Page:An Unfinished Song.djvu/157

152 There was the moonlight outside and the light of those eyes in my heart, but the cheerfulness I had felt in his presence was gone and melancholy and dejection took its place, the spring that had entered my heart a few hours ago was already withering before the wintry blast of reality.

He, too, came back to my mind, the man whose love I had spurned. We are taught Karma, that is to say, the effect of causes created by ourselves. Had this sorrow come upon me because I had caused pain to another? Had I occasioned my own affliction? Be that as it might I could not bring back the love that I knew, and this new love had not come to me through any desire on my part. I would gladly have torn it from my heart for ever, for it gave me no happiness. Was it the uncontrollable force of Karma again that had brought this new passion into my life? If man is not responsible, then why must he suffer so? Oh, great Creator, behold Thy work, how helpless, how weak are thy creatures! Still into the darkness of this hour, I felt God's mercy shining, I thought of my childhood once more, and a pathetic prayer breathed from my heart: