“I don’t know what faith is,” replied Fledra in a whisper.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Dear.  Now, then, don’t you remember how my brother and I prayed for Floyd?”

Fledra pressed Ann’s arm.

“And don’t you remember, Dear, that almost immediately he was helped?”

“You had a doctor,” said Fledra slowly.

“Yes, for a doctor is God’s agent for the good of mankind; but we had faith, too.  And in something like this—­Is your trouble illness?”

“Only here,” answered Flea, laying her hand upon her heart.

Ann could not force Flea’s confidence; so she said: 

“Then if it is impossible to confide in Horace, or in me, will you pray tonight, fully believing that you will be answered?  You must remember how much Jesus loved you to come down to suffer and die for you.”

“I don’t believe I thought that story was true, Sister Ann.”  Fledra drew back, and looked up into Ann’s shocked face as she spoke, “I shouldn’t say I believed it if I didn’t, should I?”

“No, Darling; but you must believe—­you surely must!  You must promise me that you will pray first for faith, then for relief, and tomorrow you will feel better.”

“I promise,” answered Fledra.

For many minutes after Ann had left her, the girl lay stretched out upon the bed.  Her heart pained her until it seemed that she must go directly to Horace and confess her secret.

She got up slowly at last, and, kneeling, began a whispered petition.  It was broken by sobs and falling tears, by writhings that tore the tender soul offering it.

Fledra prayed for Horace, and then stopped.

After a time she rose, having done all a girl could do for those she loved, and, undressing, slowly crawled into bed.  Through the darkness as she lay looking upward she tried to imagine what kind of a being God was, wondering if He were kindly visaged, or if, when His earthly children sinned, He looked as Horace had looked when she confessed the lie told to Ann.  In her imagination, she framed the Savior of the world like unto the man she loved when he smiled upon her, and then she believed, and believed mightily.  In likening Jesus to Horace—­in bringing the Savior nearer through the lineaments of her loved one—­she gathered out of her unbelief a great belief that He could, and would, smooth away all the troubles that had arisen in her life.

* * * * *

That night she turned and tossed for several hours, praying and weeping, weeping and praying, until from sheer fatigue she lay perfectly quiet.  Suddenly she sat up and listened.  The stupor of slumber dulled her hearing, and she struggled to catch again the sound that had awakened her.  From somewhere across the hall she heard a faint click, click, which sounded as though some mechanic’s tool were being used.

Fledra slipped from the bed and opened the door stealthily.  She crept along the hall in her bare feet, terrified by the muffled sound, and stopped before the velvet curtains that were drawn closely across the dining-room doorway.  Someone was tampering with the silver chest.