"I want to consult you. Don't you think now that Richard is settled at home, and if Tom will study medicine, that I could be spared."

"Spared!" exclaimed Ethel. "You are not much at home."

"I meant more than my present absences. It is my earnest wish--" he paused, and the continuation took her by surprise. "Do you think it would give my father too much pain to part with me as a missionary to New Zealand?"

She could only gaze at him in mute amazement.

"Do you think he could bear it?" said Norman hastily.

"He would consent," she replied. "Oh, Norman, it is the most glorious thing man can do! How I wish I could go with you."

"Your mission is here," said Norman affectionately.

"I know it is--I am contented with it," said Ethel; "but oh! Norman, after all our talks about races and gifts, you have found the more excellent way."

"Hush! Charity finds room at home, and mine are not such unmixed motives as yours."

She made a sound of inquiry.

"I cannot tell you all. Some you shall hear. I am weary of this feverish life of competition and controversy--"

"I thought you were so happy with your fellowship. I thought Oxford was your delight."

"She will always be nearer my heart than any place, save this. It is not her fault that I am not like the simple and dutiful, who are not fretted or perplexed."

"Perplexed?" repeated Ethel.

"It is not so now," he replied. "God forbid! But where better men have been led astray, I have been bewildered; till, Ethel, I have felt as if the ground were slipping from beneath my feet, and I have only been able to hide my eyes, and entreat that I might know the truth."

"You knew it!" said Ethel, looking pale, and gazing searchingly at him.

"I did, I do; but it was a time of misery when, for my presumption, I suppose, I was allowed to doubt whether it were the truth."

Ethel recoiled, but came nearer, saying, very low, "It is past."

"Yes, thank Him who is Truth. You all saved me, though you did not know it."

"When was this?" she asked timidly.

"The worst time was before the Long Vacation. They told me I ought to read this book and that. Harvey Anderson used to come primed with arguments. I could always overthrow them, but when I came to glory in doing so, perhaps I prayed less. Anyway, they left a sting. It might be that I doubted my own sincerity, from knowing that I had got to argue, chiefly because I liked to be looked on as a champion."

Ethel saw the truth of what her friend had said of the morbid habit of self-contemplation.

"I read, and I mystified myself. The better I talked, the more my own convictions failed me; and, by the time you came up to Oxford, I knew how you would have shrunk from him who was your pride, if you could have seen into the secrets beneath."

Ethel took hold of his hand. "You seemed bright," she said.

"It melted like a bad dream before--before the humming-bird, and with my father. It was weeks ere I dared to face the subject again."

"How could you? Was it safe?"

"I could not have gone on as I was. Sometimes the sight of my father, or the mountains and lakes in Scotland, or--or--things at the Grange, would bring peace back; but there were dark hours, and I knew that there could be no comfort till I had examined and fought it out."

"I suppose examination was right," said Ethel, "for a man, and defender of the faith. I should only have tried to pray the terrible thought away. But I can't tell how it feels."

"Worse than you have power to imagine," said Norman, shuddering. "It is over now. I worked out their fallacies, and went over the reasoning on our side."

"And prayed--" said Ethel.

"Indeed I did; and the confidence returned, firmer, I hope, than ever.

It had never gone for a whole day."

Ethel breathed freely. "It was life or death," she said, "and we never knew it!"

"Perhaps not; but I know your prayers were angel-wings ever round me.

And far more than argument, was the thought of my father's heart-whole Christian love and strength."

"Norman, you believed, all the time, with your heart. This was only a bewilderment of your intellect."

"I think you are right," said Norman. "To me the doubt was cruel agony--not the amusement it seems to some."

"Because our dear home has made the truth, our joy, our union," said Ethel. "And you are sure the cloud is gone, and for ever?" she still asked anxiously.

He stood still. "For ever, I trust," he said. "I hold the faith of my childhood in all its fullness as surely as--as ever I loved my mother and Harry."

"I know you do," said Ethel. "It was only a bad dream."

"I hope I may be forgiven for it," said Norman. "I do not know how far it was sin. It was gone so far as that my mind was convinced last Christmas, but the shame and sting remained. I was not at peace again till the news of this spring came, and brought, with the grief, this compensation--that I could cast behind me and forget the criticisms and doubts that those miserable debates had connected with sacred words."

"You will be the sounder for having fought the fight," said Ethel.

"I do not dread the like shocks," said her brother, "but I long to leave this world of argument and discussion. It is right that there should be a constant defence and battle, but I am not fit for it. I argue for my own triumph, and, in heat and harassing, devotion is lost. Besides, the comparison of intellectual power has been my bane all my life."

"I thought 'praise was your penance here.'"

"I would fain render it so, but--in short, I must be away from it all, and go to the simplest, hardest work, beginning from the rudiments, and forgetting subtle arguments."

"Forgetting yourself," said Ethel.

"Right. I want to have no leisure to think about myself," said Norman.

"I am never so happy as at such times."

"And you want to find work so far away?"

"I cannot help feeling drawn towards those southern seas. I am glad you can give me good-speed. But what do you think about my father?"

Ethel thought and thought. "I know he would not hinder you," she repeated.