“As much as that,” said Helen, “happened to the Founder of the Christian religion. You are presumptuous if you expect anything different.”
“You are right,” answered Bayard, with that instinctive humility which was at once the strongest and the sweetest thing about him. “I accept your rebuke.”
“Oh,” cried Helen, holding out her hands, “I couldn’t rebuke you! I”—she faltered.
“You see,” said Bayard slowly, “that’s just the difference, the awful, infinite difference. All His difficulties were from the outside.”
“How do you know that?” asked Helen quickly.
“I don’t,” replied Bayard thoughtfully. “I don’t know. But I have been accustomed to think so. Perhaps I am under the traditions yet; perhaps I am no nearer right than the other Christians I have separated myself from. But mine, you see—my obstacles, the things that make it so hard—the only thing that makes it seem impossible for me to go on—is within myself. You don’t suppose He ever loved a woman—as I—love you? It’s impossible!” cried the young man. “Why, there are times when it seems to me that if the salvation of the world hung in one scale, and you in the other—as if I—” He finished by a blinding look. Her face drooped, but did not fall. He could see her fingers tremble. “It was something,” he went on dully, “to see you; to know that I—why, all winter I have lived on it, on the knowledge that summer was coming—that you—Oh, you can’t know! You can’t understand! I could bear all the rest!” he cried. “This—this—”
His sentence broke, and was never completed; for Helen looked up into his face. It was ashen, and all its muscles were set like stiffening clay. She lifted her eyes and gave them to him.
“I do understand.... I do,” she breathed. “Would it make you any happier if you knew—if I should tell you—of course, I know what you said; that we can’t ... but would it be any easier if I should tell you that I have loved you all the time?”