“St. Elmo has forgotten to leave the key with me.”

Edna’s face grew scarlet, and stooping to pick up a heavy cornelian seal that had fallen on the carpet, she said, hastily: 

“What is that marble temple intended to hold?”

“I have no idea; it is one of my son’s oriental fancies.  I presume he uses it as a private desk for his papers.”

“Does he leave the key with you when he goes from home?”

“This is the first time he has left home for more than a few weeks since he brought this gem from the East.  I must write to him about the key before he sails.  He has it on his watch-chain.”

The same curiosity which, in ages long past, prompted the discovery of the Eleusinian or Cabiri mysteries now suddenly took possession of Edna, as she looked wonderingly at the shining fagade of the exquisite Taj Mahal, and felt that only a promise stood between her and its contents.

Escaping to her own room, she proceeded to secrete the troublesome key, and to reflect upon the unexpected circumstances which not only rendered it her duty to pray for the wanderer but necessitated her keeping always about her a souvenir of the man whom she could not avoid detesting, and was yet forced to remember continually.

On the following day, when she went to her usual morning recitation, and gave the reason for her absence, she noticed that Mr. Hammond’s hand trembled, and a look of keen sorrow settled on his face.

“Gone again! and so soon!  So far, far away from all good influences!”

He put down the Latin grammar and walked to the window, where he stood for some time, and when he returned to his armchair Edna saw that the muscles of his face were unsteady.

“Did he not stop to tell you good-bye?”

“No, my dear, he never comes to the parsonage now.  When he was a boy, I taught him here in this room, as I now teach you.  But for fifteen years he has not crossed my threshold, and yet I never sleep until I have prayed for him.”  “Oh!  I am so glad to hear that!  Now I know he will be saved.”

The minister shook his gray head, and Edna saw tears in his mild blue eyes as he answered: 

“A man’s repentance and faith can not be offered by proxy to God.  So long as St. Elmo Murray persists in insulting his Maker, I shudder for his final end.  He has the finest intellect I have ever met among living men; but it is unsanctified—­worse still, it is dedicated to the work of scoffing at and blaspheming the truths of religion.  In his youth he promised to prove a blessing to his race and an ornament to Christianity; now he is a curse to the world and a dreary burden to himself.”

“What changed him so sadly?”

“Some melancholy circumstances that occurred early in his life.  Edna, he planned and built that beautiful church where you come on Sabbath to hear me preach, and about the time it was finished he went off to college.  When he returned he avoided me, and has never yet been inside of the costly church which his taste and his money constructed.  Still, while I live, I shall not cease to pray for him, hoping that in God’s good time he will bring him back to the pure faith of his boyhood.”