existence be required of one whose nature has been proved to her a lie?--You speak from the facts of your nature, George; I speak from the facts of mine." Helen had come awake at last! It would have suited George better had she remained a half-quickened statue, responsive only to himself, her not over-potent Pygmalion. He sat speechless--with his eyes fixed on her. "You need no God," she went on, "therefore you seek none. If you need none, you are right to seek none, I dare say. But I need a God--oh, I cannot tell how I need him, if he be to be found! and by the same reasoning I will give my life to the search for him. To the last I will go on seeking him, for if once I give in, and confess there is no God, I shall go mad--mad, and perhaps kill somebody like poor Poldie. George, I have said my say. I would not have come into the garden but to say it. Good-bye." As she spoke she rose and held out her hand to him. But in the tumult of more emotions than I can well name--amongst the rest indignation, dismay, disappointment, pride, and chagrin, he lost himself while searching in vain for words, paid no heed to her movement, and lifted no hand to take that she offered. With head erect she walked from the summer-house. "The love of a lifetime!--a sweet invitation!" she said to herself, as with the slow step of restrained wrath she went up the garden. George sat for some minutes as she had left him. Then he broke the silence in his own ears and said, "Well, I'm damned!" And so he was--for the time--and a very good thing too, for he required it. CHAPTER XXXI. THOU DIDST NOT LEAVE. The next day the curate found himself so ill at ease, from the reaction after excitement of various kinds, that he determined to give himself a holiday. His notion of a holiday was a very simple one: a day in a deep wood, if such could be had, with a volume fit for alternate reading and pocketing as he might feel inclined. Of late no volume had been his companion in any wanderings but his New Testament. There was a remnant of real old-fashioned forest on the Lythe, some distance up: thither he went by the road, the shortest way, to return by the winding course of the stream. It was a beautiful day of St. Martin's summer. In the forest, if the leaves were gone, there was the more light, and sun and shadow played many a lovely game. But he saw them as though he saw them not, for fear and hope struggled in his heart, and for a long time prayer itself could not atone them. At length a calm fell, and he set out to return home, down the bank of the river.