h more difficult belief was to her than to the slightly-deformed
woman in front of her. The doctrine that a merciful God has prepared a
place of eternal torment for his erring creatures is hard enough to
credit. She didn't think she could ever believe that again; or that God
had sent his Son on earth to expiate on the cross the sins which he and
his Father in conjunction with the Holy Ghost had fated them to commit;
or that bread and wine becomes, at the bidding of the priest, the
creator of all the stars we see at midnight. True that she believed
these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advancement brought
her no nearer to the solution of the question directly affecting her
life. Owen encouraged her to persevere in her agnosticism. "Old
instincts," he said, "are not conquered at once. You must be patient.
The Scotch were converted about three or four hundred years after
Christ. Christianity is therefore fourteen hundred years old, whereas
the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to
catch root." She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings
are--well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them.
They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she
looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible,
but she could not always help herself) something told her that the
present was but a passing stage. Often it seemed to her that she was
like one out on a picnic--she was amused--she would be sorry when it
ended; but she could not feel that it was to last. Other women were at
home in their lives; she was not in hers. We all have a life that is
more natural for us to live than any other; we all have a mission of
some sort to accomplish, and the happiest are those whose lives
correspond to their convictions. Even Owen's love did not quite
compensate her for the lack of agreement between her outer and inner
life.

All this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of view were
so different. Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.
She had said, "If you don't understand religion, you understand art.
Well, then, imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace
to live in; place every pleasure at his call, imposing only one
condition--that he is not to paint. His appetites may detain him in the
palace for a while, but sooner or later he will cry out, 'All these
pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is t