“No, Mr. Brown, not if I judged for myself:  but I think God has especial care of those, who, like me, have none else to guide them; and I think this voice in my heart is the surest teaching of all.”

The profound conviction of her tone was final; the simple faith of her argument was unassailable:  and Mr. Brown, skillful polemic that he was, found himself silenced.

After a moment, he said calmly,—­

“Dora, you will not forget that this is, to me at least, a very serious, indeed a vital matter.  Is what you have just said the solemn conviction of your own heart? or have you suffered yourself to be misled by the tendency to self-esteem and perverseness I have sometimes had occasion to reprove in you?  Have you thoroughly searched your own heart to its deepest depths? and is not your refusal tinctured by the natural reluctance of a determined nature to yield to a love, which, in woman, must bring with it some degree of dependence and deference?”

He looked almost severely into the pale face and earnest eyes upraised to his, and read there pain, anxiety, an humble appeal, but not one trace of hesitation, not one shade of duplicity.

“I have searched my own heart, Mr. Brown; and I am sure of its answer.  I never, never, can be your wife, so long as we both live.”

“That is sufficient, Dora.  I am rightly punished for building my hopes and my happiness upon the sandy foundations of an earthly love.  They perish, and leave me desolate; but, among the ruins, I yet can say, ‘It is rightly and justly done.’”

The bitter pain in his voice pierced to Dora’s very heart, and wounded it almost as sorely as she had wounded his.  The rare tears overflowed her eyes; and, pressing close to his side, she laid a hand upon his own, saying,—­

“Oh, forgive me!-say you forgive me!  Indeed, I must do and say what conscience bids me, at all cost.”

“It is not for me to gainsay such a precept as that,” said the chaplain.

“But I will come to you, and live as long as you want me.  I will be everything but wife.  Say I may do this, or I shall never forgive myself.  Say I may make some amends for the pain I have given you.”

The young man laughed bitterly, then, turning suddenly, seized both her hands, and looked deep into her eyes.

“My poor child,” cried he, “my innocent lamb, who turns from the shepherd because she will not be guided, and yet is all unfit to guide herself!  Do not even you, Dora, guileless and unworldly as you are, see how impossible it would be for a young and beautiful girl to live with a man who admires and loves her openly, without such scandal, as should ruin both in the world’s eyes, even if they saved their own souls unspotted?”

Dora snatched away her hands, and her whole face flamed with a sudden shame.

She was learning fast to-day in the book of human passion, suffering, and sin.

Without comment upon her embarrassment, the chaplain went on:—­