Oh, Helen, why can't you be like other women?
Why do you have to think about beliefs?
Your mother never doubted things; why do you?
Isn't it enough that older and wiser people than you do not question the faith ?" At the last moment he begged her to accompany him.

"Together, we can bring the man to his senses," he pleaded, and he secretly thought that not even the hardness and heartlessness of John Ward could withstand the sorrow in her face.

But she refused to consider it.
"Have you no message for him ?" he asked.
"No," she answered.
"Sha'n't I tell him how you--miss him, Helen ?" A light flashed across her face, but she said simply, "John knows," and her uncle had to be content with that.
Dr.Howe grew more intolerant with each mile of his journey.

Every incident touched him with a personal annoyance at the man he was going to see.

The rattling, dingy cars on the branch railroad afflicted him with an irritated sense of being modern; the activity about the shabby station jarred upon his remembrance of Ashurst's mellow quiet; the faces of the men in the lumber-yards, full of aggressive good-nature, offended his ideas of dignity and reserve.