antidote, compounded to meet that venom which the vicious had injected
into his life. Wonderful! He looked at the open book beside him, and
then rose to his knees, with the water dripping from his limbs. In a
loud voice he made a profession of faith.

"I believe in God forever."

CHAPTER V.

THE DOOR IS CLOSED.

Even Martha was startled by the change in him. She had hoped and prayed
for it, but had not looked for it so soon, and did not expect blithe
spirits after such despair. In deep joy he poured out his soul to her
all the evening, but never mentioned deeds or names in his tragedy.
Martha hardly thought of them. She knew from the first that this man's
soul had been nearly wrecked by some shocking deviltry, and that the
best medicine for him was complete forgetfulness. Horace felt as a
life-prisoner, suddenly set free from the loathsomest dungeon in
Turkestan, might feel on greeting again the day and life's sweet
activities. The first thought which surged in upon him was the glory of
that life which had been his up to the moment when sorrow engulfed him.

"My God," he cried to Martha, "is it possible that men can hold such a
treasure, and prize it as lightly as I did once."

He had thought almost nothing