," he said
slowly.

"Does it," she cried. "Then it's worse. I don't want to see
your chest slit, nor to eat your dead body, even if you offer it
to me. Can't you see it's horrible?"

"It isn't me, it's Christ."

"What if it is, it's you! And it's horrible, you wallowing in
your own dead body, and thinking of eating it in the
Sacrament."

"You've to take it for what it means."

"It means your human body put up to be slit and killed and
then worshipped--what else?"

They lapsed into silence. His soul grew angry and aloof.

"And I think that lamb in Church," she said, "is the biggest
joke in the parish----"

She burst into a "Pouf" of ridiculing laughter.

"It might be, to those that see nothing in it," he said. "You
know it's the symbol of Christ, of His innocence and
sacrifice."

"Whatever it means, it's a lamb," she said. "And I
like lambs too much to treat them as if they had to mean
something. As for the Christmas-tree
flag--no----"

And again she poufed with mockery.

"It's because you don't know anything," he said violently,
harshly. "Laugh at what you know, not at what you don't
know."

"What don't I know?"

"What things mean."

"And what does it mean?"

He was reluctant to answer her. He found it difficult.

"What does it mean?" she insisted.

"It means the triumph of the Resurrection."

She hesitated, baffled, a fear came upon her. What were these
things? Something dark and powerful seemed to extend before her.
Was it wonderful after all?

But no--she refused it.

"Whatever it may pretend to mean, what it is is a silly
absurd toy-lamb with a Christmas-tree flag ledged on its
paw--and if it wants to mean anything else, it must look
different from that."

He was in a state of violent irritation against her. Partly
he was ashamed of his love for these things; he hid his passion
for them. He was ashamed of the ecstasy into which he could
throw himself with these symbols. And for a few moments he hated
the lamb and the mystic pictures of the Eucharist, with a
violent, ashy hatred. His fire was put out, she had thrown cold
water on it. The whole thing was distasteful to him, his mouth
was full of ashes. He went out cold with corpse-like anger,
leaving her alone. He hated her. He walked through the white
snow, under a sky of lead.

And she wept again, in bitter recurrence of the previous
gloom. But her heart was easy--oh, much more easy.

She was quite willing to make it up with h