“I shall feel it most,” said Constance, referring to his intended departure on the morrow.
“These words,” he returned, “will be a comfort to me when I am back in London, after the peaceful days we have spent together.”
“You needed this holiday more than any of us, Harold. I am glad it has given you fresh strength for your sad toiling life in town.”
“Not sad, Constance, so long as I have your sympathy.”
“You know that you always have that. It is little to give when I think of all you were to me—to us, at that dark period of our life.” She turned her face from him.
“Do you call it little, Constance?” He spoke with an intensity of feeling that made his voice tremble. “It is inexpressibly dear to me; it sweetens existence; without it I know that my life would be dark indeed.”
“Dark, Harold! For me, and all who think with me, there is nothing to guide but the light of nature that cannot satisfy you—that you regard as a pale false light; it is not strange, therefore, that we make so much of human sympathy and affection—that it sustains us. But if there is any reality in that divine grace supposed to be given to those who are able to believe in certain things, in spite of reason, then you are surely wrong in speaking as you do.”
Her earnestness, a something of bitterness imparted into her words, seemed strange, considering that as a rule she avoided discussions of this kind. Now she appeared eager for the fray; but it was a fictitious eagerness, a great fear had come into her heart, and she was anxious to turn the current of his thoughts from personal and therefore dangerous subjects.
“I do not know—I cannot say,” he returned, evading the point. “I only know that we are no longer like soldiers in opposing camps. Perhaps I have had some influence on you—everything we do and say must in some degree affect those around us. I know that you have greatly changed me. Your words, and more than your words, the lesson of your life, has sunk into my heart, and I cannot rebuke you. For though you have not Christ's Name on your lips, the spirit which gives to the Christian religion its deathless vitality is in your soul, and shines in your whole life.”
They walked on in silence, he overcome with deep feeling, she unable to reply, still apprehending danger. Then sinking his voice, he said: