Would it be too much trouble for you to come in at night
sometimes, like my father did?" he asked timidly.

"But I am not like your father," she answered. "I could not say 'God
bless you' in the same way. You must ask God yourself for His
blessing."

For Felicita's soul had been thrust down into the depths of darkness.
Her early training had been simply and solely for this world: how to
make life here graceful and enjoyable. She could look back upon none but
the vaguest aspirations after something higher in her girlhood. It had
been almost like a new revelation to her to see her mother-in-law's
simple and devout piety, and to witness her husband's cheerful and manly
profession of religion. This was the point in his character which had
attracted her most, and had been most likely to bind her to him. Not his
passionate love to herself, but his unselfishness toward others, his
apparently happy religion, his energetic interest in all good and
charitable schemes--these had reconciled her more than anything else to
the step she had taken, the downward step, in marrying him.

This unconscious influence of Roland's life and character had been
working secretly and slowly upon her nature for several years. They
were very young when they were married, and her first feeling of
resentment toward her own family for pressing on the marriage had at the
outset somewhat embittered her against her young husband. But this had
gradually worn away, and Felicita had never been so near loving him
heartily and deeply as during the last year or two, when it was evident
that his attachment to her was as loyal and as tender as ever. He had
almost won her, when he staked all and lost all.

For now, she asked herself, what was the worth of all this religion,
which presented so fair a face to her? She had a delicate sense of honor
and truthfulness, which never permitted her to swerve into any byways of
expediency or convenience. What use was Roland's religion without
truthfulness and honor? She said to herself that there was no excuse for
him even feeling tempted to deal with another man's property. It ought
to have been as impossible to him as it was impossible to her to steal
goods from a tradesman's counter. Was it possible to serve God--and
Roland professed to serve Him--yet cheat his fellow-men? The service of
God itself must then be a vanity--a mere bubble, like all the other
bubbles of life.

It had never been her habit to speak out her