"No, Evelyn! Not that--I have been weak, culpable, a coward--fearing to ask lest from your own lips I get confirmation of the worst."
Mrs. Thorpe felt that her husband had thrust her suddenly outside the pale of his sympathy. The hope in her heart grew cold and all her glad words that she had been ready to speak deserted her; yet she answered bravely:
"This is no evil thing that has come into my life, you need not dread or fear it." Then, more eagerly: "Oh, Maurice, can you not see that it has restored my health, taken away my infirmities, blessed my life and made me whole?" The flood-gates were opened and the fullness of her soul poured forth. "It is the Truth that has made me free; there is no real power in the world save God's power. There is a better conception of life than that which admits sickness and disease to be real and powerful. Have not we to-day the same Savior who walked the Galilean shore healing all forms of sin and sickness? God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Is not our Christ just as tender, as compassionate, as able, now as then?" She stopped at the sight of her husband's face. The light had gone out of it; it was grim and set.
"That which I feared has come upon me," he said. "I had hoped that this folly of yours might pass; I have prayed daily that you might be delivered from this fallacy, and restored to the fold; but I see that you have gone from me--gone from me, from my church and my God."
Mrs. Thorpe had felt sure that her husband would not approve of her new belief, and in her darkest moments she had feared that by confessing to him the change that had come into her life, the perfect trust and confidence between them might be broken. But what was this that his words portended? Gone from his church--his God--from him! Was there anything--anything on earth or in Heaven that could compensate her for this? Yet with the question still passionate in her soul she realized that were it possible, for the sake of the mortal love her soul so craved, for her to deny her conception of the Infinite, she could never retrace her steps. With her own free hand she had torn down the old relationship between herself and her husband. For the moment she felt that she had plucked from its stem the fairest flower that ever blossomed; now it must wither and die, no power on earth could prevent it.
The glistening sunlight radiated sparks of living fire, then reeled in darkness. Suddenly she found herself as one who departs on a strange, new road, and finds all other paths barred and blocked. A tremor shook her form and her breath came with a sob. Even though she find that the night awaits her in Gethsemane and Calvary looms on before, she must go on--but not alone--she has beside her One whose feet had passed that way before.
Her husband sat before her with bowed head.
"Maurice," she said gently, yet with the keenness of her heart's pain in her voice, "the sternest judge does not condemn without a hearing, much less should you who have always been kind and just condemn me before you have investigated the views I hold."
"I have no desire to investigate your views, Evelyn. This assertion that you have made, that a weak and sinful human being has power to overcome sickness and disease, is placing mortals on a level with the Son of God and is a defamation of the very character of God Himself. I would have given my life for you rather than that you should have embraced so heretical and blasphemous a doctrine. Yet even though this cup prove more bitter than I can bear; even though it blights my life and destroys my affection, I will not ask you to spare me now. I desire to know how far you have gone--I would like to know how far you are from me."
Mrs. Thorpe felt herself alone; her isolation closing in about her. Never before had her husband thrust her from him, never before had he been unsympathetic and unkind. Then the thought came to her that in all the years of her married life she had never before arrayed herself in open opposition to him; and she realized now, for the first time, that although she had loved this man she had also feared him with an awful, shrinking fear. Now she felt that he had not only thrust her from him, but that he had aimed deliberately to pain and wound her, and with this thought a new element sprang to life within her--a dauntless, unflinching courage.