"She knows it as the angels do—if there be angels!"
"If! What do you mean?"
"Only this, that, if there are angels, they are not more remote from me than she is."
"You speak in riddles. I have no wish to force your confidence, my friend; but I have known that child from her cradle, and I cannot help being interested in anything concerning her."
"O mein herr! I have nothing to conceal; you misunderstand me. She is a Catholic; that is why she is so far from me."
"And you are a Protestant? But so is her father."
"No, I am not a Protestant, though I am English."
"Ah! perhaps you have no settled outward form of religion?"
"That is it. But, if I were Protestant, she would not marry me."
"In a few years, dear young friend, you may think differently. I was very like you once, only far worse; yet, you see, I too am a Catholic now."