But the chaplain, gazing down upon the sweet, upturned face, glowing with a beauty which surely was of heaven itself, turned away his eyes in unspeakable agony. His heart was not yet ready for the sacrifice, and his whole nature rose in rebellion against the taking up of this cross, from which his secret reason and conscience told him there was no escape. Alone he must wrestle, as she had done in her own first agony, ere he could say he was willing to bid farewell to the earthly treasure his hand had so nearly grasped, and to which his heart clung with only the greater tenacity because of its own wearisome struggles--struggles never confessed to her he loved, but which had already torn his heart for many a day in the past months with their perplexing conflict; the intense love, which bade him at any price seek to make his new-found treasure his own, warring secretly with the oft-recurring dread lest this earthly love should tempt him to forsake that special work he had vowed to God as a free-will offering--that work so sorely needed among His outcast and suffering ones, yet so little recognised by the world, or even by his brother clergy, and which might bring upon him sore obloquy and grievous trial, hard to bear for himself, and which his soul had shrunk from asking a loved one to share with him. And then that yet sorer struggle waged between his own heart and that cruel burden of the curse, which had for a time stood before him as insuperable a barrier between himself and happiness as it now stood before her he loved! But for Rhiwallon and his firm assurance, even Lady Bryn Afon's pleadings and tears would not have moved him to confess his love, but, while loving Primrose with a deep, unalterable devotion, he would have kept his secret for ever buried in his own breast, pursuing alone till death his solitary course and combat with evil. Now that in his perfect confidence in the physician's judgment he had long since forgotten these past grievous struggles of the soul, and that the ever-deepening knowledge of Shanno's perfect sympathy and deep affection, which, through good report and ill, would keep her ever at his side, had long made him feel with heartfelt thankfulness that his decision had been well, the sudden blow fell with unutterable agony, and crippled every thought but the one which echoed with passionate cry through every fibre of his being--"I cannot give her up! I cannot drink this bitter cup--take up this heavy cross--it is impossible!" "Primrose," he said, after a long silence, during which she had waited in agony for his next words, "Primrose, I cannot answer you now. I must be alone with God, and pray Him to vouchsafe me that calmness of spirit in which alone I can judge rightly. My brain whirls, and my heart is sick with pain. Shanno, Shanno," and his face grew yet whiter in sudden agony, "you have not ceased to love me? I can bear all but that!"