"It's my mother, I mean. Janet's not daft; she's queer."
"Will you let me have your arm? It's getting dark, and my feet don't know the way like yours. I've not been round here before."
"Her house is at the hill's foot, among larches."
"More larches?"
"Ay. Shoving you out like this!"
Edward paused and, dropping his hand from the boy's arm, turned himself slowly round. "Beauty everywhere," he said. "Are there any wicked people in this place?" That was a false step.
"There's one."
"Don't"—he hesitated—"don't make two of it. Beauty and morality—are they separable? There's a question. I have theories——" His voice died away, and he felt that some vast hand had gathered up the sound and laid it by in the place where all men's thoughts and deeds are stored until the winds come and drop them, like seed, about the world. It died away, and they heard the mountain noises—sheep crying, water falling—rarified and faint. Alexander's voice, violent and shrill, shook the night's peace.
"There is no God!" he cried.
The man's lips twitched in a secret smile, but his heart had pity in it. "Yet you are always worshipping," he said.