“It might; but it is making large demands on one’s credulity. But what I really mean is this. I am inclined, at times, to think Monella a bit mad. He has a religious mania; he has persuaded himself—and evidently, from that letter, has been encouraged by others to believe it—that he has a religious mission to these people. Well, no harm in that, you say. No; and that he is honourable, upright, sincere, I feel very certain. Still, he may be self-deceived. He seems to me to be one of those fervidly religious mystics who can persuade themselves into almost anything.”
“Yet he is no fanatic. See how mild and gentle he can be; how slow to anger, how just in his discrimination between right and wrong!”
“I admit all that. Still, I repeat, he might easily deceive himself.”
That afternoon Leonard sought out Ulama and asked to be allowed to row her on the lake; and to this she smiled a glad assent. When he had rowed the boat out a long distance from the shore, he laid down the oars, and let her drift. A gentle breeze was blowing, and this served to temper the ardour of the waning sun.
“Do you remember the last time we were thus alone, Ulama?” presently he asked her.
“Indeed I do,” she answered, her cheek, that had of late been very pale, now glowing with a rosy flush. “But I began to think you had forgotten, and were never going to take me out again.”
“Ah! It was not my fault, Ulama.”
“Whose else could it be?” she asked.
“Well—I cannot tell you now. But, if you remember the occasion, do you remember also what we spoke of?”
The colour deepened in the maiden’s face. She bent her head and fixed her eyes dreamily upon the water; and one hand dropped over the boat’s side, as on that day of which he had reminded her.