ee to grasp each other, and our lips free to
kiss;--a heaven, but still a heaven of this world, in which we can
hang upon each other's necks and be warm to each other's hearts. That
is to be, to her, the reward of her innocence, and in the ecstacy of
her faith she believes in it, as though it were here. I do think,--I
do think,--that if I told her that it should be so, that I trusted to
renew my gaze upon her beauty after a few short years, then she would
be happy entirely. It would be for an eternity, and without the fear
of separation."

"Then why not profess as she does?"

"A lie? As I know her truth when she tells me her creed, so would she
know my falsehood, and the lie would be vain."

"Is there then to be no future world, Lord Hampstead?"

"Who has said so? Certainly not I. I cannot conceive that I shall
perish altogether. I do not think that if, while I am here, I can
tame the selfishness of self, I shall reach a step upwards in
that world which shall come next after this. As to happiness,
I do not venture to think much of it. If I can only be somewhat
nobler,--somewhat more like the Christ whom we worship,--that will
be enough without happiness. If there be truth in this story, He was
not happy. Why should I look for happiness,--unless it be when the
struggle of many worlds shall have altogether purified my spirit? But
thinking like that,--believing like that,--how can I enter into the
sweet Epicurean Paradise which that child has prepared for herself?"

"Is it no better than that?"

"What can be better, what can be purer,--if only it be true? And
though it be false to me, it may be true to her. It is for my sake
that she dreams of her Paradise,--that my wounds may be made whole,
that my heart may be cured. Christ's lesson has been so learned by
her that no further learning seems necessary. I fancy sometimes that
I can see the platform raised just one step above the ground on which
I stand,--and look into the higher world to which I am ascending. It
may be that it is given to her to look up the one rung of the ladder
by mounting which she shall find herself enveloped in the full glory
of perfection."

In conversations such as these Mrs. Roden was confounded by the depth
of the man's love. It became impossible to bid him not be of a broken
heart, or even to allude to those fresh hopes which Time would bring.
He spoke to her often of his future life, always speaking of a life
from which Marion would have