“If faith and those unseen things in which that pure girl believes, which are to her the greatest realities of life, are nothing but a myth, a figment of the imagination, what gives them such power over a nature like mine? Why do I thrill at the thought of them? Why do I see glimpses, as through a rifted cloud, of a glory, a beauty, a peace beyond anything I have ever conceived? Why, even by the teachings of my own philosophy, the fact of this stirring of spirit indicates a reality of some sort. And is there, after all, nothing higher than philosophy? Is there no object of objective worship? Is there, after all, a God?” Little did Bride suspect the quick stirrings of spirit her words had evoked. She walked on, with her sweet face set in earnest lines, thinking of Saul and his grandfather’s ceaseless prayers on his behalf, praying herself for him in a half-unconscious fashion, as was her habit when thoughts of the erring one presented themselves. Her mind was more with him just at that moment than with the kinsman behind her, with whom, however, thoughts of Saul were always more or less mixed up; therefore the question, when it came, did not in any wise startle her. “Bride, do you mean that you ever pray for me?” “Yes, Eustace. I always pray for those whom I love, and for those who seem to need my prayers.” He was silent for several minutes, and then his thoughts surging back to a question that had been on the tip of his tongue before, he asked, “Bride, you said I could not teach Saul to be a truly happy man. Do you think that I am not a happy man myself?” “Not a truly happy one,” she answered, with quiet certainty. “I believe you are happy in one way--in the world’s way. But that is not what I mean by true happiness. There is another happiness I hope you will learn some day--I think you will; and then you will understand. I do not think you can understand yet.” He was not sure that he could not. He remembered the Duchess in former years; he had Bride before his eyes now. Even old Abner, in the midst of all his trouble, showed a substratum of unchanging serenity which nothing seemed able to shake. He believed he apprehended without understanding what manner of thing this happiness was--a thing altogether different from and independent of the fluctuations of enjoyment and pleasure which went by the name of happiness in his world. Eustace was receiving impressions just now with a force and a rapidity that was startling to him. Every day something seemed added to his list of experiences, and not the least was the peculiar wave of emotion that swept over him now.