"Of course you did, and you must take the consequences of your own handiwork; it is too late to undo it now. Don't try to comfort me, even if you can drug yourself, with fairy-tales about meeting Willie again. I shall never see my little child again in this life, and there is no other."
"You are wrong; believe me, you are wrong." And Alan's brow was damp with the anguish of his soul.
"It is only what you taught me. But because you took my faith away from me, it doesn't follow that you can give it back to me again; it has gone forever."
"Oh, Felicia, Felicia, may God and you and Willie forgive me, for I can never forgive myself!"
"I can not forgive you, because I have nothing to forgive; you did me no wrong in opening my eyes. And God can not forgive you, because there never was a God; so you did Him no wrong. And Willie can not forgive you, because there is no Willie now; so you did him no wrong."
"My dearest, it can not all have gone from you forever; it will come back to you, and you will believe as I do."
Felicia shook her head. "Never; it is too late. You have taken away my Lord, and I know not where you have laid Him; and, however long I live, I shall never find Him again."
And she went out of the room in the patience of a great despair, and left her husband alone with his misery.
On this side of the hills, alas! Unrest our spirit fills; For gold, men give us stones and brass-- For asphodels, rank weeds and grass-- For jewels, bits of coloured glass-- On this side of the hills.
The end of July was approaching, and the season was drawing to a close. Cecil Farquhar and Elisabeth had seen each other frequently since they first met at the Academy _soirée_, and had fallen into the habit of being much together; consequently the thought of parting was pleasant to neither of them.
"How shall I manage to live without you?" asked Cecil one day, as they were walking across the Park together. "I shall fall from my ideals when I am away from your influence, and again become the grovelling worlding that I was before I met you."
"But you mustn't do anything of the kind. I am not the keeper of your conscience."
"But you are, and you must be. I feel a good man and a strong one when I am with you, and as if all things were possible to me; and now that I have once found you, I can not and will not let you go."