as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from
the beginning."

Justin's grasp on the latch tightened as he prepared to close the door
and leave the place, but his instinct did not warn him quickly enough,
after all, for, obeying some uncontrollable impulse, Nancy suddenly fell
on her knees in the pew and buried her face in the cushions.

The dream broke, and in an instant Justin was a man--worse than that, he
was an eavesdropper, ashamed of his unsuspected presence. He felt
himself standing, with covered head and feet shod, in the holy temple of
a woman's heart.

But his involuntary irreverence brought abundant grace with it. The
glimpse and the revelation wrought their miracles silently and
irresistibly, not by the slow processes of growth which Nature demands
for her enterprises, but with the sudden swiftness of the spirit. In an
instant changes had taken place in Justin's soul which his so-called
"experiencing religion" twenty-five years back had been powerless to
effect. He had indeed been baptized then, but the recording angel could
have borne witness that this second baptism fructified the first, and
became the real herald of the new birth and the new creature.




CHAPTER VII


Justin Peabody silently closed the inner door, and stood in the entry