Some moments elapsed before Bergan could answer. Compelled by the question to make a sudden, rapid investigation into the deeper things of the heart, he was confounded at the unexpected result. Too truthful, however, to attempt to hide it, he finally answered, thoughtfully;-- "In some measure, I think it is. Miss Thane, did you ever experience quite that deep delight in the presence of a friend, which you sometimes (please remember, I say only, sometimes) derive from the thought of him or her in absence?" She did not answer the question. She only said, in a tone of cool irony;--"You do not flatter your friends, Mr. Arling." But in another moment, she exclaimed, with a sudden, startling intensity of passion and longing;--"Is there, then, _nothing_,--neither love, nor friendship,--absolutely nothing, which answers expectation, and satisfies desire? Horrible, horrible thought!" "I do not think so," replied Bergan, gently; "though I confess that I was troubled, at first, by the necessity of answering your question as I did. But I now recognize the fact thus revealed to me as very satisfactory evidence that our affections, our friendships, are to know a richer and lovelier development than they can ever attain to on this earth. In heaven there must be room for every lofty ideal." Then, with a sudden deep intuition of the real necessities of the soul beside him, he went on to say;--"Yet there, as here, I suppose, the one satisfying, completing thing will be the love of God. The soul was made to look up, not along a level; it can only find its highest joy in something superior to itself." She turned, and looked him intently in the face. "Do you believe what you say?" she asked, doubtfully. Very solemnly Bergan answered;--"I do." "Belief is nothing," she rejoined, after a pause, "action is the test. Do you _live_ your belief?" Bergan drew a deep breath. "I try to do so, Miss Thane." She went on, seemingly so intent upon her own train of thought as to be utterly unmindful of the solemn and searching nature of the questions that she was putting;-- "You feel, then, this all-satisfying love of God in your heart?" "In some measure, I trust I do." "And when the sun suddenly dropped, or faded, out of your sky, and the past became a corpse, and the present a burden, and the future a blank, what comfort did it give you?" "The comfort of knowing that all things work together for the good of those that love God," responded Bergan, not without a momentary wonder at the curious appositeness of the question to his recent experiences, but quickly divining that she was looking more into her own heart than his, in asking it. "Good," she repeated, musingly; "you did not say, happiness." "Good is a better word than happiness, in this world. In the world to come, they will be synonyms."