H. Rider Haggard 
Love Eternal 

Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and the creator of the Lost World literary genre. His stories, situated at the lighter end of the scale of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential. He was also involved in agricultural reform and improvement in the British Empire. "Love Eternal" is Haggard’s 47th out of an eventual 58, the reader encounters the young Godfrey Knight, the son of a puritanical parson, who lives in the Essex countryside. From childhood on, he and his neighbour, Isobel Blake, the daughter of a wealthy, boorish shipping magnate, have been strangely drawn to one another, although their natures are wholly dissimilar. Whereas Godfrey is a dreamer who dwells on matters both metaphysical and astronomical, Isobel is a hardheaded materialist who disbelieves all that she cannot prove and see, pooh-poohing Godfrey’s talk of reincarnation and such sundry matters. (Excerpt from Goodreads)