“Poor Valentine,” she murmured.
“You need not pity me. I was perfectly happy. You goody-goody people talk a lot about sinners’ consciences troubling them. They don’t. One isn’t afraid of anything but being found out.”
“If a conscience sleeps, how can it guide?”
“Well, I intended to let mine wake up some day, then I would sober myself and lead a steady life. Don’t go yet. Tell me more about your beliefs.”
She cast a pitying glance at his restless, unhappy face, and again sat down beside him. “I cannot argue learnedly with you, Valentine. I can only say that I believe in God and in his Son our Saviour, who will forgive our sins if we ask him, and that I believe in the Bible as his revealed word, and that I know I shall go to him when I die. It is a very comfortable belief.”
“Comfortable! yes, for you; not so comfortable for the poor fellows whom you damn.”
“‘God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved,’” repeated Vivienne.
“An attractive myth,” he said lightly; “and you Christians won’t expose it.”
“Why should one doubt a thing that one is sure of?” asked the girl with a puzzled face. “Here is proof enough for me: our glorious faith has been the light of the world; apostles, prophets, and martyrs have died triumphantly for it; Christians are the salt of the earth, and if you had your way and cast every Bible into the sea, our land would become a dreary wilderness of shame and confusion.”
“Fanaticism!” said Valentine; “the Mohammedans talk as wildly as you do.”