“You are comfortable now, my child.”

“Yes, so comfortable!  With you!”

“With me—­and forever!” exclaimed the young man, with exaltation.

But he observed that she was releasing herself from his arms and was rising.

“What are you doing?”

A metallic sound was heard.  Rosario had put the key into the invisible lock and was cautiously opening the door on the threshold of which they had been sitting.  The faint odor of dampness, peculiar to rooms that have been long shut up, issued from the place, which was as dark as a tomb.  Pepe Rey felt himself being guided by the hand, and his cousin’s voice said faintly: 

“Enter!”

They took a few steps forward.  He imagined himself being led to an unknown Elysium by the angel of night.  Rosario groped her way.  At last her sweet voice sounded again, murmuring: 

“Sit down.”

They were beside a wooden bench.  Both sat down.  Pepe Rey embraced Rosario again.  As he did so, his head struck against a hard body.

“What is this?” he asked.

“The feet.”

“Rosario—­what are you saying?”

“The feet of the Divine Jesus, of the image of Christ crucified, that we adore in my house.”

Pepe Rey felt a cold chill strike through him.

“Kiss them,” said the young girl imperiously.

The mathematician kissed the cold feet of the holy image.

“Pepe,” then cried the young girl, pressing her cousin’s hand ardently between her own, “do you believe in God?”

“Rosario!  What are you saying?  What absurdities are you imagining?” responded her cousin, perplexed.

“Answer me.”

Pepe Rey felt drops of moisture on his hands.

“Why are you crying?” he said, greatly disturbed.  “Rosario, you are killing me with your absurd doubts.  Do I believe in God?  Do you doubt it?”

“I do not doubt it; but they all say that you are an atheist.”

“You would suffer in my estimation, you would lose your aureole of purity—­your charm—­if you gave credit to such nonsense.”

“When I heard them accuse you of being an atheist, although I could bring no proof to the contrary, I protested from the depths of my soul against such a calumny.  You cannot be an atheist.  I have within me as strong and deep a conviction of your faith as of my own.”

“How wisely you speak!  Why, then, do you ask me if I believe in God?”

“Because I wanted to hear it from your own lips, and rejoice in hearing you say it.  It is so long since I have heard the sound of your voice!  What greater happiness than to hear it again, saying:  ’I believe in God?’”

“Rosario, even the wicked believe in him.  If there be atheists, which I doubt, they are the calumniators, the intriguers with whom the world is infested.  For my part, intrigues and calumnies matter little to me; and if you rise superior to them and close your heart against the discord which a perfidious hand would sow in it, nothing shall interfere with our happiness.”