"How could I have ever dreamed that I loved before, oh, my dearest!"
"I can scarcely answer that question; but we all know how tempting a bait is beauty of person to you lords of the creation—is it not so? But time wears, and I have much to say before we reach the hotel. You have told me all your feelings on religion. Another would shudder at such a disclosure, and perhaps be scared from loving so daring a spirit; but I must love you, whatever be your faults. I believe I almost love your faults themselves, because they prove what the strength and grandeur of your character is; but I do shudder for you! How fearful it would be to think of such a soul as yours lost for all eternity, and like this glorious sun above us only shedding forth the rays of its light and power for a few short hours on earth, then setting into darkness, but unlike the material sun, never to rise again. This must not, shall not be if power or prayer of mine can aught avail!"
Her face flushed and her eyes lit up with the light of that long concentrated love which now burst its bonds. To Mr. Earnscliffe it was irresistible. He clasped her round the waist, drew her to him, and—let Bulwer speak for us—"and still and solitary deepened the mystic and lovely night around them. How divine was that sense and consciousness of solitude! How, as it thrilled within them, they clung closer to each other! Theirs was that blissful time, when the touch of their hands clasped together was in itself a happiness of emotion too deep for words!"
At length Flora said, as she walked on with his arm still encircling her waist, "Yes, I do hope that I may help you more than any theologian to reach the one great source of truth. Let me say a few words of my own experience.... Like you, when at school I delighted in study, and enjoyed being first among my companions. This, added to a cold although invariably polite manner, caused me to be looked upon by the rest as proud and haughty, setting myself apart from them. But I was indifferent to others; study and the approbation of one of my mistresses, whom I dearly loved, were everything to me, and as far as it went, I was perfectly happy within those dear convent walls. My sorrow at leaving them was great; but I could not spend my life there. I too one day awoke from a dream of careless, thoughtless happiness. That day came when I left school to enter upon a young lady's inane existence. I felt, as Schiller says, that 'empty occupation cannot fill the soul's void; there is a deeper happiness, there are other joys!' Balls, visits, promenades and needle-work—what could they give to satisfy the heart or the mind? The people whom I met in society wearied me; I longed for something different. Then I sought for rest and contentment in religion, but I found them not; and weary of the present and dreading the future, I too asked, 'Can life be a gift? Where am I to find the justice and goodness of God of which I am told? Is it not He who has made me what I am, and why, why render me incapable of finding contentment in the ordinary occupations of those with whom He chose to cast my fate?' All the other stumbling-blocks to human reason—predestination, the origin of evil—followed in the train of these thoughts; I was on the verge of losing all faith; but grace and the teaching of one of God's own ministers, one to whom I must ever owe the deepest gratitude, saved me. He showed me the evidences and truth of the Fall of man—that key to all knowledge of him; he proved to me the existence of a Divine teaching Authority, by which man could learn his end, and the means of attaining it; he made me see how absurd was the attempt of finite reason to measure itself with the Infinite; and he summed up all in these words, as he pointed to the crucifix, 'Will you refuse to believe in the goodness of Him who gave his only Son to die on a Cross for your sake? And, trusting to that goodness, can you not wait patiently until the few short years of life shall be over, and all shall be made clear as noonday to you? On the other hand, if you will not wait, if you refuse to submit your reason, what will you gain? You say that you are not happy now: will it make you happier not to believe in eternal happiness, and throw away all hope of attaining it?'... How true was all this! I could not doubt the life or divinity of our Saviour: history itself proves it too clearly; then how could I deny the great testimony of love given in His Crucifixion? Again and again recurred to me that question: 'What will you gain if you refuse to submit your reason?' Nothing, absolutely nothing: nay, more, I began to see that to dwell on these subjects, which are above, not against, human reason, could only lead to misery and perhaps to madness; and I determined to question no more, but to believe.... 'Easier said than done,' perhaps you will answer.... True, it is easier said than done, but at least it is possible in the only religion which bears the impress of Divine foundation, the only religion which dares to attribute to itself the delegated authority of God, and say, 'So far and no farther shalt thou go.'... Study that religion, examine the proofs upon which its authority rests; but you must go to that study, that examination, with the full determination that as soon as you recognise its Divine foundation, you will trust to faith, and not to finite reason. I know it will ever be rebelling, but those rebellions must be crushed down with a firm hand. We cannot all be simple loving disciples like little Marie, but we can do our utmost, and say, 'My God, I am what Thou hast made me; accept then what I can give Thee.'"
She ceased speaking, and for a few moments they both remained silent; then Mr. Earnscliffe said gravely, "I will make the examination which you desire, with all earnestness and sincerity, and God only knows how I have longed for truth and certainty; but I could not venture to give you much hope that your wishes and my own will be crowned with success; nevertheless, you have done more towards making me a believer, my Flora, than any theologian, even though you admit that your mode of persuasion is second-hand; but you speak from your own feelings and experience, and not from theory, and with such an advocate how could I reason coldly?"
A look of love so inexpressibly tender rested on Flora, that her heart thrilled again with the intensity of her happiness. But at this moment they caught sight of a figure coming along the shady walk, now dimly lighted by the pale rays of the rising moon, and Flora gently disengaged herself from Mr. Earnscliffe's encircling arm. The approaching figure turned out to be Marie, who, as soon as she saw them, cried out, "Where are you gone? You have been so long time, Mrs. Adair is tired waiting you."
Flora could not think of any answer to give, but Mr. Earnscliffe said with mock gravity, "It is not at all wonderful, Mademoiselle, that we have been a long time coming, for we have had such a fall; and if I could only tell you what we fell into, you would not be astonished at our delay."
"Oh! vraiment," said little simple Marie, "I am so sorry; I hope Flore has not done herself harm. Relate me all that please."
"Never mind him, Mignonne; it is not true," said Flora, as well as she could speak from laughing.
Something, a nameless look about them both, suddenly struck her, and she exclaimed, "J'y suis maintenant, he means that—as you other English say—you have had a fall into love."