She sighed.

“Perhaps not!  But just now it seems a sort of devil’s magic to me.  Anyhow, I’m glad he’s gone.  You’re sorry, I suppose?”

“In a way I am,”—­I answered, quietly—­“I thought him very kind and charming and courteous—­no one could be a better host or a pleasanter companion.  And I certainly saw nothing ‘devilish’ about him.  As for that collar of jewels, there are plenty of so-called ‘thought-readers’ who could have found out its existence and said as much of it as he did—­”

She uttered a low cry.

“Don’t speak of it!” she said—­“For Heaven’s sake, don’t speak of it!”

She buried her face in her pillow, and I waited silently for her to recover.  When she turned again towards me, she said—­

“I am not well yet,—­I cannot bear too much.  I only want you to know before you go away that I have no unkind feeling towards you,—­ things seem pushing me that way, but I have not really!—­and you surely will believe me—­”

“Surely!” I said, earnestly—­“Dear Catherine, do not worry yourself!  These impressions of yours will pass.”

“I hope so!” she said—­“I shall try to forget!  And you—­you will meet Mr. Santoris again, do you think?”

I hesitated.

“I do not know.”

“You seem to have some attraction for each other,” she went on—­“And I suppose your beliefs are alike.  To me they are dreadful beliefs!—­ worse than barbarism!”

I looked at her with all the compassion I truly felt.

“Why?  Because we believe that God is all love and tenderness and justice?—­because we cannot think He would have created life only to end in death?—­because we are sure that He allows nothing to be wasted, not even a thought?—­and nothing to go unrecompensed, either in good or in evil?  Surely these are not barbarous beliefs?”

A curious look came over her face.

“If I believed in anything,”—­she said—­“I would rather be orthodox, and believe in the doctrine of original sin and the Atonement.”

“Then you would start with the idea that the supreme and all-wise Creator could not make a perfect work!” I said—­“And that He was obliged to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure!  Catherine, if you speak of barbarism, this is the most barbarous belief of all!”

She stared at me, amazed.

“You would be put out of any church in Christendom for such a speech as that!” she said.

“Possibly!” I answered, quietly—­“But I should not and could not be put out of God’s Universe—­nor, I am certain, would He reject my soul’s eternal love and adoration!”

A silence fell between us.  Then I heard her sobbing.  I put my arm round her, and she laid her head on my shoulder.

“I wish I could feel as you do,”—­she whispered—­“You must be very happy!  The world is all beautiful in your eyes—­and of course with your ideas it will continue to be beautiful—­and even death will only come to you as another transition into life.  But you must not think anybody will ever understand you or believe you or follow you--people will only look upon you as mad, or the dupe of your own foolish imagination!”