She remained for some moments as though rooted to the spot. As poor Loretta had once said, it is love which makes the world go round, and the world had suddenly stopped for her. She ascended the stairs like one in a trance and closed the door of her room. What would her sympathy profit him? How would it help him to know that her heart bled for him? Such condolence would be only tantalization. What he desired was herself--to possess and cherish in the soul and in the flesh--as the partner of his joys and sorrows, his helpmate and his companion. From where she sat she could behold herself in her mirror the comely embodiment of a woman in her prime, alive with energy and health. He sighed to hold her in his arms, and she would fain kiss away the disappointment of his defeat. Anything short of this would be mockery for him--yes, for her. They were natural mates, for they loved each other with the enthusiasm of mature sympathy. Yet they must go their ways apart, because the Church forbade in the name of Christ for the so-called common good. How could it be for the common good to resist nature, when she knew in her heart that in obeying the law of her being she would feel no sense of shame or blame? On the one side was the fiat of the Church, and on the other the sanction of the people--of human society struggling for light and liberty against superstition and authority. That was Gordon's claim; yet he was no demagogue, no irreverent materialist. What would her own father have said--the country doctor whose sympathy with humanity was so profound? She felt sure that he would have swept aside the Church's argument in such a case as this as untenable. What was it held her back? The taunt that in obeying the law of her being she would be letting go her hold on the highest spiritual life, that most precious ambition of her soul, and forsaking the Christ whose followers had comforted her and lifted her up.