given anything to make him speak! How strange and perplexed and dismayed
her brain was! Love! Yes; she wanted love! God knew she wanted love such
as his was--for he had shown her what love, free from abasing passion,
in its purest sense, was. Like a glimpse of glory, hallowed, full of
wondrous amazement, it came to her--and then her head was lowered, and
the whiteness was upon her face again.

He had halted suddenly and detained her with his hand upon her arm--with
that touch, so full of reverence, of fine deference, that had thrilled
her before--that thrilled her now, awakening into fuller life these new
emotions whose birth was in gladder, sweeter, purer aspirations.

"Miss Vail," he said, in a low voice, "there was a letter--a letter that
Naida left--did you know of it?"

They were close together, and it was very dark--but was it dark enough
to hide the crimson that she felt sweeping in a flood to her face! What
was in that letter? Had Mrs. Thornton written as she had talked, or only
about the Patriarch and the work in Needley? She had forgotten for the
moment about the letter--if there were more in it than that, if it were
about Thornton and herself and what Mrs. Thornton had hoped for between
them, and she admitted knowledge of it, what would he think, what
_could_ he think of her! But to deny it--no, not now. Once, and this
came to her in a little thrill of gladness, she would not have
hesitated; but now it--it was--it was not that world of yesterday.

"Yes," she said faintly; "she told me that she had left a letter for
you."

"It was about the work here," said Thornton gently. "Her whole soul