She looked at me intently. She was very pale, and her eyes shone like stars. Beautiful she looked beyond compare, and so grand, so noble. She was tied down to no conventionalities; whither her pure true heart led her, she followed. "If you succeed," she said, "I will be your wife." "But not simply from a feeling of pity?" I cried. "I could not let you do that. I have manliness enough for that even yet." "No," she said proudly, "but because you are the only man I ever did or can love." For a minute I forgot my woes, my pains. No ghastly deed taunted me with its memory, no dark cloud hung in the skies. I felt my Gertrude's lips against mine; I felt that her life was given to me. I was no longer alone and desolate; a pure, beautiful woman had trusted me so fully, so truly, that hope dawned in my sky, and earth was heaven. "Now, Justin," she said, after a few minutes of happy silence, "you must away. Every hour may be precious. God knows how gladly I would be with you, but it must not be. But remember, my hope lies in you, and my love is given to you. God bless you!" She went away then and left me; while I, without knowing why, prepared to start for London. I had a great work to do. I had, if I was to win Gertrude for my wife, to break and crush Voltaire's power over me. I had to find Kaffar, if he was to be found, and that to me was an awful uncertainty, and I had to bring him to Gertrude before the next Christmas Eve. Away from her the skies were dark again, great heavy weights rested on my heart, and my life seemed clogged. Still her love had nerved me to do what I otherwise could never have done. It had nerved me to try; and so, with her warm kiss burning on my lips, I hurried off to the great metropolis without any definite idea why I was going. CHAPTER XIV GOD For the next three months I was an atheist! These are easy words to write, but terrible to realize. No one but those who know can tell the terror of a man who has given up belief in an Eternal Goodness, in a living God that cares for man. I left Yorkshire with some little hope in my heart--the memory of Gertrude's words was with me, cheering me during the long ride; but when once alone in my rooms, nothing but a feeling of utter desolation possessed my heart. The terrible night on the Yorkshire moors came back again, the dark forbidding waters, the ghastly red hand, the gleaming knife, the struggle--all were real. Did I kill him? I did not know. Possibly I was a murderer in act, if not in thought. I could not bear to think of it. Who can bear to think of having taken away a fellow-creature's life? And he might be lying in Drearwater Pond even then!