to be
belittled as far as possible, if not actually suppressed.

Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no concern with Puritanism,
for it lacked the discipline, the self-restraint that made Cromwell's
men invincible. There was no Puritanism in the influence which could
make women indifferent to the earthly ties of love and sentiment, to
children, to the home and domesticity, while at the same time implanting
in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense, rich vestments,
gorgeous decorations, and the whole paraphernalia of such a service as
that of St. Jude's, Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would be
more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this religion, did not say:

"Deny yourself this or that."

It said:

"Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny all other mortals. Wrap
yourself in yourself, thinking only of your own soul and its relation to
its Maker and Saviour."

This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though she was sweetly kind
and sympathetic to me, Dick Mordan, I was strangely chilled and
perturbed by realization of the fact that nothing human really weighed
with her, unless her own soul was human; that the people, our fellow men
and women, of whose situation and welfare I thought so much, were far
less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints; that humanity had
even less import for her, was less real, than to me, was the fascination
of St. Jude's incense-laden atmosphere.

Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for me; the personality
which animated and informed it chilled and repelled me as it might have
been a thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear importance of some
one of humanity's claims, the faraway gaze of her beautiful eyes, with
their light that never was on sea or land, her faintly superior
smile--all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with more baffling
effect.

And then the accidental touch of her little hand would bring me back,
with pulses fluttering, and the warm blood in my veins insisting that
sweet Sylvia was adorable; that everything would be well lost in payment
for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I spent that pleasant Sabbath
day, attached to Sylvia by ties over which my mind had small control; by
bonds which, if the truth were known, were not wholly dissimilar, I
believe, from the ties which drew her daily to the heavy atmosphere of
the sanctuary rails of St. Jude's.

In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and