But the rector was not softened by John's letter; there was a curl of contempt upon his lip which colored his words, though with Helen's quiet eyes upon him he forced himself to speak calmly.

"You see he expects you to return. This idea of yours, of a separation, is nonsense. I told you so in the first place. Now the only thing to do is to go to Lockhaven, and just say that your convictions are immovable (if they are, though it would be wiser to make a concession, Helen), so there is no use in experimenting in this absurd way. Absurd? Why it is—it is"—

Dr. Howe's face was crimson, and he could find no epithet strong enough to use.

"Do you suppose I have not told John that I could not change?" Helen said sadly, ignoring the suggestion of a concession; "and to go back, uncle Archie,—you don't know John! He thinks I will come back,—you are right there,—but only because he thinks this plan of his is an inspiration from God, and will lead me to believe as he wishes. It will not, and you know it. But John would feel that he was doubting God to let me come, if the promise were unfulfilled. So I shall never return. Oh, must we discuss it? It is fixed; it can never be changed. If only it could be understood at once! There is no hope."

Dr. Howe rose, and walked about the room a moment, breathing hard, and swallowing once or twice, as though to choke some hot words. Then he sat down, and began to argue.

First, he tried to prove to Helen that there was a hell, but unconsciously he veered to assertions that it made no difference, anyhow; that of course the doctrine of eternal damnation was preposterous, and that she must persuade Mr. Ward to drop the subject. He reasoned and threatened, then he expostulated and implored, ending all with, "You must go back, and at once."

Helen had been silent, but when he finished she said, so absently that he knew she had not been listening, "Shall I explain why I have come back, or would you prefer to do it?"

"Explain?" cried the rector. "What are you thinking of? Of course not! It is not to be known."

"It must be known, I think," Helen answered calmly. "I am here, and I shall stay here, so it seems to me better to disarm gossip by telling the truth at once."

Dr. Howe sunk back in his chair, and looked at his niece in speechless annoyance.

"You had better let me tell them, uncle Archie," she said simply; "it will be less unpleasant for you."

Then he regained his voice: "It is not to be told, Helen. I shall not allow it. If you have no sense, I'll take the matter into my own hands. If people choose to gossip about your being here a few days or a week,—it may take a week for this folly to blow over,—why, they can, that's all. I will not—you hear me, Helen?—I will not enter into any absurd explanations."

Helen lifted her heavy eyes, and looked at him a moment, and then she said, "Aunt Deely?"

Dr. Howe suffered a sudden collapse. "Well, I—ah—well, perhaps Adele. I suppose Adele must know it. I don't know but what her common sense may be good for you, my dear. Yes, I'll tell Adele."

"I should like to have Lois understand it," Helen said.

"Well," Dr. Howe conceded, "yes—I suppose you might mention it to Lois—because"—

"I don't want her to think anything wrong of John," Helen explained.

Dr. Howe stared at her blankly, but did not burst into wrathful exclamations; he was actually exhausted in mind and body; this controversy had been too much for him. But that remark of Helen's ended it. She went slowly up-stairs, clinging to the balustrade as though she needed some support, yet she had not spoken of being tired. She passed Lois, sitting on the window-seat which ran across the broad landing, but did not seem to see her, and there was something in her cousin's face which kept the young girl dumb.

Dr. Howe did not go to Dale house until the next day; he vaguely hoped something would turn up before his sister discovered Helen's presence at the rectory, which would make this humiliating confession unnecessary. But nothing happened except the arrival of a letter from John Ward to Dr. Howe, explaining his convictions and reiterating his determination.

Helen kept in her own room that day and the next, so Gifford Woodhouse, who came to the rectory, did not guess her presence, since Lois had been admonished to be silent concerning it, and no one else chanced to call. Of course the servants knew. Dr. Howe ground his teeth as he reflected that Sally would probably tattle the whole thing; the more so, if she were charged not to mention it. Yet he was rather relieved, when he went to tell his sister, to find that she knew the main fact already.

"Helen's back again!" she cried as soon as she saw him.

He found her in the big cool dining-room, cutting out pieces of paper for the tops of her pots of strawberry jam, and fringing them delicately with a little pair of shining scissors.

"Well, Archibald," she said, looking at him over her glasses, as he sat down at the other end of the polished table, "this is pretty hot, isn't it? I'll have Betty bring you a sangaree; there's a fan on the window-sill, if you want it; I never have patience to use a fan. Henry's in his library. I declare, it is as cold as a vault in that room; but you'd better not go down. We Howes are too rheumatic for such damp places."

Betty brought the sangaree, and the rector diverted himself while he put off the evil moment of explanation, by clinking the ice against the glass.

"Betty was down in the village last night," Mrs. Dale was saying, "and she saw your Sally, and she told her Helen did not get off on Monday. What in the world does that mean? I do dislike to see the child so changeable. I suppose she wants to wait and go with Lois, after all? But why didn't she make up her mind before she started? And all this talk about getting back to her husband! Oh, these young wives,—they don't mind leaving their husbands!"

"Yes, she's back," said the rector gloomily.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Dale asked quickly, for his tone did not escape her.

Then he told her the whole story. There was a moment's silence when he had finished. At last Mrs. Dale said violently, "Well!" and again, "Well!" After that she rose, and brushing the clippings of paper from her black silk apron, she said, "We will go and talk this over in the parlor, Archibald."

The rector followed her, miserably. Though he had a clear conscience, in that he had treated the ridiculous affair with the utmost severity, and had done all he could to make Helen return to her husband, he yet trembled as he thought how his sister would reproach him. ("Though I can't help it!" he said to himself. "Heaven knows I used every argument short of force. I couldn't compel a reluctant wife to return to an unwilling husband, especially when she thinks the husband is all right.") "You see, she approves of Ward," he groaned.

Mrs. Dale sat down, but the rector walked nervously about, jingling some keys in his pocket.

"It is very distressing," he said.

"Distressing?" cried Mrs. Dale. "It is worse than distressing. It is disgraceful, that's what it is,—disgraceful! What will Deborah Woodhouse say, and the Draytons? I tell you, Archibald, it must be put a stop to, at once!"

"That is very easy to say," began Dr. Howe.

"It is very easy to do, if there's a grain of sense in your family. Just send your niece"—

"She's your niece, too, Adele," he interrupted.

But Mrs. Dale did not pause—"back to her husband. You ought to have taken her yesterday morning. It is probably all over Ashurst by this time!"

"But you forget," objected Dr. Howe, "he won't let her come; you can't change his views by saying Helen must go back."

"But what does it matter to her what his views are?" said Mrs. Dale.

"It matters to him what her views are," answered Dr. Howe despondently. Somehow, since he had begun to talk to his sister, he had grown almost as hopeless as Helen.

"Then Helen must change her views," Mrs. Dale said promptly. "I have no patience with women who set up their own Ebenezers. A woman should be in subjection to her own husband, I say,—and so does St. Paul. In my young days we were taught to love, honor, and obey. Helen needs to be reminded of her duty, and I'll see that she is."

"Well, I wish you success," said the rector grimly.

"And I'll have it!" Mrs. Dale retorted.

"But you don't take into consideration," Dr. Howe said, "that Helen will not say one thing when she thinks another. How can you change a person's belief? I have been all over it, Adele. It is perfectly useless!"

The brother and sister looked at each other a moment silently; then Mrs. Dale said, "Well, if you ask my advice"—

"I didn't; there's no use. Helen will be her own adviser, you can depend upon that. I only just wanted you to know the facts. No outsider can direct the affairs of a man and woman who are entirely determined."

"I am not an outsider," returned Mrs. Dale, "though you can call yourself one, if you choose. And I am going to give you advice, and I hope you'll be sensible enough to take it. You have just got to go and see this Mr. Ward, and tell him he must take Helen back; tell him we cannot have such things in our family. A wife separated from her husband,—why, good gracious, just think of it, Archibald!"

"Do you suppose I haven't thought of it?" demanded the rector.

"And Helen must go," continued Mrs. Dale, "belief or no belief."

Her brother shook his head, and sighed.

"I don't believe it will do any good for me to see him, but of course I shall go to Lockhaven unless I get a favorable answer to my letter. I wrote him yesterday. But do you imagine that any talk of our feelings is going to move a man like Ward? His will is like iron. I saw that in his letter to Helen. I suppose it pains him to do this. I suppose he does suffer, in a way. But if he can contemplate her distress unmoved, do you think anything I can urge will change him? He'll wait for her conversion, if it takes her whole life."

"But Helen has been confirmed," said Mrs. Dale, in a bewildered way; "what more does he want?"

"He wants her to be converted, I tell you," cried her brother, "and he's bound to bring it about! He uses the illustration of giving medicine to a sick child to insure its recovery, no matter at what cost of pain to the child or the giver."

"But isn't it the same thing?" persisted Mrs. Dale: "converted—confirmed? We don't use such expressions in the Church, but it is the same thing."

"'Experience a change of heart,' Ward says in his letter; 'be convicted of the sin of unbelief'!" the rector said contemptuously, and ignoring his sister's question; "but conversion with him merely means a belief in hell, so far as I can make out."

"Well, of course Helen is all wrong not to believe in hell," said Mrs. Dale promptly; "the Prayer-Book teaches it, and she must. I'll tell her so. All you have to do is to see this Mr. Ward and tell him she will; and just explain to him that she has been confirmed,—we don't use those Methodistical expressions in the Church. Perhaps the sect he belongs to does, but one always thinks of them as rather belonging to the lower classes, you know. I suppose we ought not to expect anything else from such a person,—who ever heard of his people? I always said the marriage would turn out badly," she added triumphantly. "You remember, I told you so?"

The rector sighed. After all, Mrs. Dale did not help him. It was useless to try to impress her with the theological side of the matter, as she only returned with fresh vigor to the charge that it was a disgrace to the family. So he rose to go, saying, "Well, I'll wait for Ward's letter, and if he persists in this insanity I'll start for Lockhaven. You might see Helen, and see what you can do."

As Mrs. Dale began in her positive way to say how he ought to talk to "this man," Mr. Dale came in.

"I thought I heard your voice," he said to his brother-in-law, "and I came up"—he looked deprecatingly at his wife—"to ask you to step down and have a pipe. I want to speak to you about Denner's books."

But before Dr. Howe could answer, Mrs. Dale poured forth all the troublesome and disgraceful story of the "separated husband and wife." Mr. Dale listened intently; once he flourished his red handkerchief across his eyes as he blew his nose. When he did this, he scattered some loose tobacco about, and Mrs. Dale stopped to reprimand him. "I tell you," she ended emphatically, "it is this new-fangled talk of woman's rights that has done all this. What need has Helen of opinions of her own? A woman ought to be guided by her husband in everything!"

"You see it is pretty bad, Henry," said the rector.

"It is,—it is," said the older man, his mild eyes glistening; "but oh, Archibald, how he loves her!"

"Loves her?" cried the other two together.

"Yes," continued Mr. Dale slowly; "one feels as if we ought not even to discuss it, for we are scarcely capable of understanding it. The place whereon we stand is holy ground."

"Henry," said his wife, "there's no fool like an old fool. You don't know what you are talking about."

But when Dr. Howe, softening a little since Mr. Dale did not abuse John Ward, said he must tell Helen that,—it would please her,—Mrs. Dale begged him to do nothing of the sort.

"It would be just like her to consider the whole affair a unique mode of expressing affection. We had better try to show her it is a disgrace to the family. Love, indeed! Well, I don't understand love like that!"

"No," Mr. Dale responded, "no, I suppose not. But, my dear, don't you wish you did?"

When Dr. Howe told Helen of his plan of going to Lockhaven, she tried to show him that it was useless; but as she saw his determination, she ceased to oppose him. She would have spared John if she could (and she knew how impossible it was that the rector could move her husband), yet she felt that her family had a right to insist upon a personal explanation, and to make an effort, however futile, to induce her husband to take her home. In the mean time, they waited for an answer to the rector's letter. Helen had written, but she knew no answer would come to her. She understood too well that sweet and gentle nature, which yielded readily in small things, and was possessed of invincible determination in crises, to hope that John could change. Yet she had written; she had shared her hopelessness as well as her grief with him, when she told him how impossible it was for her to think as he did. She showed how fast and far she had drifted into darkness and unbelief since she had left him, yet she held out no hope that a return to him could throw any light into those eternal shadows. "I understand it all," she had written, stopping to comfort him even while she told him how futile was his pain and hers, "and oh, how you must suffer, my darling, but it cannot be helped unless you free yourself from your convictions. Perhaps that will come some time; until then, you can only be true to yourself. But I understand it all,—I know."

Those days of waiting were hard to bear. The distance between her uncle and herself had suddenly widened; and she could not see that beneath his irritation there was really a very genuine sympathy.

She had vaguely hoped that Lois would comfort her, for one turns instinctively in grief to the nearest loving thing, and she knew her cousin loved her. Yet Lois had not been able to understand, and Helen would hear no words of sympathy which were not as much for John as for herself.

It was not until Thursday that she had told Lois why she had come back. They were in their pleasant sitting-room, Lois walking restlessly about, with such puzzled expectation on her face that its white sadness was almost banished. Helen sat with her hands clasped loosely in her lap, and leaning her head against the window. Below, there was the bloom and glory of the garden, butterflies darted through the sunshine, and the air was full of the honeyed hum of the bees. But the silence of the room seemed only a breathless anxiety, which forbade rest of mind or body; and so Helen had roused herself, and tried to tell her cousin what it all meant; but even as she talked she felt Lois's unspoken condemnation of her husband, and her voice hardened, and she continued with such apparent indifference Lois was entirely deceived. "So you see," she ended, "I cannot go back to Lockhaven."

Lois, walking back and forth, as impatient as her father might have been, listened, her eyes first filling with tears, and then flashing angrily. She threw herself on her knees beside Helen, as she finished, and put her arms about her cousin's waist, kissing her listless hands in a passion of sympathy. "Oh, my dear!" she cried, her cheeks wet with tears, "how dreadful—how horrible! Oh, Helen, darling, my poor darling!"

Lois did not stop to consider the theological side of the matter, which was a relief to Helen. She tried to quiet the young girl's distress, holding her bright head against her breast, and soothing her with gentle words.

"If I were you," Lois said at last, "I would go back to Lockhaven; I would go, if it had to be in disguise!"—

"Not if you loved John," Helen answered.

"How can you bear it?" Lois whispered, looking up into the calm face with a sort of awe which checked her tears. "It is so cruel, Helen, you cannot forgive him."

"There is nothing to forgive; I hoped you would understand that, Lois. John cannot do anything else, don't you see? Why, I would not love him as I do, if, having such convictions, he was not true to them. He must be true before anything else."

Lois was sitting on the floor in front of her, clasping her knees with her arms, and rocking back and forth. "Well," she cried hotly, "I don't understand anything about his convictions, but I tell you what it is, Helen, I do understand how hard it is for you! And I can never forgive him, if you can. It is all very well to think about truth, but it seems to me he ought to think about you."

"But don't you see," Helen explained, still vaguely hoping that Lois would understand, "he thinks only of me? Why, Lois, it is all for me."

Lois's face was flushed with excitement. "I don't care!" she cried, "it is cruel—cruel—cruel!"

Helen looked at her steadily a moment, and then she said patiently, "The motive is what makes cruelty, Lois. And can't you see that it is only because of his love that he does this? If he loved me less, he could not do it."

"Heavens!" Lois exclaimed, springing to her feet, "I wish he loved you less, then! No, there is no use saying things like that, Helen; he is narrow and bigoted,—he is a cruel fanatic." She did not see that Helen had half risen from her chair, and was watching her with gleaming eyes. "He actually prides himself on being able to make you suffer,—you read me that yourself out of his letter. He's a bad man, and I'm glad you've done with him"—

She would have said more, but Helen had followed her swiftly across the room, and grasping her arm until the girl cried out with pain, she put her hand over those relentless young lips. "Hush!" she cried, in a terrible voice; "do not dare to speak so to me! If I hear such words again, I shall leave this house. You may not be able to see my husband's nobleness, but at least you can be silent."

Lois pushed her hand away, and stared at her in amazement. "I didn't mean to offend you," she stammered. "I only meant that he"—

"Do not speak of him!" Helen said passionately, her breath still quick, and her face white to the lips. "I do not wish to hear what you meant! Oh, Lois, Lois, I thought that you"—She turned away, and pressed her hands hard on her eyes a moment; then she said, "I understand—I know—your affection for me prompted it—but I cannot listen, Lois, if you have such feelings about him. I will take your sympathy for granted after this. I do not want to talk about it again."

Lois went silently out of the room, her heart overflowing with love for her cousin, and added rage at the man who had come between them. She found Gifford walking about in the hall down-stairs, and, forgetful of her father's injunction, she went quickly up to him, trembling with excitement, and half sobbing.

"Giff—oh, Giff—that man, that John Ward, has sent Helen back! She's here—she can't go home!"

Gifford was too astounded to speak.

"Yes," Lois cried, clinging to his arm, her eyes overflowing, "he is a wicked man—he is cruel—and she thinks I am, Giff, just because I said he was!"

Lois's agitation drove him into his most deliberate speech.

"What do you mean? I do not understand."

"Of course not! Nobody could think of anything so awful. Come into the library, and I'll tell you. Father does not want it spoken of, Gifford, but since you know she's here, I might as well explain."

The room was deserted, except for Max, who was stretched on the cool hearthstones; it was full of dusky shadows lurking in the wainscoted corners; the outside shutters were bowed, and only two thin streaks of sunshine traveled in from the warm sweet garden outside. Some roses in a bowl on the table filled the air with fragrance.

Lois hurried nervously through the story, breaking into angry grief that John Ward should have made Helen angry at her. For she had told Gifford how she had tried to console her cousin.

"It makes me hate John Ward more than ever!" she said, striking her hands passionately together. "Oh, Giff, isn't it awful?"

"Poor fellow!" said the young man, deeply moved, "poor Ward! It is worse for him than it is for Helen."

"Oh, how can you say so?" she cried; "but I'm sure I hope it is!"

"He won't weaken," Gifford went on slowly. "He will stand like a rock for what he believes is right, and he will be more apt to believe it is right if it nearly kills him."

"I wish it would! And Helen, poor darling, thinks he loves her. What sort of love does he call this?"

"Oh, it is love," Gifford answered; "and I tell you, Lois, it is a height of love that is ideal,—it is the measure of Ward's soul." They were both so much in earnest, there was not the slightest self-consciousness in this talk of love, even though Gifford added, "I never knew a man capable of such devotion, and there are few women like Helen, who could inspire it."

"But, Giff," Lois said, not caring to discuss John Ward's character, "did you suppose anybody could be so narrow? Think how bigoted he is! And nobody believes in hell now as he does."

"I don't know about that, Lois," Gifford responded slowly. "Lots of people do, only they don't live up to their belief. If the people who say they believe in hell were in dead earnest, the world would have been converted long ago."

"He is a wicked man!" Lois cried inconsequently.

But Gifford shook his head. "No, he is not. And more than that, Lois, you ought to consider that this belief of Ward's, if it is crude, is the husk which has kept safe the germ of truth,—the consequences of sin are eternal. There is no escape from character."

"Oh, yes," she answered, "but that is not theology, you know: we don't put God into that."

"Heaven help us if we do not!" the young man said reverently. "It is all God, Lois; perhaps not God as John Ward thinks of Him, a sort of magnified man, for whom he has to arrange a scheme of salvation, a kind of an apology for the Deity, but the power and the desire for good in ourselves. That seems to me to be God. Sometimes I feel as though all our lives were a thought of the Eternal, which would have as clear an expression as we would let it."

Lois had not followed his words, and said impatiently as he finished, "Well, anyhow, he is cruel, and Helen should not have felt as she did when I said so."

Gifford hesitated. "She could not help it. How could she let you say it?"

"What!" cried Lois, "you think he's not cruel?"

"His will is not cruel," Gifford answered, "but I meant—I meant—she couldn't let you speak as you did of John Ward, to his wife."

Lois flung her head back. "You think I said too much?" she asked. "You don't half sympathize with her, Gifford. I didn't think you could be so hard."

"I mean it was not quite kind in you," he said slowly.

"I suppose you think it wasn't right?"

"No, Lois, it was not right," he answered, with a troubled face.

"Well, Gifford," she said, her voice trembling a little, "I'm sorry. But it seems I never do do anything right. You—you see nothing but faults. Oh, they're there!" she cried desperately. "Nobody knows that better than I do; but I never thought any one would say that I did not love Helen"—

"I didn't say so, Lois," the young man interrupted eagerly; "only I felt as though it wasn't fair for me to think you did not do just right, and not tell you so."

"Oh, of course," Lois said lightly, "but I don't think we are so very friendly that I can claim such consideration. You are always finding fault—and—and about Helen you misunderstand; we can say anything to each other. I am afraid I exaggerated her annoyance. She knew what I meant,—she said she did; she—she agreed with me, I've not a doubt!"

"I always seem to blunder," Gifford said, his face stinging from the cut about friendship. "I never seem to know how to tell the truth without giving offense—but—but, Lois, you know I think you are the best woman in the world."

"You have a pretty poor idea of women, then," she responded, a lump in her throat making her voice unsteady, "but I'm sure I don't care what you think. I have a right to say what I want to Helen."

She ran out of the room, for she would not let Gifford see her cry. "I don't care what he thinks!" she said, as she fled panting into the attic, and bolted the door as though she feared he would follow her. But then she began to remember that he had said she was the best woman in the world, and to her dismay she found herself smiling a little. "What a wretch I am!" she said sternly. "Mr. Denner is dead, and Helen is in such distress, and—and Dick Forsythe may come back! How can I be pleased at anything?"