And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly travel had yet to be washed away.
"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he asked himself. "Will a life that began in such darkness ever rise to the light which is her natural element? If she is taken, and I stay behind, and bear my burden patiently in the hope to follow her, will there not be a gate closed against me in the skies, beyond which I shall see her, shining among her kindred spirits, in the white robes of perfect innocence? Ah, my love, my love, as between us on this earth must for ever be a gulf your pure soul cannot pass, so between us in the skies will rise a barrier to sever me from your sweet company!"
The thought of probable separation upon earth, of possible separation in heaven, was too bitter to him.
"I will not think of these things," he said to himself; "I will not believe in that possibility of this sacrifice. Ah, no! she will be saved. Against the bright young life the awful fiat has not gone forth. Providence has been with me to-day. Providence will go with me till the end."
He thought how other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point—the pivot on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress. And the end? What was the goal towards which those dark relentless shapes were moving?
He thought of Rousseau, balancing the awful question of his soul's salvation—his poor weak soul adrift upon a sea of doubt.
"Behold yonder tree which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of my destiny—the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss—O awful, overwhelming possibility!—my name will blaze upon that dreadful scroll which numbers the damned."
Happily the tree is bulky, and within but a few yards of the speculator; and the great enigma of the Calvinistic church is answered in favour of Madame de Warenne's protégé, whose propensities and proclivities at that period did not very strongly indicate his claim to a place among the elect.
Valentine remembered the sortes Virgilianæ—the Wesleyan's drawing of inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some answer—a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,—some temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an 'Æneid,'" he said to himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the first book I can put my hand upon, and from the first line my eye falls on will draw an augury."
He looked about the room. Behind the glazed doors of the mahogany bookcase appeared Hume and Smollett, Scott and Shakespeare; and conspicuous among these a handsome family Bible. But the glazed doors were locked. In Mr. Sheldon's study there appeared to be no other books than these few standard works. Yes, on some obscure little shelves, low down in one of the recesses formed by the projection of the fireplace and the chimney, there were three rows of large quarto volumes, in dingy dark-green cloth cases.