“An agnostic!” she said. “How terrible! O my poor Rose!” She began to be tearful.
“There are more agnostics than you know of,” I said. “In this country, where religious questions are rarely asked and more rarely answered, no census of them could ever be taken. You probably not only know but esteem and trust scores of them.”
To this she made no verbal reply, but settled down steadily to sob.
“My dear Mrs. Stratton,” I said. “You are taking the gloomiest view without the faintest reason. You might just as well look on the case brightly.”
“Yes, yes,” said George, who had gone to his wife’s side and was stroking her with reassuring movements.
“You!” she said. “You’re always siding against me! Come away. It is no use staying here or talking any more. Such selfishness I never saw in all my life. But no good will come of it, I feel that. My poor little Rose, my poor little Rose!”
She returned to look at me with an intense yearning in her exceedingly damp features.
“I will not decide to-night,” I said.
“I shall pray that you may have the best guidance,” she assured me.