"Ah," she said quickly, "that is what I have been wanting to know. It is very important. Your whole future depends on a wise choice."
"I am going to some college—to some northern university, as soon as possible. I shall have to work my way through, sometimes by teaching, in whatever way I can. I want to study physical science. I want to teach some branch of it. It draws me, draws all that is in me. That is to be my life-work. And now?"
He waited for her answer: it did not come at once.
"You have chosen wisely. I am so glad!"
"Oh, Gabriella!" he cried, "if you had failed me in that, I do not know what I should have done! Science! Science! There is the fresh path for the faith of the race! For the race henceforth must get its idea of God, and build its religion to Him, from its knowledge of the laws of His universe. A million years from now! Where will our dark theological dogmas be in that radiant time? The Creator of all life, in all life He must be studied! And in the study of science there is least wrangling, least tyranny, least bigotry, no persecution. It teaches charity, it teaches a well-ordered life, it teaches the world to be more kind. It is the great new path of knowledge into the future. All things must follow whither it leads. Our religion will more and more be what our science is, and some day they will be the same."
She had no controversy to raise with him about this. She was too intently thinking of troublous problems nearer heart and home.
And these rose before him also: he fell into silence.
"But, oh, Gabriella! how long, how long the years will be that separate me from you!"
"No!" she exclaimed, her whole nature starting up, terrified. "What do you mean? No!"
"I mean while I am going through college; while I am preparing a place for you."