o you think him strong as a moralist?' inquired Sylvia.

'He has very decided opinions about the present state of our
civilisation.'

'So I find. But is there any distinctly moral force in him?'

'Father thinks so,' Sidwell replied, 'and so do our friends the
Lilywhites.'

Miss Moorhouse pondered awhile.

'He is a great problem to me,' she declared at length, knitting her
brows with a hint of humorous exaggeration. 'I wonder whether he
believes in the dogmas of Christianity.'

Sidwell was startled.

'Would he think of becoming a clergyman?'

'Oh, why not? Don't they recognise nowadays that the spirit is enough?'

There was silence. Sidwell let her eyes wander over the sunny grass to
the red-flowering creeper on the nearest side of the house.

'That would involve a great deal of dissimulation,' she said at length.
'I can't reconcile it with what I know of Mr. Peak.'

'And I can't reconcile anything else,' rejoined the other.

'He impresses you as a rationalist?'

'You not?'

'I confess I have taken his belief for granted. Oh, think! He couldn't
keep up such a pretence. However you justify it, it implies conscious
deception. It would be dishonourable. I am sure _he_ would think it so.'

'How does your brother regard him?' Sylvia asked, smiling very
slightly, but with direct eyes.

'Buckland can't credit anyone with sincerity except an aggressive
agnostic.'

'But I think he allows honest credulity.'

Sidwell had no answer to this. After musing a little, she put a
question which indicated how her thoughts had travelled.

'Have you met many women who declared themselves agnostics?'

'Several.'

Sylvia removed her hat, and began to fan herself gently with the brim.
Here, in the shade, bees were humming; from the house came faint notes
of a piano--Fanny practising a mazurka of Chopin.

'But never, I suppose, one who found a pleasure in attacking
Christianity?'

'A girl who was at school with me in London,' Sylvia replied, with an
air of amused reminiscence. 'Marcella Moxey. Didn't I ever speak to you
of her?'

'I think not.'

'She was bitter against religion of every kind.'

'Because her mother made her learn collects, I dare say?' suggested
Sidwell, in a tone of gentle satire.

'No, no. Marcella was about eighteen then, and had neither father nor
mother.--(How Fanny's touch improves!)--She was a born atheist, in the
fullest sense of the word.'

'And detestable?'

'Not to me--I rather li