"I had rather you wore this than a ring of gold," he said, "for there is part of my soul in this iron. I have made it in spite of my blindness, because I had the will to do so. The whole metal is full of my purpose, which tinctures it as wine stains water; and with it goes my resolve that you shall be mine altogether in heart and soul, in love as well as in pity, for now and for all eternity. You will wear that on your finger, the finger that has a nerve leading from the heart. Stretch out your hand, Glory, and let me put it on. Stretch out your hand over the hearth, above the fire; our God is a consuming fire, and this is His proper altar."
He stood on one side of the furnace, she on the other; the angry red coals glowed below, and a hot smoke rose from them.
She extended her hand to him, and he grasped it with the left above the fire, and held the steel ring in his right.
"Glory!" he said in a tremulous voice. "At the altar in the church you swore to obey me. In the hall you knelt and swore to cherish me; here, over the fire, the figure of our God, as I put the iron ring on, swear to me also to love me."
She did not answer. She stood as though frozen to ice; with her eyes on the door of the smithy, where stood a figure—the figure of a man.
Suddenly she uttered a piercing cry. "George! my George! my George!" and withdrew her hand from the grasp of Elijah. The iron ring fell from his fingers into the red fire below and was lost.
CHAPIER XXVII
THE RETURN OF THE LOST
Mehalah was clasped in the arms of George De Witt.
"Who is there? Where is he?" shouted Elijah, staggering forward with his great pincers raised ready to strike.
George drew the girl out of the way, and let the angry man burst out of the door and pass, beating the air with his iron tool. He put his arm round her, and led her from
