"You don't know, Griff, how religion takes a man; he wants to be always subduing, subduing, and it's a fearful sin to pamper the carnal body."
"Fiddlesticks! You look after your body, and the Lord will look after your soul; play the fool with your body a year or two longer, and you'll begin to wonder whether you have a soul at all."
"But, Griff—John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey, and——"
"You're not John, though, and you happen to have some one to look after you. Chip that egg."
Gabriel obeyed meekly, though he sorely doubted Griff's way of putting things. He ate with a relish, however, and at the end of it Lomax got to the real subject in hand.
"What about this girl? Who is she?" he asked abruptly.
The preacher flushed.
"All last night I was dreaming of her, and that was why I slept so quietly: I forgot that it was the flesh, and we went over the moor together till we got to the Thorntop road. She was more like a spirit than a woman, and her eyes were as quiet and deep and far away as the stars. I whispered, 'Greta,' and she took my head to her breast, and 'Hush!' she said; 'the fight is over and done with, and the reward is here.' Griff, man, it's hard, hard, coming back to the sin."
Griff watched him curiously. The innocence of this broad-shouldered man, his childish outspokenness—he could not tell whether more to pity or admire them.