e might have
remained herself to the end; for you would have let her alone.
Religion provokes me... I blaspheme; but you are indifferent, you
are not interested. You are splendid, Ulick."

A smile crossed Ulick's lips, and Owen wondered what the cause of the
smile might be, and would have asked, only he was too interested in
his own thoughts; and the words, "I wonder you trouble about
people's beliefs" turned him back upon himself, and he continued:

"I have often wondered. Perhaps something happens to one early in
life, and the mind takes a bias. My animosity to religion may have
worn away some edge off her mind, don't you see? The moral idea that
one lover is all right, whereas any transgression means ruin to a
woman, was never invented by her. It came from me; it is impossible
she could have developed that moral idea from within--she was
infected with it."

"You think so?" Ulick replied thoughtfully, and took another cigar.

"Yes, if she had met you," Owen continued, returning to his idea.

"But if she had met me in the beginning you wouldn't have known her;
and you wouldn't consent to that so that she might be saved from
Monsignor?"

"I'd make many sacrifices to save her from that nightmare of a man;
but the surrender of one's past is unthinkable. The future? Yes. But
there is nothing to be done. We don't know where she is. Her father
said she would be in London at the end of the week; therefore she is
in London now." "If she didn't change her mind." "No, she never
changes her mind about such things; any change of plans always
annoyed her. So she is in London, and we do not know her address.
Isn't it strange? And yet we are more interested in her than in any
other human being."

"It would be easy to get her address; I suppose Innes would tell us.
I shouldn't mind going down to Dulwich if I were not so busy with
this opera company. The number of people I have to see,
five-and-twenty, thirty letters every day to be written--really I
haven't a minute. But you, Asher, don't you think you might run down
to Dulwich and interview the old gentleman? After all, you are the
proper person. I am nobody in her life, only a friend of a few
months, whereas she owes everything to you. It was you who
discovered her--you who taught her, you whom she loved."

"Yes, there is a great deal in what you say, Ulick, a great deal in
what you say. I hadn't thought of it in that light before. I suppose
the lot does fall to me by rig