She paused. "I have learned so much since—since then."
He looked up with a groan, and put a finger on her lips. "You are feeling bitterly sorry for me," she said. "But you must let me speak—that is all I ask. It is all love asks. I cannot bear that you should not share my thoughts. That is the thing that has hurt—hurt so all these months, these long hard months, when I could not see you, and did not know why I could not. Don't shake so, please! Hear me to the end, and we shall both be the better after. I felt it all so cruelly, because I did not—and I do not—understand. I rebelled, but not against you. I rebelled against myself, against what you called Fate. Fate is one's self, what one brings on one's self. But I had faith in you—always—always, even when I thought I hated you."
"Ah, hate me! Hate me! It is your loving that cuts me to the quick," he said. "You have the magnanimity of God."
Her eyes leapt up. "'Of God'—you believe in God!" she said eagerly. "God is God to you? He is the one thing that has come out of all this to me." She reached out her hand and took her Bible from a table. "Read that to yourself," she said, and, opening the Book, pointed to a passage. He read it:
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
thou?
And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid,
because I was naked; and I hid myself.
And He said, Who told thee that thou wart naked? Hast thou eaten of
the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Closing the Book, Charley said: "I understand—I see."
"Will you say a prayer with me?" she urged. "It is all I ask. It is the only—the only thing I want to hurt you, because it may make you happier in the end. What keeps us apart, I do not know. But if you will say one prayer with me, I will keep on trusting, I will never complain, and I will wait—wait."