At last also the moment had arrived for which she had been waiting. Freely as they had spoken to each other of their pasts--she giving him glimpses of the world in which she had been reared, he taking her into his world which was equally unfamiliar--on this subject silence between them had never been broken. She had often sought to pass the guard he placed around this tragical episode but had always been turned away. The only original ground of her interest in him, therefore, still remained a background, obscure and unexplored. She regretted this for many reasons. Her belief was that he was merely passing through a phase of religious life not uncommon with those who were born to go far in mental travels before they settled in their Holy Land. She believed it would be over the sooner if he had the chance to live it out in discussion; and she herself offered the only possibility of this. Gabriella was in a position to know by experience what it means in hours of trouble to need the relief of companionship. Ideas, she had learned, long shut up in the mind tend to germinate and take root. There had been discords which had ceased sounding in her own ear as soon as they were poured into another. "I have always hoped," she repeated, as he seated himself, "that you would talk with me about these things." And then to divert the conversation into less difficult channels, she added:-- "As to what you may think of my beliefs, I have no fear; they need not be discussed and they cannot be attacked." "You are an Episcopalian," he suggested hesitatingly. "I do not wish to be rude, but--your church has its dogmas." "There is not a dogma of my church that I have ever thought of for a moment: or of any other church," she replied instantly and clearly. In those simple words she had uttered unaware a long historic truth: that religion, not theology, forms the spiritual life of women. In the whole history of the world's opinions, no dogma of any weight has ever originated with a woman; wherein, as in many other ways, she shows points of superiority in her intellect. It is a man who tries to apprehend God through his logic and psychology; a woman understands Him better through emotions and deeds. It is the men who are concerned about the cubits, the cedar wood, the Urim and Thummim of the Tabernacle; woman walks straight into the Holy of Holies. Men constructed the Cross; women wept for the Crucified. It was a man--a Jew defending his faith in his own supernatural revelation--who tried to ram a sponge of vinegar into the mouth of Christ, dying; it was women who gathered at the sepulchre of Resurrection. If Christ could have had a few women among his Apostles, there might have been more of His religion in the world and fewer creeds barnacled on the World's Ship of Souls. "How can you remain in your church without either believing or disbelieving its dogmas?" asked David, squarely.