"I know what you mean," answered Marion, thoughtfully. "I cannot tell why I have delayed so long. I certainly believe whatever the Catholic Church teaches, because I am sure that if she has not the truth in her possession, it is not on earth. I am willing to do whatever she commands, but I am not devotional, Claire. I cannot pretend to be."
"There is no need to pretend," returned Claire, gently; "nor yet to torment yourself about your deficiency in that respect. Yours is not a devotional nature, Marion; but all the more will your service be of value, because you will offer it not to please yourself, but to obey and honor God. Do not fear on that account, but come let me take you to my good friend, Monsignor R——."
"Take me where you will," said Marion. "If I can only retain and make my own the peace that I sometimes feel in your churches, I will do anything that can be required of me."
"I do not think you will find that anything hard will be required of you," observed Claire, with a smile that was almost angelic in its sweetness and delight.
And truly Marion found, as myriads have found before her, that no path was ever made easier, more like the guiding of a mother's hand, than that which led her into the Church of God. So gentle were the sacramental steps, and each so full of strange, mysterious sweetness, that this period ever after seemed like a sanctuary in her life—a spot set apart and sacred, as hallowed with the presence of the Lord. She had willingly followed the suggestion of the good priest, and gone into a convent for a few days before her reception into the Church. This reception took place in the lovely convent chapel, where, surrounded by the nuns, with only Claire and Mrs. Kerr present from the outer world, it seemed to Marion as if time had indeed rolled back, and she was again at the beginning of life. But what a different beginning! Looking at the selfish and worldly spirit with which she had faced the world before, she could only thank God with wondering gratitude for the lesson He had taught so soon, and the rescue He had inspired.
When she found herself again in Claire's salon, with a strange sense of having been far away for a great length of time, one of the first people to congratulate her on the step she had taken was Brian Earle. He was astonished when Claire told him where Marion had gone, and he was more astonished now at the look on her face as she turned it to him. Although he could not define it, there was a withdrawal, an aloofness in that face which he had never seen there before. Nor was this an imagination on his part. Marion felt, with a sense of infinite relief, that she had been withdrawn from the influence he unconsciously exerted upon her; that it was no longer painful to her to see him; that the higher feeling in which she had been absorbed had taken the sting out of the purely natural sentiment that had been a trouble to her. She felt a resignation to things as they were, for which she had vainly struggled before; and, even while she was withdrawn from Earle, felt a quietness so great that it amounted to pleasure in speaking to him.
"Yes," she said, in answer to his congratulation, "I have certainly proved that all roads lead to Rome. No road could have seemed less likely to lead to Rome than the one I set out on; but here I am—safe in the spiritual city. It is a wonder to me even yet."
"It is not so great a wonder to me," he replied. "I thought even in Scarborough that you were very near it."
She colored. The allusion to Scarborough made her realize how and why she had been near it then, but she recovered herself quickly. "In a certain sense I was always near it," she said, quietly. "I never for a moment believed that any religion was true except the Catholic. But no one knows better than I do now what a wide difference there is between believing intellectually and acting practically. The grace of God is absolutely necessary for the latter, and why He should have given that grace to me I do not know."
"It is difficult to tell why He should have given it to any of us," observed Earle, touched and surprised more and more. Was this indeed the girl who had once seemed to him so worldly and so mercenary? He could hardly credit the transformation that had taken place in her.