“Quite useless, as I feared, Mr. Parr.  Do you know why Alison is willing to marry me?  It is because the strength has been given me to oppose you in the name of humanity, and this in spite of the fact that her love for you to-day is greater than it has ever been before.  It is a part of the heavy punishment you have inflicted on yourself that you cannot believe in her purity.  You insist on thinking that the time will come when she will return to you for help.  In senseless anger and pride you are driving her away from you whom you will some day need.  And in that day, should God grant you a relenting heart to make the sign, she will come to you,—­but to give comfort, not to receive it.  And even as you have threatened me, I will warn you, yet not in anger.  Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God, nor understand the motives of those who would enter into it.  Seek and pray for repentance.”

Infuriated though he was, before the commanding yet compassionate bearing of the rector he remained speechless.  And after a moment’s pause, Hodder turned and left the room . . . .

III

When Hodder had reached the foot of the stairs, Alison came out to him.  The mourning she wore made her seem even taller.  In the face upturned to his, framed in the black veil and paler than he had known it, were traces of tears; in the eyes a sad, yet questioning and trustful smile.  They gazed at each other an instant, before speaking, in the luminous ecstasy of perfect communion which shone for them, undimmed, in the surrounding gloom of tragedy.  And thus, they felt, it would always shine.  Of that tragedy of the world’s sin and sorrow they would ever be conscious.  Without darkness there could be no light.

“I knew,” she said, reading his tidings, “it would be of no use.  Tell me the worst.”

“If you marry me, Alison, your father refuses to see you again.  He insists that you leave the house.”

“Then why did he wish to see you?”

“It was to make an appeal.  He thinks, of course, that I have made a failure of life, and that if I marry you I shall drag you down to poverty and disgrace.”

She raised her head, proudly.

“But he knows that it is I who insist upon marrying you!  I explained it all to him—­how I had asked you.  Of course he did not understand.  He thinks, I suppose, that it is simply an infatuation.”

In spite of the solemnity of the moment, Hodder smiled down at her, touched by the confession.

“That, my dear, doesn’t relieve me of responsibility.  I am just as responsible as though I had spoken first, instead of you.”

“But, John, you didn’t—?” A sudden fear made her silent.

He took her hand and pressed it reassuringly.

“Give you up?  No, Alison,” he answered simply.  “When you came to me, God put you in my keeping.”

She clung to him suddenly, in a passion of relief.