as his sex was concerned
Godfrey was her all, a position of which any man might well be proud in
the case of any woman, and especially of one who had many opportunities
of devoting herself to others. In her example, however, she was not to
be thanked, for the reason that she only followed her nature, or
perhaps the dictates of that fate which inspires and rules very great
love, whether it be between man and woman, between parent and child,
between brother and brother, or between friend and friend. Such
feelings do not arise, or grow. They simply _are_; the blossoms of a
plant that has its secret roots far away in the soil of Circumstance
beyond our ken, and that, mayhap, has pushed its branches through
existences without number, and in the climates of many worlds.

So at least it was with Isobel, and so it had always been since she
kissed the sleeping child in the old refectory of the Abbey. She was
his, and in a way, however much she might doubt or mistrust, her inner
sense and instinct told her that he was always hers, that so he had
always been and so always would remain. With the advent of womanhood
these truths came home to her with an increased force because she
knew--again by instinct--that this fact of womanhood multiplied the
chances of attainment to the unity which she desired, however partial
that might still prove to be.

Yet she knew also that this great mutual attraction did not depend on
sex, though by the influence of sex it might be quickened and
accentuated. It was something much more deep and wide, something which
she did not and perhaps never would understand. The sex element was
accidental, so much so that the passage of a few earthly years would
rob it of its power to attract and make it as though it had never been,
but the perfect friendship between their souls was permanent and
without shadow of change. She knew, oh!, she knew, although no word of
it had ever been spoken between them, that theirs was the Love Eternal.
The quick perception of her woman's mind told her these things, of
which Godfrey's in its slower growth was not yet aware.

Animated by this new idea that she had really seen Godfrey, and what
was much worse, that Godfrey had really seen her upon an occasion when
she would have much preferred to remain invisible to him, she was
filled with remorse, and determined to write him a letter. Like that of
the young man himself to his father, its composition took her a good
deal of time.