“Oh, I don't know. Wouldn't that naturally be the attitude of Science?”
“Toward religion? Perhaps. But I'm not Science—with a large S. May be that's the reason why I left the case with Mr. Peck,” said the doctor, smiling. “Putney didn't leave off my medicine, did he?”
“He never got well so soon before. They both say that. I didn't think you could be so narrow-minded, Dr. Morrell. But of course your scientific bigotry couldn't admit the effect of the moral influence. It would be too much like a miracle; you would have to allow for a mystery.”
“I have to allow for a good many,” said the doctor. “The world is full of mysteries for me, if you mean things that science hasn't explored yet. But I hope that they'll all yield to the light, and that somewhere there'll be light enough to clear up even the spiritual mysteries.”
“Do you really?” she demanded eagerly. “Then you believe in a life hereafter? You believe in a moral government of the—”
He retreated, laughing, from her ardent pursuit. “Oh, I'm not going to commit myself. But I'll go so far as to say that I like to hear Mr. Peck preach, and that I want him to stay. I don't say he had nothing to do with Putney's straightening up. Putney had a great deal to do with it himself. What does he think Mr. Peck's chances are?”
“If Mr. Gerrish tries to get him dismissed? He doesn't know; he's quite in the dark. He says the party of the perverse—the people who think Mr. Gerrish must have had some good reason for his behaviour, simply because they can't see any—is unexpectedly large; and it doesn't help matters with the more respectable people that the most respectable, like Mr. Wilmington and Colonel Marvin, are Mr. Peck's friends. They think there must be something wrong if such good men are opposed to Mr. Gerrish.”
“And I suspect,” said Dr. Morrell soberly, “that Putney's championship isn't altogether an advantage. The people all concede his brilliancy, and they are prouder of him on account of his infirmity; but I guess they like to feel their superiority to him in practical matters. They admire him, but they don't want to follow him.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Annie disconsolately. “And I imagine that Mr. Wilmington's course is attributed to Lyra, and that doesn't help Mr. Peck much with the husbands of the ladies who don't approve of her.”
The doctor tacitly declined to touch this delicate point. He asked, after a pause, “You'll be at the meeting?”