While her thoughts were engaged upon the subject, she resolved to write without delay to Alicia Linden, and speak to her about Ruth.  Mrs. Hardyng should not have everything put upon her.  She had trouble enough of her own.

Clemence, who felt as if she did not want to presume upon the generosity of her friend, knew that the masculine Alicia would be prepared for any emergency, having both the will and the ability to help her.  It was only her extreme conscientiousness that had led her, thus far, to struggle on with her self-imposed burden.  The girl had argued that it was not right to call upon others to relieve from that which she had assumed of her own free will.

Now, she beheld matters in a clearer light.  There was a higher Will that took out of her hands the ordering of her own actions.  She had tried to act wisely, and from the best and purest motives.  Her strength having now failed utterly, it was her duty to strive and repress all these rebellious murmurings and go forward in the narrow path so many had trodden before her.

This was unusually difficult for one of Clemence Graystone’s proud, independent spirit, but if pride conflicted with duty it must be conquered.  There was but one way, to “be careful for nothing.”

However, it was the fault of her nature to go to the other extreme, and despond when she could not see the path beyond marked out distinctly, and illumined by the star of Hope.

Now, life had nothing in it but the affection of this clinging, dependent child, to draw her from the contemplation of that future for which her soul had longed these weary months of sorrowful waiting, and where she hoped to gain the sweet reward for all her striving.

She had sought to live for the hour that was approaching, remembering, all these years, that “Heaven is won or lost on earth; the possession is there, but the preparation here.”

The girl knew she had failed often, but she felt willing to trust herself to the mercy of Him who loves those He chasteneth.  She repeated softly these words from a gifted woman’s pen:—­

                   “Though we fail, indeed,
    You—­I—­a score of such weak workers—­He
    Fails never.  If he cannot work by us,
    He will work over us.”

A sudden footstep roused the young dreamer, and her startled gaze rested upon a form before her.  A faint dash of crimson kindled the pallid coldness of the pure face.  She rose and moved forward with outstretched hands, while the voice of Wilfred Vaughn asked, in sorrowful accents, “Can this be the Clemence Graystone I have known, or only her wraith?” He pressed the slender fingers tenderly in his own, and while every lineament of that noble face spoke of his grief at finding her thus, he said to the wondering girl, who looked upon his sorrow, “What a grievous sin has been committed here!  My sweet-faced darling, they have sacrificed you to their cruelty.  You have been the innocent victim of a dreadful wrong.”