interested, so helpful for all those poor people; but now he has ceased to care for them. I know he is unhappy, but I can find no reason for his trouble. He has a worried, haunted look, that grieves me more than I can say, and I can do nothing to brighten his life. I know nothing of the shadow that darkens it. Somethingsomething I cannot understand-has come between us and made us almost strangers; and, now you are going away, I shall feel utterly alone."

Her voice faltered in her struggle not to give way to tears. Her sorrow, her appeal to his friendship, shook St. Just's resolution.

"Rachel, Rachel, cannot you understand, cannot you read my heart--the heart that aches for love of you? It is my love that is parting us—my hopeless love, the love of years. It was easy to call love friendship. Love has been sweet under that name; and you know that I have never offended, never said one word that you ought not to hear, never for one moment forgotten that you are Walter Arden's wife."

"No, no, no. You have always been my friend, my trusted friend. Why do you spoil our friendship now? I have honoured and looked up to you."

"I did not mean to tell you. I meant to carry my secret to my grave, and that you should never know all you have been to me; the one love of my life, loved from the hour of our first meeting, worshipped with every throb of my heart from that hour to this. But the words have been said, and at least you know that I am not leaving you for a light reason, that I am not false to the dear friendship you have given me. It is for your dignity, for my honour, that I go. I have been

told that our friendship has provoked comment, that if it continued your name would suffer; and your good name is dearer to me than my own happiness. now I have put a barrier between us.”

And

I

"Yes, you have put a lifelong barrier between us," she said, with a profound sigh. "I am very sorry. was so happy in your friendship; and now you have made friendship impossible. All things that I care for seem to fall away from me. I won't say that I have lost my husband's love-but I know that he is changed to me. A cloud has come between us; there is a mystery in his life that I cannot fathom. I should be utterly lonely if it were not for those poor castaways who depend upon me, and who love me a little, I think."

"They love you much," St. Just cried passionately. "How can they help loving you? To them you represent all that is purest and best in human love, the Christlike love which forgives sin and believes in the regeneration of sinners. You enter their dark haunts like living sunlight; you lift them out of the slough of despond. Oh, be sure you have your guerdon of human love. Never believe the people who tell you the poor are ungrateful or unloving. Good-bye, Rachel. Forget this confession of mine, if you can. Think of me only as your friend, and as a man in whom honour is stronger than passion. Write to me when I am far away. I shall write to you sometimes, to tell you where my wanderings have brought me. Write and tell me of your own life, and all things that have to do with your happiness."

"Yes, I will write to you," she answered simply. "I shall forget every foolish word that you have spoken this The Conflict. II.

5

night. I shall think of you when you are far away as I have known you in the last two years—my kind friend and counsellor. Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, looking at him with the clear and earnest gaze he knew so well. He had seen that look in her eyes when she had pleaded with some sinner whose fall she deplored-a look so mournful, yet so full of a divine compassion.

He bent his lips over the gentle hand, as he might have kissed the hand of a saint, and left her without a word.

"And now this world holds nothing for me but duty," he thought, as he left her. "The two women I loved are gone from me; one in death; one in lifelong severance. I have done with love for the individual, and must live for the species."

A strange grey life began for Rachel on the morning after St. Just's farewell. She felt as if all interest, all colour, had gone out of her life. She fought against her dejection, and went about her old work with untiring patience; but the mind within was dull and inert.

She

let her old women talk to her of their woes and grievances, and was kind and gentle with them; but it would have gone ill with her had she been called on to repeat their pitiful stories. It was a relief when one of

them exclaimed

"You ain't brought his lordship this arternoon. I do like to hear him talk the Gospel-he do make it all come out clear and strong, like as if it was in the morning paper; while in most sermons as I hear the preacher seems to beat about the bush, so as I can't follow him.

I can allus follow his lordship; and, to be sure, I ought to, when he was that kind and paid my rent for a year in advance, so as I sha'n't have to worrit myself all winter."

"He is very fond of you, Biddy. But you won't see him for a long time; he has gone on a sea-voyage for his health."

He always looked a bit
Then I suppose

"Poor dear gentleman! peaky-but so kind, and so generous. he'll be gone six months or so?" "Longer than that, I think.

of you, Biddy."

But I shall take care

And I

"And so you always have, mum. My life hasn't been the same since the day your pretty face came in at that door. Lor, I remember it as if it was yesterday. You was wearing a sweet hat, with forget-me-nots in it, and as it might be a bow of fine white lace. thinks here's another of them fine ladies come to nag about religion, and why don't I go to the week-day services, and the Wednesday and Friday evenings in Lent. But I soon found the difference. You didn't come to preach to me, but to try and make me a bit more comfortable.”

"And when you were more comfortable you liked coming to the Lent sermons," said Rachel.

"Yes, mum. After a good cup of tea and a bloater, and with a bit of fire to come home to, I don't mind an evening service. They may sing a hanthem, and make the sermon as long as they like, when I'm feeling comfortable inside, and with a warm cape to my back such as you gave me. But I hope, now his lordship has gone away, Mr. Arden will come among us with you

again, as he used to do when you and him was keeping company. He's as kind a gentleman as ever lived, and never one to worry folks about religion. I don't know as ever he mentioned the Gospel in my hearing." "He will come back to his old friends by-and-by, I hope, Biddy. He has been depressed and out of spirits of late."

"Well, tell him, with my respects, that he ought to try Roupell's 'Mensanerincorperersaner.' It's a long word to pronounce, but it's rare stuff for the spirits. Thirty drops to be took on a lump of sugar, and warranted not poisonous if you was to drink the bottleful."

This was not the first time Rachel had heard lamentations at her husband's absenting himself from the dark places where his presence had brought comfort.

Father Romney had urged her to use her influence with him, and to persuade him to take up the work he had begun so well.

"I have seen so many instances of men who begin with tremendous fervour, and cool off and drop away, after working at white heat for a year or two, that I ought never to be surprised by a deserter," he said; "but I thought your husband was of a stronger fibre than most of my young disciples, and that his fire would not have burnt out in a few years. I thought he would not take his hand from the plough till he had come to the end of life's furrow, and the hand dropped in death. Mr. Arden's defection has disappointed me more than I can say."

Rachel could only reply with the same excuse she had made to old Biddy-depressed spirits, languid health. She assured him that her husband's heart was