Israel, before the Lord....

* * * * *

There was a promise of frost in the air to-night. Underfoot the moisture
of the path was beginning, not yet to stiffen, but rather to withdraw
itself; and there was a cold clearness in the air. Over the wall beside
the house, beyond the leafless trees which barred it like prison-bars,
burned the sunset, deepening and glowing redder every instant. Yet she
felt nothing of the cold, for a fire was within her as she went again up
and down the path on which her father had watched her walk--a fire of
which as yet she could not discern the fuel. The love of Robin was
there--that she knew; and the love of Christ was there--so she thought;
and yet where the divine and the human passion mingled, she could not
tell; nor whether, indeed, for certain, it were the love of Christ at
all, and not a vain imagination of her own as to how Christ, in this
case, would be loved. Only she knew that across her love for Robin a
shadow had fallen; she could scarcely tell when it had first come to
her, and whence. Yet it had so come; it had deepened rapidly and
strongly during the mass that Mr. Simpson had said, and, behold! in its
very darkness there was light. And so it had continued till confusion
had fallen on her which none but Robin could dissolve. It must be his
word finally that must give her the answer to her doubts; and she must
make it easy for him to give it. He must know, that is, that she loved
him more passionately than ever, that her heart would break if she had
not her desire; and yet that she would not hold him back if a love that
was greater than hers could be for him or his for her, called him to
another wedding than that of which either had yet spoken. A broken heart
and God's will done would be better than that God's will should be
avoided and her own satisfied.