"Mr. Schöninger," she exclaimed, "can you for one instant believe that I would be the wife of a man who scorns as an impostor him whom I adore as a God?"
"I could not scorn where you adore," he replied. "The mistake is not yours, and the imposture is not his. I find him good, and noble, and sweet, and lovely almost beyond human loveliness. Do you forget that he also was a Jew? All that you see in the Son, and the saint, and the apostle I see in God. These beings you honor are but scattered rays of the great Luminary. We are not so different as we appear."
"You believe in the God who created, and loved, and preserved," she said; "but you do not believe in the God who loved even unto death. My God has suffered for me. The difference is infinite. It cannot be set aside. The memories that pierce my heart leave you unmoved. The Shepherd who went in search of his lost sheep you know nothing of. The despised and rejected One weeping over Jerusalem you care nothing for. That humility, so astounding and so touching, of a God making himself small enough for me to possess; what is it to you? Nothing but a stumbling-block. Is your God a Father in heaven?"
Mr. Schöninger was standing now, and his earnestness was fully equal to Honora's. "My God is a father, and more than a father," he said; "and he is pitiful to his children, even while he afflicts them. I see in him the beneficent Provider, who every day for his children works miracles greater far than those recorded in the New Testament. He renews the seasons, the light. Every day is a creation. He gives us the fruits of the earth. He lavishes beauty everywhere to please us. He sees men unmindful of the laws which he wrote on the tables of their hearts, and yet he pities and spares them. Oh! I am talking to the wind!"
"It is indeed useless for us to talk on this subject, Mr. Schöninger," Honora said firmly.
He stood a moment leaning against the side of the window where she sat, and looking down at her face, that showed pale even in that dim light. "You reject me only because I am a Jew?" he asked. "Pardon me!" for she had made a slight movement of displeasure. "Do not forget that I love you. Is that no claim on your kindness?"
"I do not feel any unkindness for you; but since you are not a Christian, I cannot tell how I would feel if you were one."
The reply sounded cold.
Mr. Schöninger bowed, with an immediate resumption of ceremony. "I have, then, only to ask your pardon for having intruded a disagreeable subject on you," he said. "Good-evening!"
She watched him going out, and saw that at the gate he was joined by F. Chevreuse, who was just returning home from a sick-call.