Dorothy was frightened.

“What is the matter, dear?” she said.

“Nothing,” answered Juliet, trying to smile.  “Perhaps I took a little cold last night,” she added with a shiver.

“Have you told your husband?” asked Dorothy.

“I haven’t seen him since Saturday,” she answered quietly, but a pallor almost deathly overspread her face.

“I hope he will soon be home,” said Dorothy.  “Mind you tell him how you feel the instant he comes in.”

Juliet answered with a smile, but that smile Dorothy never forgot.  It haunted her all the way home.  When she entered her chamber, her eyes fell upon the petal of a monthly rose, which had dropped from the little tree in her window, and lay streaked and crumpled on the black earth of the flower-pot:  by one of those queer mental vagaries in which the imagination and the logical faculty seem to combine to make sport of the reason—­“How is it that smile has got here before me?” she said to herself.

She sat down and thought.  Could it be that Juliet had, like herself, begun to find there could be no peace without the knowledge of an absolute peace?  If it were so, and she would but let her know it, then, sisters at least in sorrow and search, they would together seek the Father of their spirits, if haply they might find Him; together they would cry to Him—­and often:  it might be He would hear them, and reveal Himself.  Her heart was sore all day, thinking of that sad face.  Juliet, whether she knew it or not, was, like herself, in trouble because she had no God.

The conclusion shows that Dorothy was far from hopeless.  That she could believe the lack of a God was the cause unknown to herself of her friend’s depression, implies an assurance of the human need of a God, and a hope there might be One to be found.  For herself, if she could but find Him, she felt there would be nothing but bliss evermore.  Dorothy then was more hopeful than she herself knew.  I doubt if absolute hopelessness is ever born save at the word, Depart from me.  Hope springs with us from God Himself, and, however down-beaten, however sick and nigh unto death, will evermore lift its head and rise again.

She could say nothing to her father.  She loved him—­oh, how dearly! and trusted him; where she could trust him at all!—­oh, how perfectly! but she had no confidence in his understanding of herself.  The main cause whence arose his insufficiency and her lack of trust was, that all his faith in God was as yet scarcely more independent of thought-forms, word-shapes, dogma and creed, than that of the Catholic or Calvinist.  How few are there whose faith is simple and mighty in the Father of Jesus Christ, waiting to believe all that He will reveal to them!  How many of those who talk of faith as the one needful thing, will accept as sufficient to the razing of the walls of partition between you and them, your heartiest declaration that you believe in Him