to tell him there was only one thing left to us, and (as much
for myself as for him) I did my best to picture the spiritual heights
and beauties of renunciation.

"Does that mean that we are to . . . to part?" he said. "You going your
way and I going mine . . . never to meet again?"

That cut me to the quick, so I said--it was all I could trust myself to
say--that the utmost that was expected of us was that we should govern
our affections--control and conquer them.

"Do you mean that we are to stamp them out altogether?" he said.

That cut me to the quick too, and I felt like a torn bird that is
struggling in the lime, but I contrived to say that if our love was
guilty love it was our duty to destroy it.

"Is that possible?" he said.

"We must ask God to help us," I answered, and then, while his head was
down and I was looking out into the darkness, I tried to say that though
he was suffering now he would soon get over this disappointment.

"Do you _wish_ me to get over it?" he asked.

This confused me terribly, for in spite of all I was saying I knew at
the bottom of my heart that in the sense he intended I did not and could
not wish it.

"We have known and cared for each other all our lives, Mary--isn't that
so? It seems as if there never was a time when we didn't know and care
for each other. Are we to pray to God, as you say, that a time may come
when we shall feel as if we had never known and cared for each other at
all?"

My throat was fluttering--I could not answer him.

"_I_ can't," he said. "I never shall--never as long as I live. No
prayers will ever help me to forget you."

I could not speak. I dared not look at him. After a moment he said in a
thicker voice:

"And you . . . will you be able to forget _me_? By praying to God will
you be able to wipe me out of your mind?"

I felt as if something were strangling me.

"A woman lives in her heart, doesn't she?" he said. "Love is everything
to her . . . everything except her religion. Will it be possible--this
renunciation . . . will it be possible for you either?"

I felt as if all the blood in my body were running away from me.

"It will not. You know it will not. You will never be able to renounce
your love. Neither of us will he able to renounce it. It isn't possible.
It isn't human. . . . Well, what then? If we continue to love each
other--you here and I down there--we shall be just as guilty in the eyes
of the Church, shan't we?"

I d