"No faith! O Cyril! O my poor friend."

"If you and others had kept better faith with me, I might not now have been as utterly faithless and unbelieving as I am.”

"Cyril, those are dreadful words. But I, how can I be accused of want of faith?”

"You promised to be my sister." "And have I ever failed you?"

"All this weary spring and summer, not one word have I received from you; all these weeks you have been in town, not once have I seen your face."

"In answer to the first charge, you never wrote to me; my last letter to you, written late in March, remains unanswered; could I have forced my correspondence on you? I thought you probably connected me with-with all that has been so painful to you; we all thought the same, and we could not wonder at it, though we were very sorry. If you had sent me one line, I should have written to you fully."

"Then you have not lost all interest in your ne'erdo-well, luckless brother?"

"My brother has done many things well; by God's help he will do many better things in time to come. As for luck, he has nothing to do with it; luck is for the heathen, Providence for Christians."

"I am no Christian, Agnes; I tried to be one once, but God has forsaken me."

"Never! I dare say you have forsaken God, and He has hidden His face from you, but He who cannot lie, who cannot change, has said, 'I will never leave you, I will not forsake you.' All else may change, Cyril, all else forsake; God, your Father, never will. If you have wandered into the far country, come back again; do not wait till you are starved, but come back now, and your Father will meet you a long way off, and take you to His arms again."

"I cannot come back. In nowise can I retrace my steps, Agnes. Ah! you do not know."

"If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.'"

"It is small, and I hate and despise myself; there seems no longer any room for action; it is useless to hope, to strive."

"You deceive yourself: one may always hope on this side the grave, one may always strive lawfully and patiently, being sure that in His own good time God will crown all effort with success."

"All effort? O Agnes, you women know so little about the world. For one who wins the race, how many lose it!"

"All do not lose who seem to lose, Cyril. The seeming loss is often real gain. There are hours when we feel that we have failed, and long afterwards we learn that in so failing we won the victory. Take courage, my brother, go on in the straight path, keep innocency, and strive lawfully in God's holy name, and peace will come at last, even here on earth—and, Cyril, I often think that peace is better than what we call joy; nay, it is the deepest, truest joy, the peace that passeth understanding, for it glorifies the meanest things below, and keeps in full view the brightness of the world to come."

Agnes, when I first knew you, you did not feel thus."

"No. I had not come then to the simple truth." "What is the truth? I think I shall try my hand at authorship, and write a book or booklet entitled Quid est Veritas ?" He spoke in that hard, mocking tone which had pained us so much when he began to speak.

Agnes replied solemnly, "Christ is TRUTH," and she bowed her head, as she uttered the sacred name. "But Truth is many-sided."

"It is. And Christ has many aspects, each one, it seems to me, lovelier, more glorious, and more precious than the other."

"Agnes, I cannot understand faith-such faith."

"Never mind faith! Concern yourself about Christ, think of Him, go to Him, throw yourself on Him."

"But the Bible says, 'By faith are ye saved.'

"If I snatched you from the flames with this hand, it would be by the hand that you were rescued, but it would be I who saved you. Look to Christ, and faith will be yours."

"Oh that I had met you a fortnight since, even a week ago! I have made a fatal mistake, and it cannot be retrieved, but I will write to you. I have already outstayed my time. Good-bye, my best friends!" and he wrung our hands in his own impulsive way, and was gone before we could exchange adieux. Agnes was very unwell that evening, and kept her room on the plea of headache; but the last thing at night she said, as she kissed me, "Janet, you will join your prayers with mine for him, will you not?"

254

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONFIDENCES.

I TOLD you that we were to leave Forest Range early in September, and, in accordance with this intention, we were very busy during the month of August, making preparations for the journey. Sir John had enough to do in settling all possible difficulties with his bailiff, in going over the home-farm, in saying "good-bye" to tenants and to personal friends, and in attending to county business, and providing substitutes on whom certain responsibilities should rest during his absence. Certainly Sir John had very little leisure in those days; nevertheless, he rode over several times to Southchester to reconnoitre the enemy's ground, and to be quite sure that Mr. Gower was still persecuting salmon in some remote regions of Norway; at any rate, far away from Monkswood. There was no sign of the new master of Monkswood anywhere about the fair cathedral city; the workmen he employed went drowsily about their work, and the restorations were nearly at a standstill; it would be October, Vivian Gower's servants told all the world, before their master, whom they evidently held not in reverence or esteem, would be among them again. And in the meantime the Prebend of Twycombe's house witnessed strange scenes, and listened to very strange language, if all the tales that were afloat might be relied on; and, "like master, like man," was the proverbial rejoinder of the outraged Close. The bishop himself openly regretted the advent of Mr. Gower, and heartily wished that Monkswood had remained in the possession of its original owners, and it was understood that

on his return he would not be received at the palace. The Dean shook his head whenever the gentleman's name was mentioned, and sighed, and looked portentous; prebends, canons, and minor canons, and even juvenile choristers and vergers, were of opinion that Mr. Gower was a very bad man, and must be tabooed for the honour of the cathedral. Only a few tradesmen, who were charmed by extensive orders and ready money, took his part; all the city, with a few exceptions, ranged themselves under the episcopal banners, and were prepared to show Vivian Gower a very cold shoulder on his return. The young ladies of the Close were desired by the powers that were, not to know Mr. Gower when next they saw him, albeit many of them had spent hours in his company in sundry prebendal drawing-rooms; and young men of repute, whom he had met and chatted with freely around the archidiaconal mahogany, virtuously resolved to 66 cut the fellow," when he came once more to Southchester.

So very unpopular had the "fellow" become, that we began to hope the place would be too hot to hold him; and, at any rate, that he would defer his return till the storm had somewhat spent itself: it was quite a relief to feel assured that we should not meet him again for many a long day.

And from time to time Elizabeth heard some of the tales current respecting her bête noire of a lover, and she knew pretty well the general odium attaching itself to his name, and even to his household. But she said nothing, and seemed on the whole resigned to the will of her parents. And yet I was never quite sure that it was genuine resignation: there were times when it seemed to me a yielding, half sullen and half apathetic, to the inevitable; a sort of submission under protest, that might any day, under fostering influences, turn into revolt. My great hope lay in the absence of Vivian Gower.

During this busy, anxious month, Lady Ashburner's health seriously declined; it caused her the keenest