rawn you near. I have been so--so silent, so shut up, I
have never tried to make you feel what it was kept _me_ at His feet! Oh,
Rose darling, you think the world real, and pleasure and enjoyment real.
But if I could have made you see and know the things I have seen up
in the mountains--among the poor, the dying--you would have _felt_
Him saving, redeeming, interceding, as I did. Oh, then you _must_, you
_would_ have known that Christ only is real, that our joys can only
truly exist in Him. I should have been more open--more faithful--more
humble.'

She paused with a long quivering sigh. Rose suddenly lifted herself, and
they fell into each others' arms.

Rose, shaken and excited, thought, of course, of that night at Burwood,
when she had won leave to go to Manchester. This scene was the sequel to
that--the next stage in one and the same process. Her feeling was much
the same as that of the naturalist who comes close to any of the hidden
operations of life. She had come near to Catherine's spirit in the
growing. Beside that sweet expansion, how poor and feverish and
earth-stained the poor child felt herself!

But there were many currents in Rose--many things striving for the
mastery. She kissed Catherine once or twice, then she drew herself back
suddenly, looking into the other's face. A great wave of feeling rushed
up and broke.

'Catherine, could you ever have married a man that did not believe in
Christ?'

She flung the question out--a kind of morbid curiosity, a wild wish to
find an outlet of some sort for things pent up in her, driving her on.

Catherine started. But she met Rose's half-frowning eyes steadily.

'Never, Rose! To me it would not be marriage.' The child's face lost its
softness. She drew one hand away.

'What have we to do with it?' She cried. 'Each one for himself.'

'But marriage makes two one,' said Catherine, pale, but with a firm
clearness. 'And if husband and wife are only one in body and estate, not
one in soul, why who that believes in the soul would accept such a bond,
endure such a miserable second best?'

She rose. But though her voice had recovered all its energy, her
attitude, her look was still tenderness, still yearning itself.

'Religion does not fill up the soul,' said Rose slowly. Then she added
carelessly, a passionate red flying into her cheek, against her will,
'However, I cannot imagine any question that interests me personally
less. I was curious what you would say.