into the ocean.

He had lived in foreign lands far from his birthplace, but the purpose
to return ever dwelt pleasurably in his mind. But how could he cross
the gulf that yawned between him and the faith of his childhood? Was
there really anything beyond that gulf save what the credulous
imagination had created? Instinctively he felt that there was, for he
was honest enough with himself to remember that his scepticism was the
result of an evil life and the influence of an unbelieving world,
rather than the outcome of patient investigation. The wish was father
to the thought.

Yet sweet, unfaltering, and clear as the voice of faith ever should
be, the hymn went forward in the room below, his memory supplying the
well-known words that were lost from remoteness:--

"When mine eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown."

"Oh, when!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "What shall be my experience then?
If I continue to fail in health as I have of late I shall know
cursedly soon. That must be Miss Walton singing. Though she does not
realize it, to me this is almost as cruel mockery as if an angel sang
at the gates of hell."

The music ceased, and the monotone of one reading followed.

"Family prayers as of old," he muttered. "How everything conspires to-
day to bring my home-life back again! and yet there is a fatal lack of
something that is harder to endure than the absence of my own kindred