o
hold its own; her hesitation had been induced, not by fear of disturbing
her faith, but because she doubted, pricked by the bigotry in her veins,
if it was loyal to recognise the existence of the enemy.

However, she finished the book. On the following Saturday morning she
went down to the library and asked the librarian, who took some interest
in her, what he would advise her to read in the way of science; she had
lost all taste for anything else.

"Well, Darwin is about the best to begin on, I should say," he replied.
"He's easy reading on account of his style. And then I should advise you
to read Fiske's 'Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy' before you tackle
Herbert Spencer or Huxley or Tyndall."

Magdalena took home Darwin's "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man."
They so fascinated her that not until their contents had become a
permanent part of her mental furnishing did she realise their warfare on
revealed religion. But by this time science had her in its mighty grip.

She read all that the librarian had recommended, and much more. It was
some six months later that she fully realised that her faith was gone.
There came a time when her simple appeals to the Virgin stuck in her
throat; when she realised that her beloved masters, if they could have
seen her telling a rosary at the foot of her altar, would have thought
her a fool.

There was no struggle, for the work was done, and finally. But her grief
was deep and bitter. Religion had been a strong inherited instinct, and
it had been three fourths of her existence for nearly eighteen years.
She felt as if the very roots of her spirit had been torn up and lay
wilting and shrivelling in the cold light of her reason. She was
terrified at her new position. How was she, a mere girl, to think for
herself, to make her way through life, which every great writer told her
was a complex and crucifying ordeal, with no guide but her own poor
reason?

For the first time she felt her isolation. She had no one to go to for
sympathy, no one to advise her. Of all she knew, her parents were the
last she could have approached on any subject involving the surrender of
her reticence.

She lost interest in her books, and brooded, her mind struggling toward
will-o'-the-wisps in a fog-bank, until she could endure her solitary
position no longer; she felt that she must speak to some one or her
brain would fall to ashes. Her aunt was still in Santa Barbara, and
showed no disposition