's honor unto death. Olaf Gueldmar, after
a long and apparently sorrowful pause, resumed his conversation.

"Yes," he said, "Thelma is a Catholic, though here she has scarcely any
opportunity for performing the duties of her religion. It is a pretty
and a graceful creed,--well fitted for women. As for me, I am made of
sterner stuff, and the maxims of that gentle creature, Christ, find no
echo in my soul. But you, young sir," he added, turning suddenly on
Lorimer, who was engaged in meditatively smoothing out on his palm one
of the fallen rose-petals--"you have not spoken. What faith do you
profess? It is no curiosity that prompts me to ask,--I only seek not to
offend."

Lorimer laughed languidly. "Upon my life, Mr. Gueldmar, you really ask
too much of me. I haven't any faith at all; not a shred! It's been all
knocked out of me. I tried to hold on to a last remaining bit of
Christian rope in the universal ship-wreck, but that was torn out of my
hands by a scientific professor, who ought to know what he is about,
and--and--now I drift along anyhow!"

Gueldmar smiled dubiously; but Thelma looked at the speaker with
astonished, regretful eyes.

"I am sorry," she said simply. "You must be often unhappy."

Lorimer was not disconcerted, though her evident pity caused an unwanted
flush on his face.

"Oh no," he said in answer to her, "I am not a miserable sort of fellow
by any means. For instance, I'm not afraid of death,--lots of very
religious people are horribly afraid of it, though they all the time
declare it's the only path to heaven. They're not consistent at all. You
see I believe in nothing,--I came from nothing,--I am nothing,--I shall
be nothing. That being plain, I am all right."

Gueldmar laughed. "You are an odd lad," he said good-humoredly. "You are
in the morning of life; there are always mists in the morning as there
are in the evening. In the light of your full manhood you will see these
things differently. Your creed of Nothing provides no moral law,--no
hold on the conscience, no restraint on the passions,--don't you see
that?"

Lorimer smiled with a very winning and boyish candor. "You are
exceedingly good, sir, to credit me with a conscience! I don't think I
have one,--I'm sure I have no passions. I have always been too lazy to
encourage them, and as for moral law,--I adhere to morality with the
greatest strictness, because if a fellow is immoral, he ceases to be a
gentleman. Now, as there are ve