She shook her head; the words balked in her throat. Why did not God help her? Was not she right? She put her hand upon his sleeve,--her face, from which all joy and color seemed to have fallen forever, upturned to his. "Douglas, you do not believe--as I do." He noted her look curiously, as she said it, with an odd remembrance of once when she was a child, and they had shown her for the first time a dead body, that she had turned to the sky the same look of horror and reproach she gave him now. "I have prayed, and prayed,"--an appealing cry in every low breath. "It is of no use,--no use! God never denied me a prayer but that,--only that!" "I do not understand. You prayed--for me?" Her eyes, turning to his own, gave answer enough. "I see! You prayed for me, poor child? that I could find a God in the world?"--patting the hand resting on his arm pitifully. "And it was of no use, you think? no use?"--dreamily, his eye fixed on the solemn night without. There was a slow silence. She looked awe-struck in his face: he had forgotten her. "I have not found Him in the world?"--the words dropping slowly from his lips, as though he questioned with the great Unknown. She thought she saw in his face hints that his soul had once waged a direr battle than any she had known,--to know, to be. What was the end? God, and Life, and Death, what were they to him now? He looked at her at last, recalled to her. She thought he stifled a sigh. But he put aside his account with God for another day: now it was with her. "You think it right to leave me for this, Theodora? You think it a sin to love an unbeliever?" "Yes, Douglas,"--but she caught his hand tighter, as she said it. "The gulf between us is to be the difference between heaven and hell? Is that true?" "_Is_ it true?" she cried suddenly. "It is for you to say. Douglas, it is you that must choose." "No man can force belief," he said, dryly. "You will give me up? Poor child! You cannot, Theodora!"--smoothing her head with an unutterable pity. "I will give you up, Douglas!" "Think how dear I have been to you, how far-off you are from everybody in the world but me. Why, I know no woman so alone or weak as you, if I should leave you!" "I know it,"--sobbing silently. "You will stay with me, Theodora! Is the dull heaven Gaunt prates of, with its psalms and crowns, better than my love? Will you be happier there than here?"--holding her close, that she might feel the strong throb of his heart against her own. She shivered. "Theodora!" She drew away; stood alone. "Is it better?"--sharply. She clutched her hands tightly, then she stood calm. She would not lie. "It is not better," she said, steadily. "If I know my own heart, nothing in the coming heaven is so dear as what I lose. But I cannot be your wife, Douglas Palmer." His face flashed strangely. "It is simple selfishness, then? You fear to lose your reward? What is my poor love to the eternity of happiness you trade it for?"