So the matter was delayed, but not for long. For the Soul grew unhappy with the weight of a matter withheld from the clear light of the Word, and a mist rose between it and the face of Christ. Any sorrow could be borne rather than lose vision of His face, and Winifred brought her cause at last with sobs and tears to the feet of Him who had been crucified, determined that His word should end the case at any cost. Then she searched the Book with what result each Bible student knows. She found permission for a Christian's marriage "in the Lord." But the whole testimony of the Scripture frowned darkly upon a yoking together with unbelievers; and what yoke was closer than the one she contemplated?
The Spirit said amen; and Winifred remembered how all her interviews with George Frothingham had left her not helped at all in the way of the spirit, but rather hindered. What would be a lifelong fellowship? She cast to the winds all thought of inaugurating a dubious mission for the young man's salvation through means of a forbidden fellowship, and so the Soul, led by the Spirit, took wood and fire and repaired to the mount of sacrifice.
The decisive evening came, and Frothingham, never more elegant nor more winning, appeared. He was not dismayed by Winifred's unusual constraint, for he had noticed a growing shyness and drew his own happy conclusion from it. He had brought a roll of music—a new love song, into which he poured the richness of his mellow voice while Winifred accompanied him. But her fingers trembled over the keys and she struck a false note occasionally.
Later they were standing beneath the chandelier, the light falling upon
Winifred's pale face, as she answered words he had been speaking.
"No, I cannot marry you," she said, and her voice shrank from the words as ranch for the pain they must cause him as for her own. "It is impossible."
His handsome face clouded with surprise and alarm. He pleaded, expostulated, reasoned, but in vain. Winifred was firm, and a certain womanly dignity hid the grief that she felt, lest its display should afterward bring humiliating regret. She told him as clearly as she could the reason why she could not become his wife, and to his unspiritual judgment it seemed a petty cause. He was accustomed to seeing a type of religion that could exist in harmony with the world, and he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had become uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her being the best of wives to a worldly man like himself. They need not quarrel about it. As to any scruples that might be entertained in her conscientious little head about all the gaiety he cared for, he inwardly credited himself with skill to overcome them when once she should be his. But Winifred made it clear to him at last that the matter was unmistakably and finally settled, and deep was his chagrin. Wounded pride rose with a sense of his rejection, and he straightened his fine figure in haughty coldness.
"Very well," he said. "I must abide by your decision, and we will part."
"We shall still be friends?" she asked timidly.
He did not look at the little hand she outstretched. "If we cannot be more than friends, we must be less now," he answered coldly.
He bade her an abrupt good-night and she watched him depart. Still standing where he had left her she looked through the graceful palms that from their setting of marble partially veiled the drawing-room from the hall and saw him standing, never so handsome as now in his pale sternness, fastidiously drawing on his gloves according to his wont.