t forget that if it were
not for you he would not be a bridegroom to-day. Also, you are not
responsible for being an Estenega; so, although I do not forgive the
blood in you,--how could I, and be worthy to bear the name of Iturbi y
Moncada?--I forgive you, yourself, for being what you cannot help, and
for what you have unwittingly and mistakenly done. Do you understand?"

"I understand. Your subtleties are magnificent."

"You must not laugh at me. Tell me, how do you like my friend
Valencia?"

"Well enough. I want to hear more about your confession. You fall back
into the bosom of your Church with joy, I suppose?"

"Ay!"

"And you would never disobey one of her mandates?"

"Holy God! no."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I am a Catholic."

"That is not what I asked you. Why are you a Catholic? if I must make
myself more plain. Why are you afraid to disobey? Why do you cling to
the Church with your back braced against your intelligence? It is hope
of future reward, I suppose,--or fear?"

"Sure. I want to go to the heaven of the good Catholic."

"Do not waste this life, particularly the youth of it, preparing for
a legendary hereafter. Granting, for the sake of argument, that this
existence is supplemented by another: you have no knowledge of what
elements you will be composed when you lay aside your mortal part to
enter there. Your power of enjoyment may be very thin indeed, like the
music of a band without brass; the sort of happiness one can imagine a
human being to experience out of whose anatomy the nervous system has
by some surgical triumph been removed, and in whom love of the arts
alone exists, abnormally cultivated. But one thing we of earth do
know; you do not, but I will tell you; we have a slight capacity for
happiness and a large capacity for enjoyment. There is not much in
life, God knows, but there is something. One can get a reasonable
amount out of it with due exercise of philosophy. Of that we are sure.
Of what comes after we are absolutely unsure."

She had endeavored to interrupt him once or twice, and did so now, her
eyes flashing. "Are you an atheist?" she demanded, abruptly. "Are you
not a Catholic?"

"I am neither an atheist nor a Catholic. The question of religion has
no interest for me whatever. I wish it had none for you."

She looked at him sternly. For a moment I thought the Doomswoman would
annihilate the renegade. But her face softened suddenly. "I will pray
for you," she said, and