"Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," he said to himself.
To his mind, Helen's lack of belief in certain doctrines--for it had
hardly crystallized into unbelief--was sin; and sin was punishable by
eternal death. Here was his escape from conscience. Should this sweet
soul, that he loved more than his own, be lost? No; surely, it was a
sacred right and duty to win her heart and marry her, that he might take
her away from the atmosphere of religious indifference in which she
lived, and guide her to light and life.

Love won the day. "I will save her soul!" he said to himself; and with
this purpose always before him to hide a shadow, which whispered,--so he
thought,--"This is a sin," he asked her to be his wife.

He did not have to plead long. "I think I have always loved you," Helen
said, looking up into his eyes; and John was so happy that every thought
of anxiety for her soul was swallowed up in gratitude to God for her
love.

It was one midsummer afternoon that he reached Ashurst; he went at once
to the rectory, though with no thought of asking Dr. Howe's permission to
address his niece. It seemed to John as though there were only their two
souls in the great sunny world that day, and his love-making was as
simple and candid as his life.

"I've come to tell you I love you," he said, with no preface, except to
take her hands in his.

He did not see her often during their engagement, nor did he write her of
his fears and hopes for her; he would wait until she was quite away from