“Mrs. Cardew and I were discussing the lines about doubt and music, and we cannot see what Milton means. We cannot see how music can make us sure of a thing if there is not good reason for it.”
Catharine used the first person plural with the best intention, but her object was defeated. The rector recognised the words at once.
“Yes, yes,” he replied, impatiently; “but, Miss Furze, you know better than that. Milton does not mean doubt whether an arithmetical proposition is true. I question if he means theological doubt. Doubt in that passage is nearer despondency. It is despondency taking an intellectual form and clothing itself with doubts which no reasoning will overcome, which re-shape themselves the moment they are refuted.” He stopped for a moment. “Don’t you think so, Miss Furze?”
She forgot Mrs. Cardew, and looked straight into Mr. Cardew’s face bent earnestly upon her.
“I understand.”
Mrs. Cardew had lifted her eyes from the ground, on which they had been fixed. “I think,” said she, “we had better be going.”
“We can go out by the door at the end of the garden, if you will go and bid the Misses Ponsonby good-bye.”
Mrs. Cardew lingered a moment.
“I have bidden them good-bye,” said her husband.
She went, and Miss Ponsonby detained her for a few minutes to arrange the details of an important quarterly meeting of the Dorcas Society for next week.