Where was Sybil?—awake, perhaps, with a lighted lamp, wrestling between the one love of her heart and the pride of life.
And where was God? Did He hear me? Would He hear? And the cry came again, wrung from my very life as if I must have help.
"Help me, Jesu Christ! I have no help. I can do nothing. I can even think of nothing. I can bear no more. Help me, not because I deserve help, but because I want Thee!"
And the darkness went on, and the quiet beats of the water-clock, and the low, musical cry of the watchmen outside; and the clang of arms as they changed guard: but no holy angel came down from Heaven to tell me that my prayer was heard, and that it should be to me even as I would.
Was there no help?—was there no hope?—was there no God in Heaven?
Oh, it cannot, cannot be that she will decide against him! Yet Lady Judith thinks she will. I cannot imagine why. Our own sweet Sybil, to whom he has seemed like the very life of her life! No, it can never be true! She will never, never give him up.
CHAPTER XIII.
WAITING FOR THE INEVITABLE.
"Oh, hard to watch the shore-lights,
And yet no signal make!
Hardest, to him the back on Love,
For Love's own blessed sake!
For me the darkness riseth,
But not for me the light;
I breast the waters' heaving foam
For love of Love, to-night."
She has given him up,—my Guy, my hero, my king of men!