belief in
God----"

"You are mistaken," said Palla drily; "--one merely becomes one's self
when once the belief in that sort of God is ended."

Ilse turned to Brisson: "That," she said, "is what seems so impossible
for some to accept--so terrible--the apparent indifference, the lack
of explanation--God's dreadful reticence in this thunderous whirlwind
of prayer that storms skyward day and night from our martyred world."

Palla, listening, sat forward and said to Brisson: "There is only one
religion and it has only two precepts--love and give! The rest--the
forms, observances, creeds, ceremonies, threats, promises, are
man-made trash!

"If man's man-made God pleases him, let him worship him. That kind of
deity does not please me. I no longer care whether He pleases me or
not. He no longer exists as far as I am concerned."

Brisson, much interested, asked Palla whether the void left by
discredited Divinity did not bewilder her.

"There is no void," said the girl. "It is already filled with my own
kind of God, with millions of Gods--my own fellow creatures."

"Your fellow beings?"

"Yes."

"You think your fellow creatures can fill that void?"

"They have filled it."

Brisson nodded reflectively: "I see," he said politely, "you intend to
devote your life to the cult of your fellow creatures."

"No, I do not," said the girl tranquilly, "but I intend to love them
and live my life that way unhampered." She added almost fiercely: "And
I shall love them the more because of their ignorant faith in an
all-seeing and tender and just Providence which does not exist! I
shall love them because of their tragic deception and their
helplessness and their heart-breaking unconsciousness of it all."

Ilse Westgard smiled and patted Palla's cheeks: "All roads lead
ultimately to God," she said, "and yours is a direct route though you
do not know it."

"I tell you I have nothing in common with the God you mean," flashed
out the girl.

Brisson, though interested, kept one grey eye on duty, ever hopeful of
wolves. It was snowing hard now--a perfect geography scene, lacking
only the wolves; but the etape was only half finished. There might be
hope.

The rather amazing conversation in the sleigh also appealed to him,
arousing all his instincts of a veteran newspaper man, as well as his
deathless curiosity--that perpetual flame which alone makes any
intelligence vital.

Also, his passion for all documents--those sewed under