e, covered with dust, reached farmer Frechette's house,
the rattle of wheels ceased.

"To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life."

She heard him whistling his favorite refrain as he swung up the gravel
walk. He had seen her white dress, and was walking straight toward
her. She heard him coming, and her treacherous heart began to beat
joyously. With an exclamation of despair, she sank to her knees by the
side of the garden seat, deeming herself the very chief of sinners.

For a few moments he stood and looked down at her in utter amazement,
then stooped quickly and raised her. When he saw how white her face
was, he was sure she was seriously ill, and held out his arm to
support her to the house.

With averted face, Adele told him that she was only a little nervous
and unstrung, but she would be herself again. Her pathetic face and
helplessness appealed strongly to him, and his heart went out to her,
as a man's will to the woman he loves, and whose sufferings are his.
As he sat down by her side, he could scarcely refrain from gathering
her in his arms and comforting her.

Her clamoring conscience caused her involuntarily to draw away from
him to the end of the seat. Her strange manner caused an uneasy
feeling to sweep over him, yet accentuated the keen longing to win
her. Almost before he was aware of it, he was by her side again, and
was telling her the story that is ever new, though so very old. She
would have given the world to have let her heart run riot, as the
loving words came pouring from his lips. She learned how she had first
grown dear to him, as he had fought with the great reaper for her
life, and how the sight of health returning to her dear face had been
sweeter to him than he could ever tell her. He told her, too, he was
positive that he would never have been called to play the important
part in her life which he had done, had it not been ordained from the
beginning that his life was to be knit with hers.

"To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life."

The haunting words were still ringing in Adele's ears, and made it
ten-fold harder for her to tell him that he was not to prevail in the
cause dearer than life, as it was to him.

As she sat, with face buried in her cold hands, and listened and
tried to fight down the singing of her heart, she knew that nothing he
could say could make her deny the Church and imperil the soul of her
father once more.

"Or be crushed in its