 in my soul, and if I
yearned, when it was too late, after that better part which had once been given
me and I had put away from me.«
    »But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love me so
as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn't that a sign that
it's right for you to change your life? Doesn't the love make it right when
nothing else would?«
    »Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you tell
me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become dark again. I
felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards you, and that your
heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had taken hold of me, so that my
soul had lost its freedom, and was becoming enslaved to an earthly affection,
which made me anxious and careful about what should befall myself. For in all
other affection I had been content with any small return, or with none; but my
heart was beginning to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt
that I must wrestle against that as a great temptation; and the command was
clear that I must go away.«
    »But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you love me
... it's all different now. You won't think o' going: you'll stay, and be my
dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life as I never thanked him
before.«
    »Adam, it's hard to me to turn a deaf ear ... you know it's hard; but a
great fear is upon me. It seems to me as if you were stretching out your arms to
me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease, and live for my own delight, and
Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking towards me, and pointing to the
sinful, and suffering, and afflicted. I have seen that again and again when I
have been sitting in stillness and darkness, and a great terror has come upon me
lest I should become hard, and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the
Redeemer's cross.«
    Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her. »Adam,« she
went on, »you wouldn't desire that we should seek a good
