'Woman!' exclaimed Paul, aghast with fright and horror, 'do you dare to abuse truth, by turning it to such base purposes?' 'Oh, you are so clever,' Virginia went on, 'and when the ends of your moustaches are waxed, you look positively handsome; and I love you so deeply and so tenderly, that I shall certainly go to hell if you do not give me absolution.' At this the Professor jumped up, and, staring very hard at Virginia, asked her if, after all that he had said on the ship, she really believed in such exploded fallacies as hell, God, and priestcraft. She reminded him that he had preached there without a surplice, and that she had therefore not thought it right to listen to a word he said. 'Ah!' cried the Professor, with a sigh of intense relief, 'I see it all now. How can Humanity ever be unspeakably holy so long as one half of it grovels in dreams of an unspeakably holy God? As Mr. Frederic Harrison truly says, a want of faith in "the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory."' The Professor accordingly re-delivered to Virginia the entire substance of his lectures in the ship. He fully impressed on her that all the intellect of the world was on the side of Humanity; and that God's existence could be disproved with a box of chemicals. He was agreeably surprised at finding her not at all unwilling to be convinced, and extremely unexacting in her demands for proof. In a few days she had not a remnant of superstition left. 'At last!' exclaimed the Professor; 'it has come at last. Unspeakable happiness will surely begin now.' CHAPTER XVI. No one now could possibly be more emancipated than Virginia. She tittered all day long and whenever the Professor asked her why, she always told him she was thinking of 'an intelligent First Cause,' a conception which she said 'was really quite killing.' But when her first burst of intellectual excitement was over, she became more serious. 'All thought, Paul,' she said, 'is valuable mainly because it leads to action. Come, my love, my dove, my beauty, and let us kiss each other all daylong. Let us enjoy the charming license which exact thought shows us we shall never be punished for.'