“Yes, I feel that. It is the only guide I have, and I try my best to follow it. But whether the Unseen Power sees us and reads all our thoughts as Christians think, or only set things going, so to speak, is more than I am able to say. I think we are free to do good or evil; and if there is a future life--and I hope there is--I don't think that anyone will be made miserable in it because he didn't know things better than he could know them. That's the whole of my religion, Mrs. Churton, and I don't think it a bad one, on the whole--for myself I mean; for I don't go about preaching it, and I don't ask others to think as I do.” With a sigh she resigned the contest; and after a few more words bade him good-bye, and went out with the carpenter's wife into the garden. Fan remained standing where she had risen, some colour in her cheeks, a smile of contentment playing about her lips. “Good-bye, Mr. Cawood,” she said; and after a moment's hesitation held out her hand to him. He looked a little surprised. “My hand is not over-clean, miss, as you see,” opening it with a comical look of regret on his face. “I've just come in from work and haven't washed yet.” “Oh, it's clean enough,” she said with a slight laugh, putting her small white hand into his dusty palm. On her way home Mrs. Churton talked a good deal to her companion. She went over her discussion with the carpenter, repeating her own arguments with much amplification; then passing to his, she pointed out their weakness, and explained how that neutral state of mind is unworthy of a rational being, and dangerous as well, since death might come unexpectedly and give no time for repentance. Fan listened, readily assenting to everything; but in her heart she felt like a bird newly escaped from captivity. That restful state she had been hearing about, in which there was no perpetual distrust of self, vigilance, heart-searching, wrestling in prayer, looked infinitely attractive, and suited her disposition and humble intellect. CHAPTER XXI A fortnight later, one hot afternoon, Fan was reading beside the open window of the dining-room. After dinner Mrs. Churton had given her _The Pleasures of Hope_, in a slim old octavo volume, to read, and for the last hour she had been poring over it. Greatly did she admire it, it was so fine, so grand; but all that thunderous roll of rhetoric--the whiskered Pandoors and the fierce Hussars, and Freedom's shriek when Kosciusko fell, and flights of bickering comets through illimitable space--a kind of celestial fireworks on a stupendous scale--and all the realms of ether wrapped in flames--all this had produced a slight headache, a confusion or giddiness, like that which is experienced by a person looking down over a precipice, or when carried too high in a swing. Constance came down from her room with her hat on and a book in her hand. “Are you going for a walk, Constance?” asked her mother, who was also sitting by the open window.