--your equal. And his love transcended the lies that
love itself on its lower plane had prompted. He reached the place where
he could no longer lie to you. And then, though his whole future
happiness depended on one more lie, he spoke the truth."

Rachel put out her hand as if to ward off what was coming.

"And how did you meet him the first time he spoke the truth to you?"
continued the Bishop, inexorably. "You say you loved him, and yet--you
spurned him from you, you thrust him down into hell. You stooped to him
in the beginning. He was nothing until your fancied love fell upon him.
And then you break him. It is women like you who do more harm in the
world than the bad ones. The harm that poor fool Lady Newhaven did him
is as nothing compared to the harm you have done him. You were his god,
and you have deserted him. And you say you loved him. May God preserve
men from the love of women if that is all that a good woman's love is
capable of."

"I can do nothing," said Rachel, hoarsely.

"Do nothing!" said the Bishop, fiercely. "You can do nothing when you
are responsible for a man's soul God will require his soul at your
hands. Scarlett gave it into your keeping, and you took it. You had no
business to take it if you meant to throw it away. And now you say you
can do nothing!"

"What can I do?" said Rachel, faintly.

"Forgive him."

"Forgiveness won't help him. The only forgiveness he would care for is
to marry me."

"Of course. It is the only way you can forgive him."

Rachel turned away. Her stubborn, quivering face showed a frightful
conflict.

The Bishop watched her.

"My child," he said, gently, "we all say we follow Christ, but most of
us only follow him and his cross--part of the way. When we are told that
our Lord bore our sins, and was wounded for our transgressions, I
suppose that meant that He felt as if they were His own in His great
love for us. But when you shrink from bearing your fellow-creature's
transgressions, it shows that your love is small."

Rachel was silent.

"If you really love him you will forgive him."

Rachel clinched and unclinched her hands.

"You are appealing to a nobility and goodness which are not in me," she
said, stubbornly.

"I appeal to nothing but your love. If you really love him you will
forgive him."

"He has broken my heart."

"I thought that was it. It is yourself you are thinking of. But what is
he suffering at this moment? You do not know or care.