She laughed and sighed. “Yes—I mean yee—indeed, it does! I was just thinking, Lewis, we’ve been married ten years!”
“No, eight years. We were married just eight years,” he said, soberly.
The color flew into her face. “Oh, yee; we were married eight years when I came in.”
He looked at her with great tenderness. “Athalia, I have to confess to you that when you came I didn’t think it would last with you. I distrusted the Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, as you know. But now I begin to think you were led—and perhaps you have led me.”
Athalia gave a little gasp—“WHAT!”
“I am not sure yet,” he said.
“You said Shakerism was unhuman!” Athalia protested, with a thrill of panic in her voice.
“Ah!” he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, “you know what Nathan is always saying?—‘That’s not against it’? Athalia, its unhumanness, as you call it, is why I think it may be of God. The human in us must give way to the divine. ‘First that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.’”
“I—don’t understand,” she said, faintly; “you are not a Shaker?”
“No,” he said, “not yet. But perhaps some day—I am trying to follow you, Athalia.”