"It will bring her to her senses!" he said to himself. "--How grand she
looked!"
Long after he was gone, Hester sat motionless, thinking, thinking. What
she had vaguely foreboded--she knew now she had foreboded it all the
time--at least she thought she knew it--was come! They were not, never
had been, never could be at one about anything! He was a mere man of
this world, without relation to the world of truth! To be tied to him
for life would be to be tied indeed! And yet she loved him--would gladly
die for him--not to give him his own way--for that she would not even
marry him; but to save him from it--to save him from himself, and give
him God instead--that would be worth dying for, even if it were the
annihilation unbelievers took it for! To marry him, swell his worldly
triumphs, help gild the chains of his slavery was not to be thought of!
It was one thing to die that a fellow-creature might have all things
good! another to live a living death that he might persist in the pride
of life! She could not throw God's life to the service of the stupid
Satan! It was a sad breakdown to the hopes that had clustered about
Gartley!
But did she not deserve it?
Therewith began a self-searching which did not cease until it had
prostrated her in sorrow and shame before him whose charity is the only
pledge of ours.
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