"You see, conscience and the moral sense are two different things; but Brendon would never allow that. He says that conscience comes from God. I say it is what you've been taught, or learned for yourself. If I believed in God--then I'd say the moral sense was what came direct from Him. But I don't, and so I explain it by the laws of Evolution." She shook her head. "That's all a rigmarole to me, though I dare say Dan would follow it. You don't believe in no God at all, then?" "None at all--not the shadow of the shade of a God." In her blue eyes nothing but the sky was reflected; in his there was much of earth; and his own earth was unrestful as he looked at her morning loveliness. "Drink your milk afore the warmth be out of it," she said. "'Twould be a terrible curious thing if there was no God, certainly." "The sun's my God." "Well, then, there is a God--though we don't see over-much of Him up here." "But we believe in him, and trust him with the seed, and the lambs; and know that he'll bring back Spring again when Winter is done. So, after all, I'm talking nonsense, because I've got as great faith in my god as your husband has in his." "To hear you run on! Like a book, I'm sure." "I can talk like this to you, because you don't look at me as if I was damned and you weren't sorry for it. That's what I get from most people. Have you ever read about Jehovah and the burnt offerings and the sin offerings, and how His altar was to be sprinkled with fresh blood all day long, and how the dumb beasts and birds were to be torn to pieces for a sweet savour before Him? That's the blood-sucking vampire the parsons think made the stars, and the flowers, and--you! I wish I'd lived a hundred years later: then I shouldn't have been fretted with so many fools, Sarah Jane." "Us ought to live and let live, I suppose." "Charity--that's all I ask. I only want 'em to practise the first and last thing their Lord begged for, and preached for, and prayed for." "You'm very charitable, I'm sure--and never name the kind things you do--though John Prout tells about them." "Does he? No, no, they're in his imagination. Prout spoils me and thinks too well of me. So do you." "I'm sorry for you, because you've got such a lot of queer opinions, seemingly, and none to let 'em off upon. You must feel like bursting with trouble sometimes, from the look of your eyes." He laughed at that and abruptly left her. It was his custom now to appear and depart without any formal salute. Sometimes, after absence of days, he would suddenly be at her side after dawn, or at evening. Then he would resume the thread of his last speeches, as though no interval had fallen between.