"Just this"—and I knelt beside her for a moment holding her hand—"I KNOW that there are no external surroundings which we do not make for ourselves, and that our troubles are born of our own wrong thinking, and are not sent from God. I train my Soul to be calm,—and my body obeys my Soul. That's all!"
Her fingers closed on mine nervously.
"But what's the use of telling me this?" she half whispered—"I don't believe in God or the Soul!"
I rose from my kneeling attitude.
"Poor Catherine!" I said—"Then indeed it is no use telling you anything! You are in darkness instead of daylight, and no one can make you see. Oh, what can I do to help you?"
"Nothing,"—she answered—"My faith—it was never very much,—was taken from me altogether when I was quite young. Father made it seem absurd. He's a clever man, you know—and in a few words he makes out religion to be utter nonsense."
"I understand!"
And indeed I did entirely understand. Her father was one of a rapidly increasing class of men who are a danger to the community,—a cold, cynical shatterer of every noble ideal,—a sneerer at patriotism and honour,—a deliberate iconoclast of the most callous and remorseless type. That he had good points in his character was not to be denied,—a murderer may have these. But to be in his company for very long was to feel that there is no good in anything—that life is a mistake of Nature, and death a fortunate ending of the blunder—that God is a delusion and the 'Soul' a mere expression signifying certain intelligent movements of the brain only.
I stood silently thinking these things, while she watched me rather wistfully. Presently she said:
"Are you going on deck now?"