so, am I to
blame, who ask nothing here? Can I conquer destiny who am its child? Can
I read or shape the purpose of my Maker?

"And so I go. O God, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, give me strength to bear
my temptations and my trials; and to him, also, give every strength and
blessing. O Father, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, shorten these the days
of my tribulation upon earth. Accept and sanctify this my sacrifice of
denial; grant me pardon here, and hereafter through all the abyss of
time in Thy knowledge and presence, that perfect peace which I desire
with him to whom I am appointed. Amen."

CHAPTER XXII

THE EVIL GATE

Such was the end of the diary of Stella.

Morris shut the book with something like a sob. Then he rose and
began to tramp up and down the length of the long, lonely room, while
thoughts, crowded, confused, and overwhelming, pressed in upon his mind.
What a woman was this whom he had lost! Who had known another so pure,
so spiritual? Surely she did not belong to this world, and therefore
her last prayer was so quickly answered, therefore Heaven took her.
Many reading those final pages might have said with the philosopher she
imagined that the shock of love and the sorrow of separation had turned
her brain, and that she was mad. For who, so such might argue, would
think that person otherwise than mad who dared to translate into action,
and on earth to set up as a ruling star, that faith which day by day
their lips professed.

Yet it would seem after that this "dreamer and mystic" Stella believed
in nothing which our religion, accepted by millions without cavil, does
not promise to its votaries. Its revelations and rewards marked the
extremest limits of her fantasy; immortality of the personal soul, its
foundation stone, was the rock on which she built. A heaven where there
is no earthly marriage, but where each may consort with the souls most
loved and most desired; where all sorrows are forgotten, all tears
are wiped away, all purposes made clear, reserved for those who deny
themselves, do their duty, and seek forgiveness of their sins--this
heaven conceived by Stella, is it not vowed to us in the pages of the
Gospel? Is it not vowed again and again, sometimes with more detail,
sometimes with less; sometimes in open, simple words, sometimes wrapped
in the mystic allegory of the visions of St. John; but everywhere and
continually held before us as our crown and great reward? And the rest,
such things