Annie looked disappointed. She had hoped for a better result from her earnest words than a compliment and a little curiosity as to herself. But she met him in his own apparent mood, and said, "Now see how easily imposed upon your sceptical people are! I could palm myself off, like Portia, as a Daniel come to judgment, and by a little discreet silence gain a blue halo as a woman of deep research and profound reading. Just the contrary is true. I am not a very great reader on any subject, and certainly not on theology and kindred topics. The fact is I am largely indebted to my father. He is interested in the subjects and takes pains to explain much to me that would require study; and since mother died he has come to talk to me very much as he did to her. But it seems to me that all I have said is very simple and plain, and you surely know that my motive was not to air the little instruction I have received."

Gregory's policy forsook him as he saw her expression of disappointment; and as he looked at her flushed and to him now lovely face, acting upon a sudden impulse he asked, "Won't you please tell me your motive?"

His manner and tone convinced her in a moment that he was more moved and interested than she had thought, and answering with a like impulse on her part, she said, frankly, "Mr. Gregory, pardon me for saying it, but from the very first day of your visit it seemed clear to me that you were not living and feeling as those who once made this your home could wish, and the thought was impressed upon me, impressed strongly, that perhaps God had sent you in your feeble health and sadness (for you evidently were depressed in mind also), to this place of old and holy memories, that you might learn something better than this world's philosophy. I have hoped and prayed that I might be able to help you. But when to-day," she continued, turning away her head to hide the rising tears, "I showed such miserable weakness, I felt that you would never listen to me again on such subjects, and would doubt more than ever their reality, and it made me very unhappy. I feel grateful that you have listened to me so patiently. I hope you won't let my weakness hurt my cause. Now you see what a frank, guileless conspirator I am," she added, trying to smile at him through her tears.

While she spoke Gregory bent upon her a look that tried to search her soul. But the suspicious man of the world could not doubt her perfect sincerity. Her looks and words disclosed her thought as a crystal stream reveals a white pebble over which it flows. He stepped forward and took her hand with a pressure that caused it pain for hours after, but he trusted himself to say only, "You are my good angel, Miss Walton. Now I understand your influence over me," and then abruptly left the room.

But he did not understand her influence. A man seldom does when he first meets the woman whose words, glances, and presence have the subtle power to fill his thoughts, quicken his pulse, stir his soul, and awaken his whole nature into new life. He usually passes through a luminous haze of congeniality, friendship, Platonic affinity, or even brotherly regard, till something suddenly clears up the mist and he finds, like the first man, lonely in Eden, that there is but one woman for him in all the world.

Gregory was in the midst of the cloud, but it seemed very bright around him as he paced his room excitedly.

CHAPTER XXIII

GREGORY'S FINAL CONCLUSION IN REGARD TO MISS WALTON

Annie Walton was now no longer an enigma to Gregory. He had changed his views several times in regard to her. First, she was a commonplace, useful member of the community, in a small way, and part of the furniture of a well-ordered country-house—plain furniture too, he had said to himself. But one evening in her company had convinced him that such a Miss Walton was a fiction of his own mind, and he who had come to regard average society girls as a weariness beyond endurance was interested in her immediately.

Then her truth and unselfishness, and the strong religious element in her character, had been a constant rebuke to him, but he had soothed himself with the theory that she differed from others only in being untempted. He then had resolved to amuse himself, ease his conscience, and feed his old grudge against her sex, by teaching the little saint that she was only a weak, vain creature. Yet she had sustained not only his temptations, but another ordeal, so searching and terrible that it transformed her into a heroine, a being of superior clay to that of ordinary mortals. "It's her nature to be good, mine to be bad," he had said; "I'm a weed, she is a flower." But Annie herself had rudely dispelled this illusion.