Aunt Bell.  She felt that her return to the shadow of the cross was not being made enough of by the One above.  After years of running after strange gods, the Episcopal service as administered by Allan had prevailed over her seasoned skepticism:  through its fascinating leaven of romance—­with faint and, as it seemed to her, wholly reverent hints of physical culture—­the spirit may be said to have blandished her.  And now this turpitude in a man of God came to disturb the first tender rootlings of her new faith.

The husband of her niece had loyally endeavoured to dissuade her from this too human reaction.

“God has chosen to try me for a purpose, Aunt Bell,” he said very simply.  “I ought to be proud of it—­eager for any test—­and I am.  True, in these last years I had looked upon grandfather’s fortune as mine—­not only by implied promise, but by all standards of right—­even of integrity.  For surely a man could not more nearly forfeit his own rights, in every moral aspect, than poor Bernal has—­though I meant always to stand by him.  So you see, I must conclude that God means to distinguish me by a test.  He may even subject me to others; but I shall not wince.  I shall welcome His trials.  He turned upon her the face of simple faith.”

“Did you speak to that lawyer about the possibility of a contest—­of proving unsound mind?”

“I did, but he saw no chance whatever.”

Aunt Bell hereupon surveyed her beautifully dimpled knuckles minutely, with an affectionate pride—­a pride not uncritical, yet wholly convinced.

“Of course,” added Allan after a moment’s reflection, “there’s no sense in believing that every bit of one’s hard luck is sent by God to test one.  One must in all reverence take every precaution to prove that the disaster is not humanly remediable.  And this, I may say, I have done with thoroughness—­with great thoroughness.”

“Bernal may be dead,” suggested Aunt Bell, brightening now from an impartial admiring of the toes of her small, plump slippers.

“God forbid that he should be cut off in his unbelief—­but then, God’s will be done.  If that be true, of course, the matter is different.  Meantime we are advertising.”

“I wish I had your superb faith, Allan.  I wish Nancy had it....”

Her niece’s husband turned his head and shoulders until she had the three-quarters view of his face.

“I have faith, Aunt Bell.  God knows my unworthiness, even as you know it and I know it—­but I have faith!”

The golden specks in his hazel eyes blazed with humility, and a flush of the same virtue mantled his perfect brow.

Such news of Bernal Linford as had come back to Edom, though meagre and fragmentary, was of a character to confirm the worst fears of those who loved him.  The first report came within a year after his going, and caused a shaking of many heads.

An estimable farmer, one Caleb Webster, living on the outskirts of Edom, had, in a blameless spirit of adventure, toured the Far West, at excursion rates said to be astounding for cheapness.  He had met the unfortunate young man in one of the newer mining towns along his exciting route.