with a
curtsy to the altar, walked out before me.

I found that Sylvia generally stayed on in the church for the eight
o'clock service; and I was duly grateful when she yielded to my
solicitations and set out for a walk with me instead. I had taken a few
biscuits from the dining-room and eaten them on my way out; but I
learned later, rather to my distress, that Sylvia had not broken her
fast. I must suppose she was accustomed to such practices, for she
seemed to enjoy almost as much as I did our long ramble in the fresh
morning air.

I learned a good deal during that morning walk, and the day that
followed it, the greater part of which I spent by Sylvia's side. Upon
the whole, I was perturbed and made uneasy; but I continued to assure
myself, perhaps too insistently for confidence or comfort, that Sylvia
was wholly desirable and sweet. It was perhaps unfortunate for my peace
of mind that the day was one of continuous religious exercises. The fact
tinged all our converse, and indeed supplied the motive of most of it.

I did not at the time realize exactly what chilled and disturbed me, but
I think now that it was what I might call the inhumanity of Sylvia's
religion. I dipped into one of her sumptuous little books at some time
during the day, and I remember this passage:

"To this end spiritual writers recommend what is called a 'holy
indifference' to all created things, including things inanimate, place,
time, and the like. Try as far as possible to be indifferent to all
things. Remember that the one thing important above all others to you is
the salvation of your own soul. It is the great work of your life, far
greater than your work as parent, child, husband, wife, or friend."

It was a reputable sort of a book this, and fathered by a respected
Oxford cleric.

There was singularly little of the mystic in my temperament. My mind, as
you have seen, was surcharged with crude but fervent desires for the
material betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not interested in human
well-being, material progress, mortal ills and remedies. Approaching
Sylvia's position and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way
through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant
the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his
Reverence and St. Jude's; and found, or thought I found, that Sylvia's
religion was at worst a selfish gratification of the senses of the
individual worshipper, and a