"No?" he queried, bewildered. "What do you mean? You let me kiss you. You love me, Edith, don't you? You must! You couldn't have kissed me like that if you hadn't loved me!" "Don't, don't, Paul!" she cried again, and bent her head, trying to release her hands. Something that was almost anger surged up in him. He drew her to him. "What do you mean, Edith?" he demanded. "I love you, do you hear? I see now, I have been loving you for a long time. I love you with all my heart. Don't you love me?" At that new note in his voice, she faced him bravely. "Paul, dear," she said, "listen. I do love you, God knows I do, but--but--well, your people would hate it if they knew. (Paul made an angry movement, but she checked him.) No, listen. They would say you're too young; that you ought not to think of such things now; that--that---- Oh, you know. Don't make it hard for me. Your mother would hate you to marry a girl like me." Paul stared into her sad young face in silence for a moment, but his heart sank. Then: "Mother hardly knows you," he said miserably. "But she knows my mother," said the girl, simply. Paul knew exactly what she meant. Vividly, he saw it all. His gift of keen imagination aided him. He saw his mother's surprised, pained, worried look; his father's perplexity. But he pushed it from him. "Look here," he began. "One minute, Paul, dear. Oh, Paul, do listen to me! I know what you're going to say, and I love you for it. Perhaps, one day, I'll let you say it. After all, in the end, that will be for us to decide. But still I ought not to have kissed you. No, really I ought not. You've got your work to do. You don't know what God will call you to. You're so wonderful, Paul, dear--you with all your power of speaking and writing and learning. You don't know how wonderful you are to me, Paul. I don't see why you like me a bit. But _I_ won't stand in your way. You must go on, and find out what God wants you to do, and go and do it. And then, then, perhaps--later on---- Oh, Paul, say something! I--I can't say--any more." The tears stood in her eyes. Her voice choked. He drew her to him and put one arm round her. She made a little movement to resist, but in doing so, shot a glance at him and at what she saw let him have his way. Then, in the luminous winter dark, he peered down at her, and took her hand, and studied the oval of her face, and her little ears, and the stray hair that escaped from her fur cap. Love at any rate has this in common with true religion, that it awes a man.