Where was he, that miserable man, who had won her heart in spite of her better reason, and in loving whom she had seldom been without the sense of trouble and fear? His want of mental balance had been painfully obvious to her even in their happiest hours; and she had felt that there was peril in a nature so capricious and so intense. She had discovered that for him religion was no strong rock. He had laughed away every serious question, and had made her feel that, in all the most solemn thoughts of life and after-life, they were divided by an impassable gulf: on his side, all that is boldest and saddest in modern thought: on her side, the simple, unquestioning faith which she had accepted in the dawn of her reason, and which satisfied an intellect not given to speculate upon the Unknowable. She had found that, not only upon religious questions, but even on the moral code of this life, there were wide differences in their ideas. Dimly, and with growing apprehension, she had divined the element of lawlessness in Geoffrey's character, revealed in his admiration of men for whom neither religion nor law had been a restraining influence--men for whom passion had been ever the guiding star. Lives that to her seemed only criminal were extolled by him as sublime. Such, or such a man, whose unbridled will had wrought ruin for himself and others, was lauded as one who had known the glory of life in its fullest meaning, who had verily lived, not crawled between earth and heaven. In her own simple, unpretentious way, Suzette had tried to combat opinions which had shocked her; and then Geoffrey had laughed off her fears, and had promised that for her sake he would think as she thought, he would school himself to accept a spiritual guide of her choosing. "Who shall my master be, Suzette? Shall I be broad and liberal with Stanley, severe with Manning, intense with Liddon, mystical with Newman? 'Thou for my sake at Allah's shrine, and I----' You know the rest. I will do anything to make my dearest happy." "Anything except pretend, Geoffrey. You must never do that." "Mustn't I? Then we had better leave religion out of the question; until, perhaps, it may grow up in my mind, suddenly, like Jonah's gourd, out of my love for you." In all the weary time while Allan was lying at the gate of death, and Geoffrey had so strangely vanished, Suzette had never doubted the love of her betrothed. The possibility of change or fickleness on his part never entered into her mind. Of the truth and intensity of his affection she, who had been his betrothed for nearly half a year, could not doubt. Her fears and anxieties took a darker form than any fear of alienated feelings, or inconstancy. Suicide, crime, madness, were the things she feared, though she never expressed her fears. Her father heard no lamentations from those pale lips; but he could read the marks of distress in her countenance, and he was grieved and anxious for her sake.