"We can never be more than friends; never!" cried Beulah.
"You think so now, and perhaps I am doomed to disappointment; but,
without your sanction, I shall hope it. Good-by." He pressed his
lips to her hand and walked away.
Beulah heard the closing of the little gate, and then, for the first
time, his meaning flashed upon her mind. He believed she loved her
guardian; fancied that long absence would obliterate his image from
her heart, and that, finally, grown indifferent to one who might
never return, she would give her love to him whose constancy merited
it. Genuine delicacy of feeling prevented his expressing all this;
but she was conscious now that only this induced his unexpected
course toward herself. A burning flush suffused her face as she
exclaimed: "Oh, how unworthy I am of such love as his! how utterly
undeserving!"
Soon after, opening the book he had brought at the place designated,
she drew the lamp near her and began its perusal. Hour after hour
glided away, and not until the last page was concluded did she lay
it aside. The work contained very little that was new; the same
trains of thought had passed through her mind more than once before;
but here they were far more clearly and forcibly expressed.
She drew her chair to the window, threw up the sash, and looked out.
It was wintry midnight, and the sky blazed with its undying watch-
fires. This starry page was the first her childish intellect had
puzzled over. She had, from early years, gazed up into the
glittering temple of night, and asked: "Whence came yon silent
worlds, floating in solemn grandeur along the blue, waveless ocean
of space? Since the universe sprang phoenix-like from that dim
chaos, which may have been but the charnel-house of dead worlds,
those unfading lights have burned on, bright as when they sang
together at the creation. And I have stretched out my arms
helplessly to them, and prayed to hear just once their unceasing
chant of praise to the Lord of Glory. Will they shine on forever? or
are they indeed God's light-bearers, set to illumine the depths of
space and blaze a path along which the soul may travel to its God?
Will they one day flicker and go out?" To every thoughtful mind
these questions propound themselves, and Beulah especially had
essayed to answer them. Science had named the starry hosts, and
computed their movements with wonderful skill; but what could it
teach her of their origin and destiny? Absolutely nothing. And how
stood her investigations in the more occult departments of
psychology and ontology? An honest seeker of truth, what had these
years of inquiry and speculation accomplished? Let her answer as,
with face bowed on her palms, her eyes roved over the midnight sky.