"I really mean to try my hardest to achieve that happiness, and I shall think myself the luckiest man in Wiltshire, or in England, or in Europe, if I succeed." "But, Allan, have you reflected seriously? She tells me that she is a Roman Catholic." "If she were a Fire-worshipper, I would run the risk of failure in converting her to Christianity. If she were a Buddhist, I should be inclined to embrace the faith of Gautama; but since she is only a conformer to a more ancient form of religion of which you and I are followers, I don't see why her creed should be a stumbling-block to my bliss." Lady Emily shook her head sagely, and breathed a profound sigh. "Differences of religion are so apt to make unhappiness in married life." "I am not religious enough to distress myself because my wife believes in some things that are incredible to me. We shall both follow the same Master, both hope for reunion in the same heaven." "Allan, _she_ believes in Purgatory. Think how inconsistent your ideas of the future must be." Allan did not pursue the argument. He was smiling to himself at the easy way in which he had been talking of his wife--their future, their very hopes of heaven--making so sure that she was to be his. He looked at his father, sitting alone with them, but not of them, and thought of his father's married life as he had seen it ever since he was old enough to observe or understand the life around him; so peaceful, so in all things what married life should be; and yet over all there had been that faint shadow of melancholy which the son had felt from his earliest years, that absence of the warmth and the romance of a marriage where love is the bond of union. Here, Allan told himself, the bond had been friendly regard, convenience, the world's approval, family interests, and lastly the child as connecting link and meeting-place of hopes and fears. Love had been missing from the life of yonder pale student, musing over half a dozen pages of modern metaphysics. Allan rose and moved slowly towards that tranquil figure, and feeling the night air blowing cold as he approached that end of the room, he asked his father if he would like the windows shut? "No, thank you, Allan, not on my account," Mr. Carew answered, without looking up from his book. Had he looked up, he would have seen Allan standing between the lamplight and the window like a man transfixed. A pale wan face had that moment vanished in the outward darkness; a face which a moment before had been looking in at one of the open lattices, a face which Allan had recognized at the first glance. He went to the glass door, opened it quietly, and went out to the terrace, so quickly and so silently that his disappearance attracted no attention from father or mother, one absorbed in his book, the other bending over her work.