He was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had
to bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of
my own crushed and broken heart.

"But one morning--shall I ever forget it?--the door opened, and he,
_he_ came in where I was, and without saying a word, knelt down
by my side, and drew my head forward and laid it on his breast. I
thought at first it was a farewell, and trembled with a secret
anguish that was yet strangely blissful, for did not the passionate
constraint of his arms mean love? But when, after a moment that
seemed a lifetime, I drew back and looked into his face, I saw it
was not a farewell, but a greeting, he had brought me, and that we
had not only got our pastor back to life, but that this pastor was
a lover as well, who would marry the woman he loved.

"And I was right. In ten minutes I knew, that a sudden freak on the
part of the girl he was engaged to had released him, without fault
of his own, and that with this release new life had entered his
veins, for the conflict was over and love and duty were now in
harmony.

"Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect
man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that
was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at
times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical
causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its
strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying
calling. But whatever his weaknesses--and they were very few,--he
was conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men
would be affected but slightly. You can imagine his joy, then, over