Christ touching with a divine finger his ears, his eyes, and saying, "Be open"? Was the hand of Christ about to loose his burden, and take it away from him for ever?

He felt the wooing of the gilded branches and the singing of the birds through every nerve; but he could not break through the unseen barrier stretching between him and them, which he had himself erected in his despair. Until this hour he had not wished to pass beyond it. There was the lost paradise, but he had never turned longing eyes upon the cherubim and the flaming sword which kept the gates. He did so now; he desired ardently to cross the boundary; but whenever he thought of quitting the familiar portico, his feeble limbs trembled, and his sight grew dim. He wished he had brought Hester with him, that he might have leaned upon her arm, and gathered courage from the tender serenity of her face. The passers-by stared curiously at him; but they were few, and did not long interrupt his thoughts. Yet he grew ashamed of being seen there; and when some children turned riotously out of the court opposite, he resolved to retrace his steps homeward,

He said never a word to Hester when he re-entered; but he went back to his old armchair and set a book open before him, and ran his paper-knife along the lines, as if, like a child, it was needful to keep the place where he was reading by pointing to it. The depths had closed over him again, after parting and giving him a brief glance of something brighter rising above them. He was laid once more in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

What his eyes read he did not know, though the lamp lighted up the page clearly. Hester went in and out, uttering no word to disturb him; but at last he felt her hand upon his shoulder, and he raised his dim despairing face to hers. Her eyelids were red with many tears, and her lips trembled as she spoke very slowly and distinctly, as though what she was about to say would astonish and perplex him.

Father," she said, "do you think you could do without me for a day or two? I must go to London."

"To London!" he repeated, yet with no more than a vague listless surprise, amounting almost to indifference, in his manner.

"Yes," she replied. "I cannot tell you why

now, but you shall know some day. Carl has written for me to go there quickly. I must go to-morrow morning."

Her abrupt sentences were spoken with difficulty and deliberation, but he scarcely noticed her agitation. He always left Hester to her own judgment, and he did not think of demanding any explanation from her. The authority of a father over a daughter had never been assumed by him, and he had no energy to assume it now.

"I shall see Carl there, perhaps," she said, as if to reassure herself and him; "but I shall come home on Monday. I must be at home again on Monday. To-morrow is Saturday, you know, so there will be only Sunday between. I have given Jane all the directions she needs, and Lawson's mother will come down to stay with her. You will not see either of them. It will be exactly the same as if I was here, only I shall be away.'

She spoke, however, in a tone of much trouble and anxiety, and her eyes wore a look of uncertainty.

"I am going to see some one who is ill," she continued, and John Morley shrank painfully

from her.

"You are willing for me to go ?

You can trust me to do what is right? You will say, 'God bless and with you

go

you, "Ah!" he answered, putting his arm round her neck, and drawing down her face to his, "I could trust you with my own soul, Hester. Do what seems good in your sight, and God bless you and be with you always, my daughter."

"Father," she said eagerly, "I wish I dare tell you all now. Is there anything I must not speak of yet?"

He fell back from her again, holding up his hand, with a gesture of terror. He knew well how he had poured out his heart before her during his illness, but he had drawn into himself once more; and he could not bear to listen to any reference to the past from her lips. Spare me," he entreated, "at least to-day. When you come back,-when you have been to London and seen her, perhaps then—if she is dead-you may tell me all."

She longed to dis

Again Hester hesitated. burden her mind of the secret which had weighed heavier since Carl left, but she dared not. She saw that her father believed her journey to London was to see Rose, and to see

her as one about to die; and yet there was no softening of his voice or face as he spoke of her. It would be impossible to confess the whole to him at the very moment when she was about to be absent from home. She must wait till the right time came for her to give him the explanation she had promised. Her absence would be but a short one; it could be but short, for there was urgent need for her constant presence at home.