She was secretly amazed at this great mental change in him. For his sake she was glad, because he had evidently welcomed the possibility of a new belief that was strong to throw hope over the present desert of his mind. With weakened physical circumstances, reason had also weakened; but Woodrow believed otherwise and told himself that unimpaired intellectual powers, working unceasingly on the problem he conceived to be paramount, had at last purged his understanding and lifted him into a purer belief. He was, moreover, proud that he had attained to this triumph by the exercise of what he believed to be pure reason. He doubted not that such faith as he had now attained was the only faith worthy of mankind. But in the woman's heart lurked something akin to regret. She could not name the emotion; she lacked words to analyze it; but she knew that it was there; and while her nature leapt to gladness--because Hilary was glad--behind the joy persisted something of disquiet and even distrust. "I'll be well pleased to think like you do, then," she said; "but--but, oh, Hilary, for God's sake don't you grow to think like Daniel do--else--else----" He shook his head. "Never fear that--that would be to go down the hill--not up it. It's cost the life-work of my brains to get where I have got, dear heart. I shan't go backward now." Presently she left Woodrow and went to her child. Then Gregory and his mother set off homeward. The farmer watched them sink--a large spot and a little one--into the waste. Presently he rose and mounted his horse. He thought long upon Sarah Jane and that last note of fear--so foreign to her fearless voice. He reflected, too, upon his own altered attitude and sublimated affection for her. He supposed that belief in immortality must be a force very elevating to the human mind; he doubted not that it lifted glorious flowers when once the root struck down and flourished. He considered the great matter from divers points of view, but not from one. He did not know that decaying physical circumstances frequently open the door to superstition and make a fading intellect succumb before what, in full vigour of intellectual life, it scorned. The day chimed with his mood, and he told himself very honestly that none could gaze upon this outspread world and believe that it represented but a display of natural laws, a casual compact of heat and light and substance, a chance conglobation of matter whirling beautifully about the sun's throne at the moment of summer solstice.