"What makes you say all this, Asher?"
"Well, because I have just been thinking that perhaps my misfortunes can be traced back to myself. Perhaps it was I who infected Evelyn."
"You?"
"Yes, I may have brought about a natural reaction. For years I was speaking against religion to her, trying to persuade her; whereas if I had let the matter alone it would have died of inanition, for she was not really a religious woman."
"I see, I see," Ulick answered thoughtfully.
"Had she met you in the beginning," Owen continued, "she might have remained herself to the end; for you would have let her alone. Religion provokes me… I blaspheme; but you are indifferent, you are not interested. You are splendid, Ulick."
A smile crossed Ulick's lips, and Owen wondered what the cause of the smile might be, and would have asked, only he was too interested in his own thoughts; and the words, "I wonder you trouble about people's beliefs" turned him back upon himself, and he continued:
"I have often wondered. Perhaps something happens to one early in life, and the mind takes a bias. My animosity to religion may have worn away some edge off her mind, don't you see? The moral idea that one lover is all right, whereas any transgression means ruin to a woman, was never invented by her. It came from me; it is impossible she could have developed that moral idea from within—she was infected with it."
"You think so?" Ulick replied thoughtfully, and took another cigar.
"Yes, if she had met you," Owen continued, returning to his idea.