I  felt  that  now  I  could  talk  freely  to  her  of  what  most  per-
plexed me— not  so  much,  I  confess,  with  any  hope  that  she
might  cast  light  on  my  difficulties,  as  in  the  assurance  that  she
would  not  only  influence  me  to  think  purely  and  nobly,  but
would  urge  me  in  the  search  after  God.  In  such  a  relation  of
love  to  religion  the  vulgar  mind  will  ever  imagine  ground  for
ridicule;  but  those  who  have  most  regarded  human  nature
know  well  enough  that  the  two  have  constantly  manifested
themselves  in  the  closest  relation  ;  while  even  the  poorest  love
is  the  enemy  of  selfishness  unto  the  death  ;  for  the  one  or  the
other  must  give  up  the  ghost.  Not  only  must  God  be  in  all
that  is  human,  but  of  it  He  must  be  the  root


348  WILFRID  CUMBERMEDE.
CHAPTER  XLIII.
»

THE   SWORD   IN   THE   SCALE.
THE  next  morning  Charley  and  I  went  as  usual  to  the
library,  where  later  in  the  day  we  were  joined  by  the  two
ladies.  It  was  long  before  our  eyes  once  met,  but  when  at  last
they  did,  Mary  allowed  hers  to  rest  on  mine  for  just  one  mo-
ment with  an  expression  of  dove-like  beseeching,  which  I  dared
to  interpret  as  meaning — "  Be  just  to  me."  If  she  read  mine,
surely  she  read  there  that  she  was  safe  with  my  thoughts  as
with  those  of  her  mother.
