The Gospel ended, the little congregation sat down, and Evelyn reflected how much more difficult belief was to her than to the slightly-deformed woman in front of her.  The doctrine that a merciful God has prepared a place of eternal torment for his erring creatures is hard enough to credit.  She didn’t think she could ever believe that again; or that God had sent his Son on earth to expiate on the cross the sins which he and his Father in conjunction with the Holy Ghost had fated them to commit; or that bread and wine becomes, at the bidding of the priest, the creator of all the stars we see at midnight.  True that she believed these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advancement brought her no nearer to the solution of the question directly affecting her life.  Owen encouraged her to persevere in her agnosticism.  “Old instincts,” he said, “are not conquered at once.  You must be patient.  The Scotch were converted about three or four hundred years after Christ.  Christianity is therefore fourteen hundred years old, whereas the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to catch root.”  She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings are—­well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them.  They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible, but she could not always help herself) something told her that the present was but a passing stage.  Often it seemed to her that she was like one out on a picnic—­she was amused—­she would be sorry when it ended; but she could not feel that it was to last.  Other women were at home in their lives; she was not in hers.  We all have a life that is more natural for us to live than any other; we all have a mission of some sort to accomplish, and the happiest are those whose lives correspond to their convictions.  Even Owen’s love did not quite compensate her for the lack of agreement between her outer and inner life.

All this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of view were so different.  Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.  She had said, “If you don’t understand religion, you understand art.  Well, then, imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace to live in; place every pleasure at his call, imposing only one condition—­that he is not to paint.  His appetites may detain him in the palace for a while, but sooner or later he will cry out, ’All these pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is to paint pictures.’” She could see that the parable had convinced him, or nearly.  He had said he was afraid she was hopeless.  But a moment after, drawing her toward him with quiet, masterful arm, and speaking with that hard voice that could become so soft, it had seemed as if heaven suddenly melted away, and his kisses were worth every sacrifice.