"Let us go home, Rosalind; my head is giddy and my heart is sick. I had hoped never again to fever my aching brain in attempting to sift the truth from all the lies that may and must surround it. I have made my choice deliberately, Rosalind. I have never seen sin and wickedness flourish any where so rapidly and so vigorously as where it has been decked in the masquerading trappings of religion. I hate sin, Rosalind, and I have thrown aside for ever the hateful garb in which I have been used to see it clothed. If there be a God, can I stand guilty before his eyes for this?" "Oh yes! most guilty! If you have found hypocrisy and sin, turn from it with all the loathing that you will; and be very sure, let it wear what mask it will, that religion is not there. Look then elsewhere for it. Be not frightened by a bugbear, a phantom, from seeking what it is so precious to find! Dearest Henrietta! will you not listen to me?--will you not promise for a while to turn your thoughts from every lighter thing, till you are able to form a surer judgment upon this?" "Dearest?--Do you call me dear, and dearest, Rosalind? Know you that I have lived in almost abject terror lest you should discover the condition of my mind? I thought you would hate and shun me.--Rosalind Torrington! you are a beautiful specimen, and a very rare one. To please you, and to approach you if I could, I would read much, and think and reason more, and try to hope again, as I did once, until I was stretched upon the torturing rack of fear: but there is no time left me!" "Do not say that, dear friend," said Rosalind, gently drawing Henrietta's cold and trembling arm within her own. "You are still so young, that time is left for harder studies than any I propose to you." "I am dying, Rosalind. I have told you so before, but you cannot believe me because I move about and send for no doctor--but I am dying." "And if I could believe it, Henrietta, would not that be the greatest cause of all for this healing study that I want to give you?" "Perhaps so, Rosalind; but my mind, my intellect, is weak and wayward. If there be a possibility that I should ever again turn my eyes to seek for light where I have long believed that all was darkness, it must be even when and where my sickly fancy wills.--Here let the subject drop between us. Perhaps, sweet girl! I dread as much the chance of my perverting you, as you can hope to convert me." Rosalind was uttering a protest against this idle fear, when Henrietta stopped her by again saying, and very earnestly, "Let the subject drop between us; lay the books you speak of in my room, where I can find them, but let us speak no more." Satisfied, fully satisfied with this permission, Rosalind determined to obey her injunction scrupulously, and silently pressing her arm in testimony of her acquiescence, they returned to the house without uttering another word. CHAPTER VII. THE WILL.