"And now," he said, turning to her sorrowfully, "that is the best or the worst of what I believe—according as one may like it or not like it. I see all things as a growth, a sublime unfolding by the Laws of God. The race ever rises toward Him. The old things which were its best once die off from it as no longer good. Its charity grows, its justice grows. All the nobler, finer elements of its spirit come forth more and more—a continuous advance along the paths of Law. And the better the world, the larger its knowledge, the easier its faith in Him who made it and who leads it on. The development of Man is itself the great Revelation of Him! But I have studied these things ignorantly, only a little while. I am at the beginning of my life, and hope to grow. Still I stand where I have placed myself. And now, are you like the others: do you give me up?"
He faced her with the manner in which he had sat before his professors, conceiving himself as on trial a second time. He had in him the stuff of martyrs and was prepared to stand by his faith at the cost of all things.
The silence in the room lasted. Her feeling for him was so much deeper than all this—so centred, not in what his faith was to her but in what HE was to her, that she did not trust herself to speak. He was not on trial in these matters in the least: without his knowing it, he had been on trial in many other ways for a long time.
He misunderstood her silence, read wrongly her expression which was obeying with some severity the need she felt to conceal what she had no right to show.
"Ah, well! Ah, well!" he cried piteously, rising slowly.
When she saw his face a moment later across the room as he turned, it was the face she had first seen in the dark street. It had stopped her singing then; it drew an immediate response from her now. She crossed over to him and took one of his hands in both of hers. Her cheeks were flushed, her voice trembled.
"I am not your judge," she said, "and in all this there is only one thing that is too sad, too awful, for me to accept. I am sorry you should have been misled into believing that the Christian religion is nothing more than one of the religions of the world, and Christ merely one of its religious teachers. I wish with all my strength you believed as you once believed, that the Bible is a direct Revelation from God, making known to us, beyond all doubt, the Resurrection of the dead, the Immortality of the Soul, in a better world than this, and the presence with us of a Father who knows our wants, pities our weakness, and answers our prayers. But I believe you will one day regain your faith: you will come back to the Church."
He shook his head.
"Don't be deceived," he said.
"Men, great men, have said that before and they have come back. I am a woman, and these questions never trouble us; but is it not a common occurrence that men who think deeply on such mysteries pass through their period of doubt?"