vantage farther. The
opportunity seemed excellent. But while he was hesitating as to just how
to begin, the young girl said, bending forward and clasping her hands in
her lap, "Please tell me about your religion."

"Tell you about it? I can't!" said Rowland, with a good deal of
emphasis.

She flushed a little. "Is it such a mighty mystery it cannot be put into
words, nor communicated to my base ears?"

"It is simply a sentiment that makes part of my life, and I can't detach
myself from it sufficiently to talk about it."

"Religion, it seems to me, should be eloquent and aggressive. It should
wish to make converts, to persuade and illumine, to sway all hearts!"

"One's religion takes the color of one's general disposition. I am not
aggressive, and certainly I am not eloquent."

"Beware, then, of finding yourself confronted with doubt and despair! I
am sure that doubt, at times, and the bitterness that comes of it, can
be terribly eloquent. To tell the truth, my lonely musings, before
you came in, were eloquent enough, in their way. What do you know of
anything but this strange, terrible world that surrounds you? How do you
know that your faith is not a mere crazy castle in the air; one of those
castles that we are called fools for building when we lodge them in this
life?"

"I don't know it, any more than any one knows the contrary. But one's
religion is extremely ingenious in doing without knowledge."

"In such a world as this it certainly needs to be!"

Rowland smiled. "What is your particular quarrel with this world?"

"It 's a general quarrel. Nothing is true, or fixed, or permanent. We
all seem to be playing with shadows more or less grotesque. It all comes
over me here so dismally! The very atmosphere of this cold, deserted
church seems to mock at one's longing to believe in something. Who cares
for it now? who comes to it? who takes it seriously? Poor stupid Assunta
there gives in her adhesion in a jargon she does n't understand, and
you and I, proper, passionless tourists, come lounging in to rest from
a walk. And yet the Catholic church was once the proudest institution
in the world, and had quite its own way with men's souls. When such a
mighty structure as that turns out to have a flaw, what faith is one to
put in one's poor little views and philosophies? What is right and what
is wrong? What is one really to care for? What is the proper rule of
life? I am tired of trying to discover, and I suspect