He lifted her, and was obliged literally to support her.  Her hat had fallen off; he stroked her hair and murmured such comfort to her as we have for children in their extremity, of which the burden is chiefly love and “Don’t cry.”  She grew gradually quieter, drawing one knows not what restitution from the intrinsic in him; but there was no pride in her, and when she said “Let me go home now,” it was the broken word of hapless defeat.  They struggled together out into the boisterous street, and once or twice she failed and had to stop and turn.  Then she would cling to a wall or a tree, putting his help aside with a gesture in which there was again some pitiful trace of renunciation.  They went almost without a word, each treading upon the heart of the other toward the gulf that was to come.  They reached it at the Murchisons’ gate, and there they paused, as briefly as possible, since pause was torture, and he told her what he could not tell her before.

“I have accepted the charge of the White Water Mission Station in Alberta,” he said.  “I, too, learned very soon after I left you what was possible and what was not.  I go as soon as—­things can be set in order here.  Good-bye, my dear love, and may God help us both.”

She looked at him with a pitiful effort at a steady lip.  “I must try to believe it,” she said.  “And afterward, when it comes true for you, remember this—­I was ashamed.”

Then he saw her pass into her father’s house, and he took the road to his duty and Dr Drummond’s.

His extremity was very great.  Through it lines came to him from the beautiful archaic inheritance of his Church.  He strode along hearing them again and again in the dying storm.

   So, I do stretch my hands
      To Thee my help alone;
   Thou only understands
      All my complaint and moan.

He listened to the prayer on the wind, which seemed to offer it for him, listened and was gravely touched.  But he himself was far from the throes of supplication.  He was looking for the forces of his soul; and by the time he reached Dr Drummond’s door we may suppose that he had found them.

Sarah who let him in, cried, “How wet you are, Mr Finlay!” and took his overcoat to dry in the kitchen.  The Scotch ladies, she told him, and Mrs Forsyth, had gone out to tea, but they would be back right away, and meanwhile “the Doctor” was expecting him in the study—­he knew the way.

Finlay did know the way but, as a matter of fact, there had been time for him to forget it; he had not crossed Dr Drummond’s threshold since the night on which the Doctor had done all, as he would have said, that was humanly possible to bring him, Finlay, to reason upon the matter of his incredible entanglement in Bross.  The door at the end of the passage was ajar however, as if impatient; and Dr Drummond himself, standing in it, heightened that appearance, with his “Come you in, Finlay.  Come you in!”