You will not object to that white lie?"
"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed.
You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after
dinner."
"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I
have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window,
through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees,
the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a
harmonious chorus.
"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked,
"and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her
back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything,
to do anything.
"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me,"
in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel
and a pagan--the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve
Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of
his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him
like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his
allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall,
with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further
commune with the God who has chastised him.
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