"Some weeks ago, one of his elders came to him and told him I was spreading heresy in the church, and damning my own soul and the souls of others who might come to believe as I did,--you know I told Mrs.
Davis that her husband had not gone to hell,--and he reproached John for neglecting me and his church too; for John, to spare me, had not preached as he used to, on eternal punishment.

It almost killed him, uncle," she said, and her voice, which had given no hint of tears since her return, grew unsteady.

"Oh, he has suffered so! and he has felt that it was his fault, a failure in his love, that I did not believe what he holds to be true." "Heavens!" cried the rector explosively, "heresy?
Is this the nineteenth century ?" "Since I have been away," Helen went on, without noticing the interruption, "they have insisted that I should be sessioned,--dealt with, they call it.

John won't let me come back to that; but if that were his only reason, we could move away from Lockhaven.

He has a nobler reason: he feels that this unbelief of mine will bring eternal misery to my soul, and he would convert me by any means.