's speech had dissipated her
reserve, and she was in a mood to lay bare her heart. In this last
remark she disclosed to Philip her main difficulty. With a mind like
hers such things are rather matters of association than of simple logic.
Religion and miracles were bound up in the same bundle in her mind. To
reject the latter was to throw away the former, and this, by another
habitual association in her mind, would have seemed equivalent to the
moral subversion of the universe. On the other hand she had associated
modern faith-healing with Scripture miracles; the rejection of
faith-cures involved therefore a series of consequences that seemed
infinitely disastrous.

If it had been merely an abstract question Philip would not have
hesitated to reject the miraculous altogether, particularly in any
conversation in which such a rejection would have yielded interesting
results. But Phillida's confiding attitude touched him profoundly. After
all, he deemed faith a very good thing for a woman; unbelief, like
smoking and occasional by-words, was appropriate only to the coarser
sex.

"Well," he replied evasively, "the Bible stands on a very different
ground. We couldn't examine the ancient miracles just as we do modern
faith-cures if we wished. The belief in Bible miracles is a poetic and
religious belief, and it does not involve any practical question of
action to-day. But faith-healing now is a matter of great
responsibility."

Philip spoke with a tremor of emotion in his voice. His cousin was
sitting at the other side of the table looking intently at him, and
doing her best to understand the ground of his distinction between
ancient and modern miracles, which Philip, agitated as he was by a
feeling that had no relation to the question, did not succeed in
clearing up quite to his own satisfaction. Abandoning that field
abruptly, he said:

"What I urge is that you ought not to trust too much to accidental
recoveries like that of the Maginnis child. If faith-healing is a
mistake it may do a great deal of harm."

Phillida's eyes fell to the table, and she fingered a paper-weight with
manifest emotion.

"What you say in regard to responsibility is true, Philip. But if you
have a power to heal, refusal is also a responsibility. I know I must
seem like a fool to the rest of you."

"No," said Philip, in a low, earnest voice; "you are the noblest of us
all. You are mistaken, but your mistake is the result of the best that
is