‘If your sermons at the church only match your address to-day, I shall not wonder at hearing that the parishioners are at last willing to attend.’ It flashed upon Somerset’s mind that she supposed him to be the new curate, of whose arrival he had casually heard, during his sojourn at the inn. Before he could bring himself to correct an error to which, perhaps, more than to anything else, was owing the friendliness of her manner, she went on, as if to escape the embarrassment of silence:-- ‘I need hardly say that I at least do not doubt the sincerity of your arguments.’ ‘Nevertheless, I was not altogether sincere,’ he answered. She was silent. ‘Then why should you have delivered such a defence of me?’ she asked with simple curiosity. Somerset involuntarily looked in her face for his answer. Paula again teased the necklace. ‘Would you have spoken so eloquently on the other side if I--if occasion had served?’ she inquired shyly. ‘Perhaps I would.’ Another pause, till she said, ‘I, too, was insincere.’ ‘You?’ ‘I was.’ ‘In what way? ‘In letting him, and you, think I had been at all influenced by authority, scriptural or patristic.’ ‘May I ask, why, then, did you decline the ceremony the other evening?’ ‘Ah, you, too, have heard of it!’ she said quickly. ‘No.’ ‘What then?’ ‘I saw it.’ She blushed and looked down the river. ‘I cannot give my reasons,’ she said. ‘Of course not,’ said Somerset. ‘I would give a great deal to possess real logical dogmatism.’ ‘So would I.’ There was a moment of embarrassment: she wanted to get away, but did not precisely know how. He would have withdrawn had she not said, as if rather oppressed by her conscience, and evidently still thinking him the curate: ‘I cannot but feel that Mr. Woodwell’s heart has been unnecessarily wounded.’ ‘The minister’s?’ ‘Yes. He is single-mindedness itself. He gives away nearly all he has to the poor. He works among the sick, carrying them necessaries with his own hands. He teaches the ignorant men and lads of the village when he ought to be resting at home, till he is absolutely prostrate from exhaustion, and then he sits up at night writing encouraging letters to those poor people who formerly belonged to his congregation in the village, and have now gone away. He always offends ladies, because he can’t help speaking the truth as he believes it; but he hasn’t offended me!’ Her feelings had risen towards the end, so that she finished quite warmly, and turned aside. ‘I was not in the least aware that he was such a man,’ murmured Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... ‘Whatever you may have done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man’s heart from an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, last-century argument.’ ‘Not dull,’ she murmured, ‘for it interested me.’