back on his memory,
and recalled, as if they had been in a book, the daily problems with
which he was so well acquainted. As for Gerald, he bowed his head a
little, with a kind of reverence, as if he had been bowing before the
shrine of a saint.

"I have had a happy life," said the elder brother. "I have not been
driven to ask such questions for myself. To these the Church has but
one advice to offer: Trust God."

"We say so in England," said Frank Wentworth; "it is the grand scope
of our teaching. Trust God. He will not explain Himself, nor can we
attempt it. When it is certain that I must be content with this answer
for all the sorrows of life, I am content to take my doctrines on the
same terms," said the Perpetual Curate; and by this time they had come
to Miss Wentworth's door. After all, perhaps it was not Gerald, except
so far as he was carried by a wonderful force of human sympathy and
purity of soul, who was the predestined priest of the family. As he
went up to his own room, a momentary spasm of doubt came upon the new
convert--whether, perhaps, he was making a sacrifice of his life for a
mistake. He hushed the thought forcibly as it rose; such impulses were
no longer to be listened to. The same authority which made faith
certain, decided every doubt to be sin.

CHAPTER XLI.

Next morning the Curate got up with anticipations which were far from
cheerful, and a weary sense of the monotony and dulness of life. He had
won his little battle, it was true; but the very victory had removed
that excitement which answered in the absence of happier stimulations to
keep up his heart and courage. After a struggle like that in which he
had been engaged, it was hard to come again into the peaceable routine
without any particular hope to enliven or happiness to cheer it, which
was all he had at present to look for in his life; and it was harder
still to feel the necessity of being silent, of standing apart from Lucy
in her need, of shutting up in his own heart the longing he had towards
her, and refraining himself from the desperate thought of uniting his
genteel beggary to hers. That was the one thing which must not be
thought of, and he subdued himself with an impatient sigh, and could not
but wonder, as he went down-stairs, whether, if Gerald had been less
smoothly guided through the perplexing paths of life, he would have
found time for all the difficulties which had driven him to take refuge
in Rome. It was