All this later time, she had been going to church every Sunday, and listening to sermons in which the curate poured out the energy of a faith growing stronger day by day; but not a word he said had as yet laid hold of one root-fiber of her being.  She judged, she accepted, she admired, she refused, she condemned, but she never did.  To many souls hell itself seems a less frightful alternative than the agony of resolve, of turning, of being born again; but Juliet had never got so far as that:  she had never yet looked the thing required of her in the face.  She came herself to wonder that she had made any stand at all against the arguments of Faber.  But how is it that any one who has been educated in Christianity, yet does not become the disciple of Jesus Christ, avoids becoming an atheist?  To such the whole thing must look so unlike what it really is!  Does he prefer to keep half believing the revelation, in order to attribute to it elements altogether unlovely, and so justify himself in refusing it?  Were it not better to reject it altogether if it be not fit to be believed in?  If he be unable to do that, if he dare not proclaim an intellectual unbelief, if some reverence for father or mother, some inward drawing toward the good thing, some desire to keep an open door of escape, prevent, what a hideous folly is the moral disregard!  “The thing is true, but I don’t mind it!” What is this acknowledged heedlessness, this apologetic arrogance?  Is it a timid mockery, or the putting forth of a finger in the very face of the Life of the world?  I know well how foolish words like these must seem to such as Faber, but for such they are not written; they are written for the men and women who close the lids of but half-blinded eyes, and think they do God service by not denying that there is not a sun in the heavens.  There may be some denying Christ who shall fare better than they, when He comes to judge the world with a judgment which even those whom He sends from Him shall confess to be absolutely fair—­a judgment whose very righteousness may be a consolation to some upon whom it falls heavily.

That night Juliet hardly knew what she had said to Faber, and longed to see him again.  She slept little, and in the morning was weary and exhausted.  But he had set her the grand example of placing work before every thing else, and she would do as he taught her.  So, in the name of her lover, and in spite of her headache, she rose to her day’s duty.  Love delights to put on the livery of the loved.

After breakfast, as was their custom, Dorothy walked with her to the place where she gave her first lesson.  The nearest way led past the house of the doctor; but hitherto, as often as she could frame fitting reason, generally on the ground that they were too early, and must make a little longer walk of it, Juliet had contrived to avoid turning the corner of Mr. Drew’s shop.  This day, however, she sought no excuse, and they went the natural road.  She wanted to pass his house—­to get a glimpse of him if she might.