Paul gravely shook his head and smiled. “To believe that is to doubt that the great principle of life is love. We cannot conceive of even an earthly father's punishing one of his children for being blind, much less the Creator of us all. Your uncle through his whole life was blind to the truth. Had he seen it, his awakening would have been here instead of there, that is all.” “Oh, how comforting, how sweetly comforting!” Ethel sobbed. There was a fallen tree near the path, and she turned aside and sat down. She folded her hands in her lap, while the tears stood in her eyes. “Paul,” she said, suddenly, “you are very happy, aren't you? You must be--you have so much to make you so.” He looked away toward the mountain where the slanting rays of the sun lay in a mellow flood, and a grave, almost despondent, expression crept into his eyes. He made no answer. She repeated her question in a rising tone, full of tender eagerness. Then without looking at her he answered, slowly and distinctly: “All humanity must suffer, Ethel. It is part of the divine order. Suffering is to the growing soul what decayed matter is to the roots of a flower. Light is the opposite of darkness; joy is the opposite of suffering. The whole of life is made up of such contrasts; earth is temporary captivity, Paradise is eternal freedom.” “But you have already _had_ your suffering,” Ethel pursued, her drying eyes fixed hungrily on his face. “Surely you--you are not unhappy now. I don't see how you could be so when everybody loves you so much, and is so appreciative of your goodness. Henry worships you. He says you have made a man of him. Old Mr. Tye declares you have actually put an end to lawlessness in these mountains. I can't see how you, of all men, could be unhappy for a minute.” “There are things”--he was still avoiding her eyes, and he spoke with a sort of tortured candor as he sat down near her and raised his knee between his tense hands--“there are things, Ethel, which the very soul of a man cries out for, but which he can never have--which he dare not even hope for, lest he slip into utter despondency and never recover his courage.” She rose and stood before him. He had never seen her look more beautiful, more resolute. “You intimated--Paul, you hinted, when you first came home from the West, that as a boy, away back before your great trouble, you--you cared for me--you said you thought of me often during those years. Oh, Paul, have you changed in that respect? Do you no longer--” Her voice trailed away from her fluttering throat, and, covering her face with her blue-veined hands, she stood motionless, her breast visibly palpitating, her sharp intakes of breath audible.