Christine raised her head and answered with a very noble look of pride:
“I do.”
Her companion seemed to be surprised, and a faint shade of disapproval crossed her face.
“I know it,” said Christine. “I know he did not say too much when he spoke those blessed words to you and said I was stainless. God saw my heart through everything and He knows that it is so, but the world thinks otherwise. The world, and his own family, perhaps, would think your son lowered and dishonored by marrying me, and I never could consent to go among the people who could think it; so, if he married me, he would not only have to bear this odium, but to give up too, forever, his home and relatives, and friends and country, and it was for these reasons I refused to marry him—not for an instant because I felt myself unworthy.”
It was plain that these earnest words had moved her companion deeply, and that she felt a desire to hear more.
“Tell me the whole story,” she said. “This you have promised to do, and you have made me eager to hear it. Remember how little I have been told. I do not even know your name.”
With the full gaze of her sorrowful eyes upon the elder woman’s face, she said quietly:
“My name is Christine.”
There was an infinite proud calm in her voice, and in the same tone she went on:
“I bore throughout my childhood and my young girl days another name that seems in no sense to belong to me now. That child and girl, Christine Verrone, is not in any way myself. It seems only a sweet memory of a dear young creature, nearer akin to the birds, and the winds, and the flowers than to me. I cannot feel I ought to take her name, and pass myself for her. For three years I bore another name, but it is one my very lips refuse to utter now, and I never had a right to it. The one name that I feel is really mine is just Christine—the name that was given to the little baby, on whose forehead the sign of the cross was made soon after she came into this sad world, to taste of its most awful sorrow and to grow into the woman that I am. I have always loved it, because, in sound, it seemed to bring me near to Christ—the dear Christ who has never forsaken me since I have borne His sign, who has been through all my loving, dear Brother, knowing and understanding all and grieving that I had to suffer so. He is with me still. He will stay with me if I have to give up earthly love and all that can make life happy. I know He has let it all happen to me, and that it must be for my good. I know I am as pure in His eyes as when I was that little baby, baptized in His name, bearing the humanity He bore. You may decide my earthly happiness as you choose. I am not comfortless. I know now the extent of His perfect power to comfort, since I find that He can support me through the supreme trial of giving up the man I love. It is in our darkest hour He comes closest,” she said, as if in a sort of ecstasy. “He is here right with me now, strengthening and blessing me. I can feel His hands on my head. They actually press and touch me.”