en I've seen two such really genuine people. I should like to have
known more of them. Are they still here?"

"They went yesterday," Theron replied. His earlier shyness had worn off,
and he felt comfortably at his ease. "I don't know," he went on, "that
the word 'genuine' is just what would have occurred to me to describe
the Soulsbys. They are very interesting people, as you say--MOST
interesting--and there was a time, I dare say, when I should have
believed in their sincerity. But of course I saw them and their
performance from the inside--like one on the stage of a theatre, you
know, instead of in the audience, and--well, I understand things better
than I used to."

The doctor looked over his spectacles at him with a suggestion of
inquiry in his glance, and Theron continued: "I had several long talks
with her; she told me very frankly the whole story of her life--and and
it was decidedly queer, I can assure you! I may say to you--you will
understand what I mean--that since my talk with you, and the books you
lent me, I see many things differently. Indeed, when I think upon it
sometimes my old state of mind seems quite incredible to me. I can use
no word for my new state short of illumination."

Dr. Ledsmar continued to regard his guest with that calm, interrogatory
scrutiny of his. He did not seem disposed to take up the great issue of
illumination. "I suppose," he said after a little, "no woman can come
in contact with a priest for any length of time WITHOUT telling him the
'story of her life,' as you call it. They all do it. The thing amounts
to a law."

The young minister's veins responded with a pleasurable thrill to the
use of the word "priest" in obvious allusion to himself. "Perhaps in
fairness I ought to explain," he said, "that in her case it was only
done in the course of a long talk about myself. I might say that it was
by way of kindly warning to me. She saw how I had become unsettled in
many--many of my former views--and she was nervous lest this should lead
me to--to--"

"To throw up the priesthood," the doctor interposed upon his hesitation.
"Yes, I know the tribe. Why, my dear sir, your entire profession would
have perished from the memory of mankind, if it hadn't been for women.
It is a very curious subject. Lots of thinkers have dipped into it,
but no one has gone resolutely in with a search-light and exploited the
whole thing. Our boys, for instance, traverse in their younger years all
the st