"If you can credit such inhumanity, it was this," answered John. "It seems that he fell in love--with a girl in Boston, where he lives. And what's more, and worse, the girl fell in love with him. So there they were, engaged. But she was a Catholic, and his state of unbelief was a cause of great grief to her. So she pleaded with him, and persuaded, till, merely to comfort her, and without the faintest suspicion that his scepticism could be weakened, he promised to give the Catholic position a thorough reconsideration, to read certain books, and to put himself under instruction with a priest: which he did. Which he did, if you please, with the result, to his own unutterable surprise, that one fine day he woke up and discovered that he'd been convinced, that he _believed_." "Yes?" said Maria Dolores, eagerly. "Yes--? And then? And the girl?" "Ah," said John, with a groan, "the girl That's the pity of it. That's where his black old Puritan blood comes in. Blood? It isn't blood--it's some fluid form of stone--it's flint dissolved in vinegar. The girl! Mind you, she loved him, they were engaged to be married. Well, he went to her, and said, 'I have been converted. I believe in the Christian religion--your religion. But I can't believe a thing like that, and go on living as I lived when I didn't believe it,--go on living as if it weren't true, or didn't matter. It does matter--it matters supremely--it's the only thing in the world that matters. I can't believe it, and _marry_--marry, and live in tranquil indifference to it. No, I must put aside the thought of marriage, the thought of personal happiness. I must sell all I have and give it to the poor, take up my cross and follow Him. I am going to Rome to study for the priesthood.' Imagine," groaned John, stretching out his hands, "_imagine_ talking like that to a woman you are supposed to love, to a woman who loves you." And he wrathfully ground his heel into the earth. Maria Dolores looked serious. "After all, he had to obey his conscience," she said. "After all, he was logical, he was consistent." "Oh, his conscience! Oh, consistency!" cried John, with an intolerant fling of the body. "At bottom it's nothing better than common self-indulgence, as I took the liberty of telling him to his face. It's the ardour of the convert, acting upon that acid solution of flint which takes the place of blood in his veins, and causing sour puritanical impulses, which (like any other voluptuary) he immediately gives way to. It's nothing better than unbridled passion. Conscience, indeed! Where was his conscience when it came to _her_? Think of that poor girl--that poor pale girl--who _loved_ him. Oh, Mother of Mercy!" He moved impatiently three steps to the left, three steps to the right, beating the palm of one hand with the back of the other. "What did she do? How did she take it?" asked Maria Dolores.