Just for one second Percy hesitated before he replied. Then he met the anxious look of inquiry in Dolores' eyes, and answered:
"Yes, perfectly: or rather, I am happier in my companionship with you than I have been in many years. I know my life is better, too, in many ways, and my thoughts fairer, than in my old restless days of adventure. Yet, of course, no lot is without its annoyances and troubles. Did you ever think how strange it is, that man expects a whole eternity of unalloyed bliss, from a Ruler who denies him a single month of it here?"
Dolores shook her golden head.
"I used to speculate a great deal about the next world," she said. "I read all kinds of books on the subject, and I grew very much confused. Finally, I rested back on the orthodox ideas, as quite as sensible as any. I am sure the world and human nature is inclined to evil. I think it is a misfortune to exist, and that we need a future life to repay us for all we endure here. And I am sure it will require a Mediator to ever reconcile the Creator to us or to give us eternal joy; but we can attain it if we seek the way."
"I do not believe that we can attain any joys we have not earned here," Percy replied. "I do not believe in sudden conversions, or death-bed repentance, or being cleansed by blood. That faith gives a man too much latitude altogether. Every violated principle, every indulged appetite, every selfish or mean act or thought, I think will count against us on the last day, no matter how we repent at death's door, or how we cry out to be saved. Salvation depends upon ourselves, and the use we make of our time on earth. We are shaping our spirits by our daily lives while in the body. Just as we have shaped them—beautiful or hideous, they will appear before God when our bodies fall away and leave them bare. We cannot in a moment's space, expect any power to remove the scars we have made by a life-time of wrongdoing. It would not be a just power if it did. Why should the man who has lived in sin all his life be cleansed by crying to Christ on his death-bed—and permitted to enter into just such joys as the good man has earned by a life of noble deeds? I do not believe in a creed like that."
Dolores put a soft hand over his mouth.
"Let us not talk religion," she said. "I fear you are a sad heretic. Yet I agree with you that every violated principle counts against us. But we need not fear death on that account, Percy. I am living up to my highest convictions of right: are not you?"
Again Percy hesitated. Then he laid his hand on her golden head, and looked gravely in her sweet eyes, as he answered:
"Sometimes, Dolores, I do not feel that I am. Sometimes the fears that you may one day repent our independent course of action, together with the fact that we are obliged to hide so much of our companionship from the world, weighs upon me like a burden."
She caught his hand and held it against her cheek.