me back to me as you lay there in the early
morning light. I thought how I had kissed you--how pale and gray and
thin you looked. Oh, how I loathed myself! That I should think it could
be God's will that I should leave you, or torture you, my poor husband!
I had not only been wicked toward you--I had offended Christ. I
could think of nothing as I lay there--again and again'--but "_Little
children, love one another; Little children, love one another._" Oh,
my beloved'--and she looked up with the solemnest, tenderest smile,
breaking on the marred, tear-stained face--'I will never give up hope,
I will pray for you night and day. God will bring you back. You cannot
lose yourself so. No, no! His grace is stronger than our wills. But
I will not preach to you--I will not persecute you--I will only live
beside you--in your heart--and love you always. Oh how could I--how
could I have such thoughts!'

And again she broke off, weeping, as if to the tender, torn heart the
only crime that could not be forgiven was its own offence against love.
As for him he was beyond speech. If he had ever lost his vision of God,
his wife's love would that moment have given it back to him.

'Robert,' she said presently, urged on by the sacred yearning to heal,
to atone, 'I will not complain--I will not ask you to wait. I take your
word for it that it is best not, that it would do no good. The only hope
is in time--and prayer. I must suffer, dear, I must be weak sometimes;
but oh, I am so sorry for you! Kiss me, forgive me, Robert; I will be
your faithful wife unto our lives' end.'

He kissed her, and in that kiss, so sad, so pitiful, so clinging, their
new life was born.

CHAPTER XXX.

But the problems of these two lives was not solved by a burst
of feeling. Without that determining impulse of love and pity in
Catherine's heart the salvation of an exquisite bond might indeed have
been impossible. But in spite of it the laws of character had still to
work themselves inexorably out on either side.

The whole gist of the matter for Elsmere lay really in this
question--Hidden in Catherine's nature, was there, or was there not, the
true stuff of fanaticism? Madame Guyon left her infant children to the
mercies of chance, while she followed the voice of God to the holy
war with heresy. Under similar conditions Catherine Elsmere might have
planned the same. Could she ever have carried it out?

And yet the question is still ill-stated. For the i