him up out of his sight.  He could only weep instead, and bitterly repent.  Yes; there was one thing more he could do.  Janet still lived.  He would go to her, and confess his sin, and beg her forgiveness.  Receiving it, he would be at peace.  He knew David forgave him, whether he confessed or not; and that, if he were alive, David would seek his confession only as the casting away of the separation from his heart, as the banishment of the worldly spirit, and as the natural sign by which he might know that Hugh was one with him yet.

Janet was David’s representative on earth:  he would go to her.

So he returned, rich and great; rich in knowing that he was the child of Him to whom all the gold mines belong; and great in that humility which alone recognizes greatness, and in the beginnings of that meekness which shall inherit the earth.  No more would he stunt his spiritual growth by self-satisfaction.  No more would he lay aside, in the cellars of his mind, poor withered bulbs of opinions, which, but for the evil ministrations of that self-satisfaction, seeking to preserve them by drying and salting, might have been already bursting into blossoms of truth, of infinite loveliness.

He knew that Margaret thought far too well of him —­ honoured him greatly beyond his deserts.  He would not allow her to be any longer thus deceived.  He would tell her what a poor creature he was.  But he would say, too, that he hoped one day to be worthy of her praise, that he hoped to grow to what she thought him.  If he should fail in convincing her, he would receive all the honour she gave him humbly, as paid, not to him, but to what he ought to be.  God grant it might be as to his future self!

In this mood he went to Janet.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The fir-wood again.

Er stand vor der himmlischen Jungfrau.  Da hob er den leichten, glanzenden Schleir, und —­ Rosenbluthchen sank in seine Arme. —­ Novalis. —­ Die Lehrlinge zu Sais.

He stood before the heavenly Virgin (Isis, the Goddess of Nature).  Then lifted he the light, shining veil, and —­ Rosebud (his old love) sank into his arms.

So womanly, so benigne, and so meek.

Chaucer. —­ Prol. to Leg. of Good Women.

It was with a mingling of strange emotions, that Hugh approached the scene of those not very old, and yet, to his feeling, quite early memories.  The dusk was beginning to gather.  The hoar-frost lay thick on the ground.  The pine-trees stood up in the cold, looking, in their garment of spikes, as if the frost had made them.  The rime on the gate was unfriendly, and chilled his hand.  He turned into the footpath.  He saw the room David had built for him.  Its thatch was one mass of mosses, whose colours were hidden now in the cuckoo-fruit of the frost.  Alas! how Death had cast his deeper frost over all; for the man was gone from the hearth!  But neither old Winter nor skeleton Death can withhold the feet of the little child Spring.  She is stronger than both.  Love shall conquer hate; and God will overcome sin.