She closed the book again and waited for him to speak.
"It is a beautiful thought," he said, without opening his eyes. "If one could only be sure it is true."
"Be sure that what is true?" she asked, in a tone of surprise.
"That Life is ever Lord of death. That Love can never lose its own."
"Why do you think there can be any doubt about it?"
He opened his eyes again and looked at her, and his heart smote him. It would be a cruel thing to disturb her serene and simple faith with his own doubts. Almost for the first time in his life he felt the utter futility of the agnostic's creed. It had nothing to offer but a catalogue of negations. To the parched and thirsty lips it placed an empty cup, and before tired and longing eyes it held up a blank canvas.
He had grown out of his religious creed as he had grown out of his pinafores. His heart and his intellect alike had revolted against the narrow orthodoxy of his grandfather. He had been driven farther into the barren desert of negations by the pitiful parody of religion exhibited by ecclesiastical organisations, and to complete the work Felix Muller had inoculated him with the views of German materialists. He fancied, like many another man who had followed in the same track, that he had got to the bed-rock at last, that after much delving he had found the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yet it was truth that brought no hope, no comfort, no inspiration. He was not eager to proclaim it to others. Men would be just as well off if they never reached this ultima Thule—perhaps, better off. To persuade men that there was no God, nor heaven, nor immortality, that this life was all and the grave the end, was not the kind of thing to inspire men to great deeds or heroic achievements.
His intellect might mock at the simple faith of the sweet-eyed maiden. He might honestly believe that she was living in a fool's paradise. But if it was a paradise and there was nothing beyond it, why disturb her? If death ended everything, let her enjoy her paradise as long as possible. If it was the only paradise she would ever have, it would be sheer cruelty to drive her out of it.