, and quickly nodded towards her uncle. Had she really been
thinking of him when speaking those words? Or had there been in her
some occult complication? Had she alluded to her uncle without
conviction, simply because she dare not name, even in thought, another
person to whom her words might more justly apply? The Professor's
silence, his searching glance which she had felt without meeting,
revealed to her that he suspected her. It was for that reason she had
hastily nodded towards Uncle Piero.

"Does he not believe in a future life?" the Professor asked.

"I should say not," Luisa answered, and then at once her heart was
filled with remorse, for she felt that her reasons for affirming this
were not sufficient, that she had no right to answer thus. In fact her
uncle had never taken the trouble to meditate on religion. In his
conception of honesty were included the continuation of the ancient,
family practices and the profession of the inherited faith, accepted
carelessly, as it stood. His was a good-natured God like himself, who,
again like himself, cared little for genuflections and rosaries; a God
well pleased to have honest, hearty men for His ministers, as Uncle
Piero was well pleased to have such for his friends, even though they
might be merry eaters and drinkers, life-long devotees of _tarocchi_,
open tellers of spicy but not filthy stories, as a lawful outlet for
that prurient hilarity which is in all of us. Certain joking remarks of
his, certain aphorisms uttered thoughtlessly upon the relative
importance of religious practices and the absolute importance of honest
living, had struck her, even as a child, especially as they greatly
vexed Signora Teresa, who would entreat her brother not to "talk
nonsense." She suspected that he went to church simply because it was
fitting to do so. Perhaps this was not true; one must overlook the
aphorisms of a man who had grown old in self-sacrifice and
self-abnegation, and who was wont to say: _Charitas incipit a me._
Besides, even if her uncle did hold religious practices in slight
esteem, there was a vast difference between that and denying a future
life. Indeed, as soon as Luisa had uttered her opinion and had heard how
it sounded, she felt it was false, saw more clearly within herself and
realised that she had been seeking in her uncle's example, a prop and a
comfort for herself.

The Professor was greatly moved by this unexpected revelation.

"This one soul," said he