“I will wed none other,” said Gabriel, passionately, and, finding the discussion intolerable, he rose to go.
The doctor put a little packet into his hand. “It is for you,” he said. “Courage, lad! After all, the Bishop can but enforce a certain time of waiting on you if you are true to each other.”
The words carried some comfort with them, and hope rose again in his heart as he strode hurriedly through the garden to the south walk, where he eagerly opened the packet directed to him in Hilary’s somewhat laboured handwriting. The moon had just risen, and by its soft light he saw a curl of dark hair tied with a narrow ribbon, on which some letters were traced. With no little difficulty he made out the motto, “All goeth but Godde’s will.”
The message brought him fresh courage. It seemed to put everything in a true light. After all, what were differences of opinion on religious matters when words such as these could be their mutual comfort? He had never troubled to think whether they differed or not. The mere fact that the Bishop was one of the Laudian prelates, and that his father objected to the tendency to revert to Mediævalism in the English Church, could not surely affect the question of his marriage with Hilary? It was sheer nonsense to think that such a thing could part them when they were united already by love, and by trust in the Divine will, which could not fail. So, although he was sore-hearted and downcast, he was far from hopeless, and after a while was ready to throw himself with ardour into his father’s plans for his future.
CHAPTER V.
Let my voice swell out through the great abyss
To the azure dome above,
With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss: