"It isn't my old associations, or my early training, or anything belonging to me. It isn't me at all. It is just His Voice calling me. Can't you understand, Alan? It is not I who am doing it all—it is He."
There was a short silence, and then Tremaine said—
"But I thought you loved me?"
"I thought so too, but perhaps I was wrong; I don't know. All I know is that this new feeling is stronger than any feeling I ever had before; and that I can not give up my religion, whatever it may cost me."
"I will not marry a woman who believes in the old faith."
"And I will not marry a man who does not."
Alan's voice grew hard. "I don't believe you ever loved me," he complained.
"I don't know. I thought I did; but perhaps I knew as little about love as you know about religion. Perhaps I shall find a real love some day which will be as different from my friendship for you as this new knowledge is different from the religion that Cousin Maria taught me. I'm very sorry, but I can never marry you now."
"You would have given up your religion fast enough if you had really cared for me," sneered Tremaine.
Elisabeth pondered for a moment, with the old contraction of her eyebrows. "I don't think so, because, as I told you before, it isn't really my doing at all. It isn't that I won't give up my religion—it is my religion that won't give up me. Supposing that a blind man wanted to marry me on condition that I would believe, as he did, that the world is dark: I couldn't believe it, however much I loved him. You can't not know what you have once known, and you can't not have seen what you have seen, however much you may wish to do so, or however much other people may wish it."