"You may! But are you not distressing yourself about matters which--
which perhaps--could wait---?"
Her blue eyes regarded him with a wonderful courage.
"Dear Mr. Walden, I don't think I ought to wait,"--she said, very
earnestly--"Because really no one has ever done anything for me in a
religious sense,--and if I AM to die, you are the only person in the
world who can help me."
He tried to rouse his wandering, ebbing energies.
"I will do my best,"--he said, slowly--"My best, I mean, to answer
your questions."
"You will?--As a clergyman, as a friend and an honest man?--yes, I
felt sure you would!" And she spoke with almost passionate
eagerness--"I will put you through your catechism, and you shall, if
you like, put me through mine! Now to begin with,--though it seems a
strange thing to ask a clergyman-do you really believe in God?"
He started,--wakened from his trance of mind by sheer amazement.
"Do I really believe in God? With all my soul, with all my heart, I
believe in Him!"
"Many clergymen don't,"--said Maryllia, gravely studying his face,--
"That is why I asked. You mustn't mind! You see I have met a great
many Churchmen who preach what they do not practise, and it has
rather worried me. Because, of course, if they really believed in
God they would he careful not to do things which their faith forbids
them to do."
He was silent.
"My next question is just as audacious as my first,"--she went on
after a pause--"It is this--do you believe in Christ?"
He rose from his chair and stood tenderly looking down upon her. His
old authoritative energy inspired him,--he had now recovered himself
sufficiently to be able to trample down his own clamorous personal
emotions for the time and to think only of his spiritual duty.
"I believe in Him as the one Divine Man ever born!" he said.
"Is that quite sufficient for orthodoxy?" And she looked up at him
with a half smile.
"Perhaps not! But I fear orthodoxy and I are scarcely the best of
friends!" he replied--"Must I really tell you my own private form of
belief?"
"Ah yes!--please do so!" she answered gently--"It will help me so
much!"