slightly.

"It is very wicked," said she, and she began to make another stitch,
looking down again.

"I have no doubt that you think so," answered Paul Griggs, slowly
nodding a third time.

"It is not a question of opinion. It is a matter of fact. You have
ruined the life of an innocent woman."

"If social position is the object of existence, you are right," he
replied. "I have nothing to say."

"I am not speaking of social position," said Donna Francesca, continuing
to make stitches.

"Then I am afraid that I do not understand you."

"Can you conceive of nothing more important to the welfare of men and
women than social position?"

"It is precisely because I do, that I care so little what society
thinks. I do not understand you."

"I have known you some time," said Francesca. "I had not supposed that
you were a man without a sense of right and wrong. That is the question
which is concerned now."

"It is a question which may be answered from more than one point of
view. You look at it in one way, and I in another. With your permission,
we will differ about it, since we can never agree."

"There is no such thing as differing about right and wrong," answered
Donna Francesca, with a little impatience. "Right is right, and wrong is
wrong. You cannot possibly believe that you have done right. Therefore
you know that you have done wrong."

"That sort of logic assumes God at the expense of man," said Griggs,
calmly.

Francesca looked up with a startled expression in her eyes, for she was
shocked, though she did not understand him.

"God is good, and man is sinful," she answered, in the words of her
simple faith.

"Why?" asked Griggs, gravely.

He waited for her answer to the most tremendous question which man can
ask, and he knew that she could not answer him, though she might satisfy
herself.

"I have never talked about religion with an atheist," she said at last,
slowly pushing her needle through the heavy satin.

"I am not an atheist, Princess."

"A Protestant, then--"

"I am not a Protestant. I am a Catholic, as you are."

She looked up suddenly and faced him with earnest eyes.

"Then you are not a good Catholic," she said. "No good Catholic could
speak as you do."

"Even the Apostles had doubts," answered Griggs. "But I do not pretend
to be good. Since I am a man, I have a right to be a man, and to be
treated as a man. If the right is not given me freely, I will take it.
You cannot expect