"I am sorry the time has dragged so heavily."
"Nay. The difficulty is to believe that ten days ago I did not know you. Now turn and look behind."
The village had sunk picturesquely into the perspective of the landscape. Beside them the river surged down over the rocks and boulders to the fjord, and the sound of church bells came through the still summer air.
"This is better than being in church," he said.
"Much;—especially when one understands nothing of what is going on. But I am glad I have seen a Norwegian service. It is so simple and primitive, and besides"—she laughed—"I have a mental picture now of Kjelland's Morten Kruse."
"I do go to church as a rule," he said. "In India I consider it a duty."
Mona raised her eyebrows. "I go to church as a rule, too," she said. "But it never occurred to me to look upon it in the light of a duty."
"Don't you think that in that, as in other things, one has to think of one's neighbours?"
"I can't bear the word 'duty' in such a connection. It seems to me, too, that the Spirit of Praise and Prayer bloweth where it listeth. One cannot command it with mathematical precision at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. The Spirit of Praise comes when one is alone in a world like this. I think we lose our individuality when there is nothing human near to remind us of it, and become as much a part of this great throbbing glorying Nature as the trees and the grass are."
"And the Spirit of Prayer?"