"It is,—it is," said the older man, his mild eyes glistening; "but oh, Archibald, how he loves her!"
"Loves her?" cried the other two together.
"Yes," continued Mr. Dale slowly; "one feels as if we ought not even to discuss it, for we are scarcely capable of understanding it. The place whereon we stand is holy ground."
"Henry," said his wife, "there's no fool like an old fool. You don't know what you are talking about."
But when Dr. Howe, softening a little since Mr. Dale did not abuse John Ward, said he must tell Helen that,—it would please her,—Mrs. Dale begged him to do nothing of the sort.
"It would be just like her to consider the whole affair a unique mode of expressing affection. We had better try to show her it is a disgrace to the family. Love, indeed! Well, I don't understand love like that!"
"No," Mr. Dale responded, "no, I suppose not. But, my dear, don't you wish you did?"
When Dr. Howe told Helen of his plan of going to Lockhaven, she tried to show him that it was useless; but as she saw his determination, she ceased to oppose him. She would have spared John if she could (and she knew how impossible it was that the rector could move her husband), yet she felt that her family had a right to insist upon a personal explanation, and to make an effort, however futile, to induce her husband to take her home. In the mean time, they waited for an answer to the rector's letter. Helen had written, but she knew no answer would come to her. She understood too well that sweet and gentle nature, which yielded readily in small things, and was possessed of invincible determination in crises, to hope that John could change. Yet she had written; she had shared her hopelessness as well as her grief with him, when she told him how impossible it was for her to think as he did. She showed how fast and far she had drifted into darkness and unbelief since she had left him, yet she held out no hope that a return to him could throw any light into those eternal shadows. "I understand it all," she had written, stopping to comfort him even while she told him how futile was his pain and hers, "and oh, how you must suffer, my darling, but it cannot be helped unless you free yourself from your convictions. Perhaps that will come some time; until then, you can only be true to yourself. But I understand it all,—I know."
Those days of waiting were hard to bear. The distance between her uncle and herself had suddenly widened; and she could not see that beneath his irritation there was really a very genuine sympathy.
She had vaguely hoped that Lois would comfort her, for one turns instinctively in grief to the nearest loving thing, and she knew her cousin loved her. Yet Lois had not been able to understand, and Helen would hear no words of sympathy which were not as much for John as for herself.