“Is it any stranger,” Tillie asked, her low voice full of pain, “than that your uncle should send you away because of your UNbelief?” This word, “unbelief,” stood for a very definite thing in New Canaan—­a lost and hopeless condition of the soul.  “It seems to me, the idea is the same,” said Tillie.

“Yes,” acknowledged Fairchilds, “of course you are right.  Intolerance, bigotry, narrowness—­they are the same the world over—­and stand for ignorance always.”

Tillie silently considered his words.  It had not occurred to her to question the perfect justice of the meeting’s action.

Suddenly she saw in the path before her a half-frozen, fluttering sparrow.  They both paused, and Tillie stooped, gently took it up, and folded it in her warm shawl.  As she felt its throbbing little body against her hand, she thought of herself in the hand of God.  She turned and spoke her thought to Fairchilds.

“Could I possibly hurt this little bird, which is so entirely at my mercy?  Could I judge it, condemn and punish it, for some mistake or wrong or weakness it had committed in its little world?  And could God be less kind, less merciful to me than I could be to this little bird?  Could he hold my soul in the hollow of his hand and vivisect it to judge whether its errors were worthy of his divine anger?  He knows how weak and ignorant I am.  I will not fear him,” she said, her eyes shining.  “I will trust myself in his power—­and believe in his love.”

“The New Mennonite creed won’t hold her long,” thought Fairchilds.

“Our highest religious moments, Tillie,” he said, “come to us, not through churches, nor even through Bibles.  They are the moments when we are most receptive of the message Nature is always patiently waiting to speak to us—­if we will only hear.  It is she alone that can lead us to see God face to face, instead of ‘through another man’s dim thought of him.’”

“Yes,” agreed Tillie, “I have often felt more—­more religious,” she said, after an instant’s hesitation, “when I’ve been walking here alone in the woods, or down by the creek, or up on Chestnut Hill—­than I could feel in church.  In church we hear about God, as you say, through other men’s dim thoughts of Him.  Here, alone, we are with him.”

They walked in silence for a space, Tillie feeling with mingled bliss and despair the fascination of this parting hour.  But it did not occur to Fairchilds that her departure from the hotel meant the end of their intercourse.

“I shall come out to the farm to see you, Tillie, as often as you will let me.  You know, I’ve no one else to talk to, about here, as I talk with you.  What a pleasure it has been!”

“Oh, but father will never le—­let me spend my time with you as I did at the hotel!  He will be angry at my being sent home, and he will keep me constantly at work to make up for the loss it is to him.  This is our last talk together!”