watched him going
along the rocky coast at a dangerous speed, his lantern swinging
wildly to his big strides.

But a five-minutes' walk brought John to a place where he was alone
with God and the sea. Oh, then, how he cried out for pity! for
comfort! for help! for forgiveness! His voice was not the inaudible
pleading of a man praying in his chamber; it was like the despairing
call of a strong swimmer in the death-billows. It went out over the
ocean; it went out beyond time and space; it touched the heart of the
Divinity who pitieth the sufferers, "even as a father pitieth his
children."

There was a glow of firelight through his cottage window, but no
candle. Joan was bending sorrowfully over the red coals. John was glad
of the dim light, glad of the quiet, glad of the solitude, for Joan
was only his other self--his sweeter and more hopeful self. He told
her all that had passed. She stood up beside him, she held his head
against her breast and let him sob away there the weight of grief and
shame that almost choked him. Then she spoke bravely to the
broken-down, weary man:

"John, my old dear, don't you sit on the ash-heap like Job, and bemoan
yourself and your birthday, and go on as if the devil had more to do
with you than with other Christians. Speak up to your Heavenly Father,
and ask Him 'why,' and answer Him like a man; do now! And go to Exeter
in the morning, and make yourself sure that Denas be a honest woman.
I, her mother, be sure of it; but there then! men do be so bad
themselves, they can't trust their own hearts, nor their own ears and
eyes. 'I believe' will make a woman happy; but a man, God knows, they
must go to the law and the testimony, or they are not satisfied. It's
dreadful! dreadful!"

They talked the night away, and early in the morning John went to
Exeter. With the proofs of his daughter's marriage in his hand, he
felt as if he could face his enemies. Joan was equal to them without
it. She knew they would find her out, and they found her singing at
her work. Her placid face and cheery words of welcome nonplussed the
most spiteful; the majority who came to triumph over her went away
without being able to say one of the many evil thoughts in their
hearts; and not a few found themselves hoping and wishing good things
for the bride.

But it was a great effort, and many times that day Joan went into
the inner room, and buried her face in her pillow, and had her cry
out. Only she confidently exp