You are neither one nor the other."
"I believe their doctrines," she declared, "and I would die
for a religious belief. But I don't suppose you ever felt
that you could die for a thing!"
"I think I have--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "but dying
for a thing is easy; it's living for it that's hard.
You couldn't keep it up, Athalia; you couldn't live for it."
Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks
that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
Perhaps if he had laughed at her. . . . But it is dangerous
to laugh at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost.
So he never laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach
her for not loving him. Once only his plea was personal--
and even then it was only indirectly so.
"Athalia," he said, "there's only one kind of pain in this world
that never gets cured. It's the pain that comes when you remember
that you've made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle,
but for your own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts.
Once I did something, just to please myself, that hurt mother's feelings.
I'd give my right hand if I hadn't done it. It's twenty-two years ago,
and I wasn't more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it.
I have never forgotten it. I wish to God I could! 'Thalia, I don't
want you to suffer that kind of pain."
She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she
burst out, angrily, that she wasn't doing this for "pleasure";
she was doing it for principle! It was for the salvation
of her soul!
"Athalia," he said, solemnly, "the salvation of our souls depends
on doing our duty.
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