red the
hopes I have conceived? For I cannot live without belief and without
happiness. On what solid ground shall I build my house when science
shall have demolished the old world, and while she is waiting to
construct the new? All the ancient city has fallen to pieces in this
catastrophe of examination and analysis; and all that remains of it is a
mad population vainly seeking a shelter among its ruins, while anxiously
looking for a solid and permanent refuge where they may begin life
anew. You must not be surprised, then, at our discouragement and our
impatience. We can wait no longer. Since tardy science has failed in her
promises, we prefer to fall back on the old beliefs, which for centuries
have sufficed for the happiness of the world."

"Ah! that is just it," he responded in a low voice; "we are just at the
turning point, at the end of the century, fatigued and exhausted with
the appalling accumulation of knowledge which it has set moving. And it
is the eternal need for falsehood, the eternal need for illusion which
distracts humanity, and throws it back upon the delusive charm of the
unknown. Since we can never know all, what is the use of trying to know
more than we know already? Since the truth, when we have attained it,
does not confer immediate and certain happiness, why not be satisfied
with ignorance, the darkened cradle in which humanity slept the deep
sleep of infancy? Yes, this is the aggressive return of the mysterious,
it is the reaction against a century of experimental research. And this
had to be; desertions were to be expected, since every need could not
be satisfied at once. But this is only a halt; the onward march will
continue, up there, beyond our view, in the illimitable fields of
space."

For a moment they remained silent, still motionless on their backs,
their gaze lost among the myriads of worlds shining in the dark sky. A
falling star shot across the constellation of Cassiopeia, like a flaming
arrow. And the luminous universe above turned slowly on its axis, in
solemn splendor, while from the dark earth around them arose only a
faint breath, like the soft, warm breath of a sleeping woman.

"Tell me," he said, in his good-natured voice, "did your Capuchin turn
your head this evening, then?"

"Yes," she answered frankly; "he says from the pulpit things that
disturb me. He preaches against everything you have taught me, and it is
as if the knowledge which I owe to you, transformed into