She started on suddenly perceiving him, but it was characteristic of her greeting that she seemed to feel no surprise at the accident which had brought them together.

“I am afraid,” he said, smiling, “that I have broken in on some profound reflections.”

She did not answer at once, but looked up at him, as he stood over her, with one of her strange, baffling gazes, in which there was the hint of a welcoming smile.

“Reflection seems to be a circular process with me,” she answered.  “I never get anywhere—­like you.”

“Like me!” he exclaimed, seating himself on the bench.  Apparently their intercourse, so long as it should continue, was destined to be on the basis of intimacy in which it had begun.  It was possible at once to be aware of her disturbing presence, and yet to feel at home in it.

“Like you, yes,” she said, continuing to examine him.  “You’ve changed remarkably.”

In his agitation, at this discovery of hers he again repeated her words.

“Why, you seem happier, you look happier.  It isn’t only that, I can’t explain how you impress me.  It struck me when you were talking to Mr. Bentley the other day.  You seem to see something you didn’t see when I first met you, that you didn’t see the first time we were at Mr. Bentley’s together.  Your attitude is fixed—­directed.  You have made a decision of some sort—­a momentous one, I rather think.”

“Yes,” he replied, “you are right.  It’s more than remarkable that you should have guessed it.”

She remained silent

“I have decided,” he found himself saying abruptly, “to continue in the Church.”

Still she was silent, until he wondered whether she would answer him.  He had often speculated to himself how she would take this decision, but he could make no surmise from her expression as she stared off into the wood.  Presently she turned her head, slowly, and looked into his face.  Still she did not speak.

“You are wondering how I can do it,” he said.

“Yes,” she acknowledged, in a low voice.

“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.”