"Ah! You are an enthusiast."
"No. But there is something beyond force and beyond reason."
"Religion, you mean."
"You can call it that. It is what has made that old woman up there at the house live every day of her life as if she were the multi-millionaire of the universe—without a thought of herself, without a doubt that there is an inexhaustible reservoir, and that everybody can dip into it and bring up the water of life. Sometimes when she told me that—how rich we all are, if we only knew it—I used to see the multitudes of hands dipping in for their drop—old wrinkled hands, children's hands."
He was musing now, and yet admitting the other man to his confidence. It was proof of MacLeod's charm that even Osmond, who kept his true self to himself, and who started by hating a girl's oppressor, had nevertheless fallen into a maze of self-betrayal. MacLeod spoke softly, as if he recognized the spell and would not break it:—
"Yet, the Founder of her religion said, 'I came not to send peace, but a sword.'"
"How do you know who the Founder of her religion is? I don't know it myself. I don't know but she dug it out of the ground, or breathed it out of the air. She has her sword, too, grannie has. You never saw her licking a boy for torturing a rat. I have."
"What shall we do?"
Osmond roused himself a little from his muse.
"I read something the other day in a book—about the town of Abdera. I suppose you know it."