Sylvie sat quiet, a graceful, nymph-like figure, veiled
in her cloudy white--Cardinal Bonpre's mild blue eyes raised to the
speaker's face, were full of rapt attention--and Manuel still
leaning against the great Cross seemed absorbed in dreamy and
beautiful thoughts of his own.
"I should like," went on Aubrey with increasing warmth and passion,
"to tell you what I mean by 'faith unbroken.' It is the highest form
of love,--the only firm rock of friendship. It leaves no room for
suspicion,--no place for argument--no cause for contradiction. It is
the true meaning of the wedding-ring. Apart from marriage
altogether, it is the only principle that can finally civilize and
elevate man. So long as we doubt God and mistrust our fellows, so
long must corruption sway business, and wars move nations. The man
who gives us cause to suspect his honesty,--the man who forces us to
realize the existence of treachery, is a worse murderer than he who
stabs us bodily to death; for he has tainted our soul; he has pushed
us back many steps on our journey Godward, and has made us wonder
and question whether in truth a God can exist who tolerates in His
universe such a living lie! It is only when we have to contemplate a
broken faith that we doubt God! For a broken faith is an abnormal
prodigy in the natural scheme of the universe--a discord in the
eternal music of the stars! There are no treacheries, no falsifying
of accounts, in the Divine order of the Law.
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