"What she ought to have done," said John, between his teeth, "was to scratch his eyes out. What she did do, as he informed me with a seraphic countenance, was not merely to approve of everything he said, but to determine to do likewise. So, while he's on his way to Rome, to get himself tonsured and becassocked, she's scrubbing the floors of an Ursuline convent, as a novice. And there are two lives spoiled." He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, no, no," contended Maria Dolores, earnestly, shaking her head, "not spoiled. On the contrary. It is sad, in a way, if you like, but it is very beautiful, it is heroic. Their love must have been a very beautiful love, that could lead them to such self-sacrifice. Two lives given to God." "Can't people give their lives to God without ceasing to _live_?" cried John. "If marriage is a sacrament, how can they better give their lives to God than by living sanely and sweetly in Christian marriage? But these people withdraw from life, renounce life, shirk and evade the life that God had prepared for them and was demanding of them. It's as bad as suicide. Besides, it implies such a totally perverted view of religion. Religion surely is given to us to help us to _live_, to show us _how_ to live, to enable us to meet the difficulties, emergencies, responsibilities of life. But these people look upon their religion as a mandate to turn their backs on the responsibilities of life, and scuttle away. And as for _love_! Well, she no doubt did love, poor lady. But Winthorpe! No. When a man loves he doesn't send his love into a convent, and go to Rome to get himself becassocked." He gave his head a nod of finality. "That, I fancy, is a question of temperament," said Maria Dolores. "Your friend has the ascetic temperament. And it does not by any means follow that he loves less because he resigns his love. What you call an inhuman story seems to me a wonderfully noble one. I saw your friend this morning, when he and you were walking together, and I said to myself, 'That man looks as if he had listened to the Counsels of Perfection. His vocation shines through him.' I think you should reconcile yourself to his accepting it." "Well," said John, on the tone of a man ready to change the subject, "I owe him at least one good mark. His account of his 'heart-state' led me to examine my own, and I discovered that I am in love myself,--which is a useful thing to know." "Oh?" said Maria Dolores, with a little effect of reserve. "Yes," said John, nothing daunted, "though unlike his, mine is an unreciprocated flame, and unavowed." "Ah?" said Maria Dolores, reserved indeed, but not without an undertone of sympathy. "Yes," said John, playing with fire, and finding therein a heady mixture of fearfulness and joy. "The woman I love doesn't dream I love her, and dreams still less of loving me,--for which blessed circumstance may Heaven make me truly thankful."