"It is easy to call people names," he said, at length, without looking at her. "I do not complain, however. I have believed the things I could not help believing. Can we any of us do more than that?"
"I do not quite understand?" she answered, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
"I mean that the things we believe, or do not believe, are matters over which we have no absolute control. You believe what you believe because you cannot help it. You have not been coerced into believing it. The evidence is all-sufficient for you though it might not be for me. On the same ground I believe what I believe—because—because I cannot help myself. Do you follow me? Faith after all is belief upon evidence, and if the evidence is insufficient——"
"But what if people reject the evidence without weighing it, stubbornly turn their backs upon the light?" she interrupted.
"Then they are not honest," he said, quickly; "but I hope you do not accuse me of dishonesty?"
"I accuse you of nothing," she answered. "I have only told you what people are saying."
"And you are sorry?" and he turned, and looked her frankly in the face.
"I am very sorry," she replied, with a faint suspicion of colour on her cheeks.
"It is generous of you to be interested in me at all," he said, after a pause. "And if I were to tell you how much I value that interest you might not believe me."
She darted a startled glance at him, but she did not catch his eyes for he was looking seaward again, and for a moment or two there was silence.