'I have no faith--and no hope.'

His look kindled, took a new aspect almost of command.

'You do yourself wrong. Could you have brought yourself to ask this counsel
of me, if God had not been already at work in your soul--if your sin were
not already half conquered?'

She recoiled as though from a blow. Her cheek burnt.

'Sin!' she repeated bitterly, with a kind of scorn, not able to bear the
word.

But he did not quail.

'All selfish desire is sin--desire that defies God and wills the hurt of
man. But you will cast it out. The travail is already begun in you that
will form the Christ.'

'Father, creeds and dogmas mean nothing to me!'

'Perhaps,' he said calmly. 'Does religion also mean nothing to you?'

'Oh! I am a weak woman,' she said with a quivering lip. 'I throw myself on
all that promises consolation. When I see the nuns from down below pass up
and down this road, I often think that theirs is the only way out; that
the Catholic Church and a convent are perhaps the solution to which I must
come--for the little while that remains.'