Helen paled slightly; she felt his hand trembling upon hers, and she remembered his illness at her aunt’s, about which she had never had the courage to speak to him.  “And so, dear heart,” he went on slowly, “let us only be sure that we are keeping our lives pure and strong, that we are living in the presence of high thoughts and keeping the mastery of ourselves, and saying and really meaning that we live for something unselfish; so that if duty and danger come, we shall not prove cowards, and if suffering comes we should not give way and lose our faith.  Does that please you, dear Helen?”

The girl pressed his hand silently in hers.  After a while he went on still more solemnly:  “Some time,” he said, “I meant to talk to you about just that, dearest, to tell you how stern and how watchful we ought to be.  It is very sad to me to see what happens when the great and fearful realities of life disclose themselves to good and kind people who have been living without any thought of such things.  I feel that it is very wrong to live so, that if we wished to be right we would hold the high truths before us, no matter how much labor it cost.”

“What truths do you mean?” asked Helen earnestly; and he answered her:  “For one, the very fearful fact of which I have just been talking—­that you and I are two bubbles that meet for an instant upon the whirling stream of time.  Suppose, sweetheart, that I were to tell you that I do not think you and I would be living our lives truly, until we were quite sure that we could bear to be parted forever without losing our faith in God’s righteousness?”

Helen turned quite white, and clutched the other’s hands in hers; she had not once thought of actually applying what he had said to her.  “David!  David!” she cried, “No!”

The man smiled gently as he brushed back the hair from her forehead and gazed into her eyes.  “And when you asked for sternness, dear,” he said, “was it that you did not know what the word meant?  Life is real, dear Helen, and the effort it demands is real effort.”

The girl did not half hear these last words; she was still staring at her husband.  “Listen to me, David,” she said at last, still holding his hand tightly in hers, her voice almost a whisper; “I could bear anything for you, David, I know that I could bear anything; I could really die for you, I say that with all my soul,—­that was what I was thinking of when you spoke of death.  But David, if you were to be taken from me,—­if you were to be taken from me—­” and she stopped, unable to find a word more.

“Perhaps it will be just as well not to tell me, dear heart,” he said to her, gently.

“David,” she went on more strenuously yet, “listen to me—­you must not ever ask me to think of that!  Do you hear me?  For, oh, it cannot be true, it cannot be true, David, that you could be taken from me forever!  What would I have left to live for?”

“Would you not have the great wonderful God?” asked the other gently—­“the God who made me and all that was lovable in me, and made you, and would demand that you worship him?” But Helen only shook her head once more and answered, “It could not be true, David,—­no, no!” Then she added in a faint voice, “What would be the use of my having lived?”