But he was not to be put down. "If you yourself, Josephine, were as thoroughly convinced of the eternal truth as you pretend to be, and were you protesting for that truth's sake, then all the rest would be of small importance. And what we wish to put in its stead is very uncertain too; we know that everything did not exactly happen as the revered Book tells us; what we do not know is what the real state of things was. This only we do know, that our life proceeds from God, and in God alone can we be happy; therefore, let both children and grown-up people accept the first teachings of our fathers, at any rate for the present." There was all the honest strength of conviction in his words, and they were full of power. She was silent for a long time; but all at once something else came over her. "Do you know that, if it had not been for the total mismanagement of my intelligence and character when I was a child, I too would have become--different from what I am now?" "Yes," he said, coldly, "I hear that latterly you have come to this conclusion; that faith is the misfortune of your life." "I never said that!" she exclaimed, very pale, "never meant it either!" But she added, more quietly: "I have never allowed faith in God and salvation through Jesus to be a restraint on my intelligence. Never!" "Dear me, how fortunate!" said he, but he sighed deeply afterwards. "Well, if you don't intend to listen to me," she said, "I will just tell you my business straight out. Either you stop telling the boy those fairy tales which are not innocent ones, since they thus ensnare his understanding, or else, Ole, I can no longer consider you as wholly conscientious." It was not the first time she had spoken harshly; they had had many a long and bitter quarrel. But she had never spoken quite so harshly, never before attacked his faith in that way. She had pleaded her right to have her own opinions, but always with much abuse of his; she had parried his attacks with sharp weapons; but never before had she talked like that or laid down conditions. For long he had been weighed down by the knowledge that she was brooding over something; but this fully armed purpose, sustained by such strength of mind and so much anger--there they stood facing each other; each sounding the depths of the other's will. He too was boiling over with indignant rage, and to put an end at once to anything she might imagine, he said: "The boy remains with me!" "With you?" she turned ashy pale. "Have you more right to him than I? Are you his mother?" "I am his father. The Bible and the law constitute the father owner of the child." She began to walk up and down, but only between the window and door, as though they were the bars of a cage; her bosom heaved, her breathing was audible, the paleness of her face, her voice, her eyes, all told of the dreadful agitation she was in; she would never have thought him capable of such a thing.