‘No, no! I doubt you? Never!’
‘But you hesitate; you reflect. Speak out.’
‘God forbid I should utter a word which would induce you to disbelieve what you know to be right. It is much more important to believe earnestly that something is morally right than that it should be really right, and he who attempts to displace a belief runs a certain risk, because he is not sure that what he substitutes can be held with equal force. Besides, each person’s belief, or proposed course of action, is a part of himself, and if he be diverted from it and takes up with that which is not himself, the unity of his nature is impaired, and he loses himself.’
‘Which is as much as to say that the prophet is to break no idols.’
‘You know I do not mean that, and you know, too, how incapable I am of defending myself in argument. I never can stand up for anything I say. I can now and then say something, but, when I have said it, I run away.’
‘My dearest Clara,’ Madge put her arm over her sister’s shoulder as they sat side by side, ‘do not run away now; tell me just what you think of me.’
Clara was silent for a minute.
‘I have sometimes wondered whether you have not demanded a little too much of yourself and Frank. It is always a question of how much. There is no human truth which is altogether true, no love which is altogether perfect. You may possibly have neglected virtue or devotion such as you could not find elsewhere, overlooking it because some failing, or the lack of sympathy on some unimportant point, may at the moment have been prominent. Frank loved you, Madge.’
Madge did not reply; she withdrew her arm from her sister’s neck, threw herself back in her chair and closed her eyes. She saw again the Fenmarket roads, that summer evening, and she felt once more Frank’s burning caresses. She thought of him as he left St Paul’s, perhaps broken-hearted. Stronger than every other motive to return to him, and stronger than ever, was the movement towards him of that which belonged to him.
At last she cried out, literally cried, with a vehemence which startled and terrified Clara,—