I Forbid the Banns! — page 129: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON THE THAMES. 119 pioneer of this faith—not_a new faith, but the oldest that existed on earth. This-was the sum of her belief, and her belief was, he knew, that of a pure soul, full of aspirations after the highest form of life, and ready to face martyrdom, if nec- essary, for her faith. He also knew that it was the faith of.a soul that knew more about heaven than it did about the world. Such were the souls of the martyrs from Abel down to Gordon. They knew too much about the inhab- itants of heaven and not enough about the inhabitants of the nether world. Abel had had his experiences of Para- dise ; but he was not a man of the world. He had not had a wide experience of men—circumstances were against him. Cain had no better chance than he, but he proved that he knew less of the ways of heaven than he did of the ways of getting the upper hand of his fellow-man. Gordon had his faith—chiefly in himself—but his knowl- edge of the exigencies of contemporary English politics was extremely limited. Bertha Lancaster’s soul had upon it, Julian felt, no stain of earth. She had a fervent belief in the spiritual nature of love, and she was only acting in sympathy with this belief when she refused to go through the cere- mony of marriage with him. Several times before the English Channel was reached he inquired of her if she meant that they should part. She smiled and shook her head as she had done before, saying: “Tt is too late now. You know that it is not in the power of anything on earth to part us. Even if weshould. never see one another again we shall not be parted.” ‘T will not do you this terrible wrong, Bertha,” said he more than once. ‘I am not ascoundrel.”’ “JT know what is in your heart,’ she replied. “It is the same as that which is in my heart. You are a good man, You are my love.” CORNIECLIOOKS eC)