Outside, as soon as they were out of the crowd, Peter began at once.

“Julie,” he said, “whatever did you think of that sermon?”

“What did you?” she said.  “Tell me first.”

“I don’t believe you listened at all, but I can’t help talking of it.  It was amazing.  He began by speaking about Adam and Eve and original sin and the Garden of Eden as if he’d been there.  There might never have been a Higher Critic in existence.  Then he said what sin did, and that sin was only truly sin if it did do that. That was to hide the face of God, to put Him and a human being absolutely out of communication, so to speak.  And then he came to Christ, to the Cross.  Did you hear him, Julie?  Christ comes in between—­He got in between God and man.  All the anger that darted out of God against sin hit Him; all the blows that man struck back against God hit Him.  Do you see that, Julie?  That was wonderfully put, but the end was more wonderful.  Both, ultimately, cannot kill the Heart of Jesus.  There’s no sin there to merit or to feel the anger, and we can hurt, but we can’t destroy His love.”

Peter stopped, “That’s what I saw a little this morning,” he said after a minute.

“Well?” said Julie.

“Oh, it’s all so plain!  If there was a way to that Heart, one would be safe.  I mean, a way that is not an emotional idea, not a subjective experience, but something practical.  Some way that a Tommy could travel, as easily as anyone, and get to a real thing.  And he said there was a way, and just sketched it, the Sacraments—­more than ours, of course, their seven, all of them more or less, I suppose.  He meant that the Sacraments were not signs of salvation, but salvation itself.  Julie, I never saw the idea before.  It’s colossal.  It’s a thing to which one might dedicate one’s life.  It’s a thing to live and die gladly for.  It fills one.  Don’t you think so, Julie?” He spoke exultantly.

“Peter, to be honest,” said Julie, “I think you’re talking fanatical rubbish.”

“Do you really, Julie?  You can’t, surely you can’t.”

“But I do, Peter,” she said sadly; “it makes no appeal to me.  I can only see one great thing in life, and it’s not that.  ‘The rest is lies,’ But, oh! surely that great thing might not be false too.  But why do you see one thing, and I another, my dear?”

“I don’t know,” said Peter, “unless—­well, perhaps it’s a kind of gift, Julie, ‘If thou knewest the gift of God...’  Not that I know, only I can just see a great wonderful vision, and it fills my sight.”

“I, too,” she said; “but it’s not your vision.”

“What is it, then?” said he, carried away by his own ideas and hardly thinking of her.

Her voice brought him back.  “Oh, Peter, don’t you know even yet?”

He took her arm very tenderly at that.  “My darling,” he said, “the two aren’t incompatible.  Julie, don’t be sad.  I love you; you know I love you.  I wish we’d never gone to the place if you think I don’t, but I haven’t changed towards you a bit, Julie.  I love you far, far more than anyone else.  I won’t give you up, even to God!”