"It is not pretence, Raoul, but a deep and, I fear, a painful reality."
"To think that a girl so frank, with a heart so tender, and a soul so true, will allow any secondary thing to divide her from the man of her choice!"
"It is not a secondary, but a primary thing, Raoul; oh! that I could make thee think so. The question is between thee and God--were it aught else, thou might'st indeed prevail."
"Why trouble thyself about my religion at all? Are there not thousands of wives who tell their beads, and repeat their aves, while their husbands think of anything but heaven? Thou and I can overlook this difference; others overlook them, and keep but one heart between them still. I never would molest thee, Ghita, in thy gentle worship."
"It is not thou that I dread, Raoul, but myself," answered the girl, with streaming eyes, though she succeeded in suppressing the sobs that struggled for utterance. "'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' they say; how could a heart that was filled with thee find a place for the love it ought to bear the Author of its being? When the husband lives only for the world, it is hard for the wife to think of heaven as she ought."
Raoul was deeply touched with the feeling Ghita betrayed, while he was ready to adore her for the confiding sincerity with which she confessed his power over her heart. His answer was given with seductive tenderness of manner, which proved that he was not altogether unworthy of the strange conflict he had created in so gentle a breast.
"Thy God will never desert thee, Ghita," he said; "thou hast nothing to fear as my wife, or that of any other man. None but a brute could ever think of molesting thee in thy worship, or in doing aught that thy opinions render necessary or proper. I would tear the tongue from my mouth, before reproach, sneer, or argument should be used to bring thee pain, after I once felt that thou leanedst on me for support. All that I have said has come from the wish that thou would'st not misunderstand me in a matter that I know thou think'st important."
"Ah, Raoul, little dost thou understand the hearts of women. If thy power is so great over me to-day as almost to incline me from the most solemn of all my duties, what would it become when the love of a girl should turn into the absorbing affection of a wife! I find it hard, even now, to reconcile the love I bear to God with the strong feeling thou hast created in my heart. A year of wedded life would endanger more than I can express to you in words."
"And then the fear of losing thy salvation is stronger than thy earthly attachments?"
"Nay, Raoul, it is not that. I am not selfish or cowardly, as respects myself, I hope; nor do I think at all of any punishment that might follow from a marriage with an unbeliever; what I most apprehend is being taught to love my God less than I feel I now do, or than, as the creature of his mercy, I ought."