"I admit to having hoped," he said, ignoring the snub, "that you would think yourself out of that particular creed towards which circumstances forced you. The majority of your priests, in this country especially, hardly inspire me to follow, as an unquestioning disciple, in their footsteps."
"Nor me, as a rule," she owned calmly, "But what have the priests to do with the creed?"
"It is a priest-ridden creed. The Protestant section, at least, leave one to deal direct with the Highest Authority."
"Have you studied the teaching of either party?"
"I have not. There is no need. One judges the tree by the fruits. The Roman version of the law produces bigots; the Protestant produces——"
"Agnostics."
He laughed, and they left it at that. He knew himself to be soaked in prejudice and dreaded lest they should try to influence her against the visions which kept her at his side—those Men in Black. Had they not delivered over one of their, since acknowledged, girl-saints to the stake and its flames for seeing visions and dreaming dreams in which their own uninspired blindness could not share?
Infallible? Infallible!
He knew nothing of that other Cyprian, with whose condemnation she was familiar. He only knew that, having Ferlie, he meant to hold.