om morning till night--to betray so great a mystery.

Who was the unknown friend? There was but one person who could have done
it.... And yet he dared not--the thought was too delightful--think it
was she. It must have been her father. The old man had asked him more
than once about the state of his purse. True, he had always returned
evasive answers; but the kind old man must have divined the truth. Ought
he not--must he not--go and thank him? No; perhaps it was more courteous
to say nothing. If he--she--for of course she had permitted, perhaps
advised, the gift--had intended him to thank them, would they have so
carefully concealed their own generosity?.... Be it so, then. But how
would he not repay them for it! How delightful to be in her debt for
anything--for everything! Would that he could have the enjoyment of
owing her existence itself!

So he took the coin, bought unto himself a cloak of the most philosophic
fashion, and went his way, such as it was, rejoicing.

But his faith in Christianity? What had become of that?

What usually happens in such cases. It was not dead; but nevertheless it
had fallen fast asleep for the time being. He did not disbelieve it;
he would have been shocked to hear such a thing asserted of him: but he
happened to be busy believing something else--geometry, conic sections,
cosmogonies, psychologies, and what not. And so it befell that he had
not just then time to believe in Christianity. He recollected at times
its existence; but even then he neither affirmed nor denied it. When
he had solved the great questions--those which Hypatia set forth as the
roots of all knowledge--how the world was made, and what was the
origin of evil, and what his own personality was, and--that being
settled--whether he had one, with a few other preliminary matters, then
it would be time to return, with his enlarged light, to the study of
Christianity; and if, of course, Christianity should be found to be at
variance with that enlarged light, as Hypatia seemed to think ....
Why, then--What then?.... He would not think about such disagreeable
possibilities. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.

Possibilities? It was impossible.... Philosophy could not mislead. Had
not Hypatia defined it, as man's search after the unseen? And if he
found the unseen by it, did it not come to just the same thing as if the
unseen had revealed itself to him? And he must find it--for logic and
mathematics could not err.