“I should like you to know—­that is why I spoke of it.  You have never asked me, and I have never told you that the convictions I formerly held I lost.  And with them, for a while, went everything.  At least so I believed.”

“I knew it,” she answered, “I could see that, too.”

“When I argued with you, that afternoon,—­the last time we talked together alone,—­I was trying to convince myself, and you—­” he hesitated, “—­that there was something.  The fact that you could not seem to feel it stimulated me.”

He read in her eyes that she understood him.  And he dared not, nor did he need to emphasize further his own intense desire that she should find a solution of her own.

“I wish you to know what I am telling you for two reasons,” he went on.  “It was you who spoke the words that led to the opening of my eyes to the situation into which I had been drifting for two years, who compelled me to look upon the inconsistencies and falsities which had gradually been borne in upon me.  It was you, I think, who gave me the courage to face this situation squarely, since you possess that kind of courage yourself.”

“Oh, no,” she cried.  “You would have done it anyway.”

He paused a moment, to get himself in hand.

“For this reason, I owed it to you to speak—­to thank you.  I have realized, since that first meeting, that you became my friend then, and that you spoke as a friend.  If you had not believed in my sincerity, you would not have spoken.  I wish you to know that I am fully aware and grateful for the honour you did me, and that I realize it is not always easy for you to speak so—­to any one.”

She did not reply.

“There is another reason for my telling you now of this decision of mine to remain a clergyman,” he continued.  “It is because I value your respect and friendship, and I hope you will believe that I would not take this course unless I saw my way clear to do it with sincerity.”

“One has only to look at you to see that you are sincere,” she said gently, with a thrill in her voice that almost unmanned him.  “I told you once that I should never have forgiven myself if I had wrecked your life.  I meant it.  I am very glad.”

It was his turn to be silent.

“Just because I cannot see how it would be possible to remain in the Church after one had been—­emancipated, so to speak,”—­she smiled at him,—­“is no reason why you may not have solved the problem.”

Such was the superfine quality of her honesty.  Yet she trusted him!  He was made giddy by a desire, which he fought down, to justify himself before her.  His eye beheld her now as the goddess with the scales in her hand, weighing and accepting with outward calm the verdict of the balance . . . .  Outward calm, but inner fire.

“It makes no difference,” she pursued evenly, bent on choosing her words, “that I cannot personally understand your emancipation, that mine is different.  I can only see the preponderance of evil, of deception, of injustice—­it is that which shuts out everything else.  And it’s temperamental, I suppose.  By looking at you, as I told you, I can see that your emancipation is positive, while mine remains negative.  You have somehow regained a conviction that the good is predominant, that there is some purpose in the universe.”