“There is no unequal yoking in it that I see,” he returned.  “In the matter of faith, what is there to choose between them?  I see nothing.  They may carry the yoke straight enough.  If there be one of them further from the truth than the other, it must be the one who says, I go sir, and goes not.  Between don’t believe and don’t care, I don’t care to choose.  Let them marry and God bless them.  It will be good for them—­for one thing if for no other—­it is sure to bring trouble to both.”

“Indeed, Mr. Wingfold!” returned Helen playfully.

“So that is how you regard marriage!—­Sure to bring trouble!”

She laid her head on his shoulder.

“Trouble to every one, my Helen, like the gospel itself; more trouble to you than to me, but none to either that will not serve to bring us closer to each other,” he answered.  “But about those two—­well, I am both doubtful and hopeful.  At all events I can not wish them not to marry.  I think it will be for both of them a step nearer to the truth.  The trouble will, perhaps, drive them to find God.  That any one who had seen and loved our Lord, should consent to marry one, whatever that one was besides, who did not at least revere and try to obey Him, seems to me impossible.  But again I say there is no such matter involved between them.—­Shall I confess to you, that, with all her frankness, all her charming ways, all the fullness of the gaze with which her black eyes look into yours, there is something about Juliet that puzzles me?  At times I have thought she must be in some trouble, out of which she was on the point of asking me to help her; at others I have fancied she was trying to be agreeable against her inclination, and did not more than half approve of me.  Sometimes, I confess, the shadow of a doubt crosses me:  is she altogether a true woman?  But that vanishes the moment she smiles.  I wish she could have been open with me.  I could have helped her, I am pretty sure.  As it is, I have not got one step nearer the real woman than when first I saw her at the rector’s.”

“I know,” said Helen.  “But don’t you think it may be that she has never yet come to know any thing about herself—­to perceive either fact or mystery of her own nature?  If she is a stranger to herself, she cannot reveal herself—­at least of her own will—­to those about her.  She is just what I was, Thomas, before I knew you—­a dull, sleepy-hearted thing that sat on her dignity.  Be sure she has not an idea of the divine truth you have taught me to see underlying creation itself—­namely, that every thing possessed owes its very value as possession to the power which that possession gives of parting with it.”

“You are a pupil worth having, Helen!—­even if I had had to mourn all my days that you would not love me.”

“And now you have said your mind about Juliet,” Helen went on, “allow me to say that I trust her more than I do Faber.  I do not for a moment imagine him consciously dishonest, but he makes too much show of his honesty for me.  I can not help feeling that he is selfish—­and can a selfish man be honest?”