 so do our friends the Lilywhites.«
    Miss Moorhouse pondered awhile.
    »He is a great problem to me,« she declared at length, knitting her brows
with a hint of humorous exaggeration. »I wonder whether he believes in the
dogmas of Christianity.«
    Sidwell was startled.
    »Would he think of becoming a clergyman?«
    »Oh, why not? Don't they recognise nowadays that the spirit is enough?«
    There was silence. Sidwell let her eyes wander over the sunny grass to the
red-flowering creeper on the nearest side of the house.
    »That would involve a great deal of dissimulation,« she said at length. »I
can't reconcile it with what I know of Mr. Peak.«
    »And I can't reconcile anything else,« rejoined the other.
    »He impresses you as a rationalist?«
    »You not?«
    »I confess I have taken his belief for granted. Oh, think! He couldn't keep
up such a pretence. However you justify it, it implies conscious deception. It
would be dishonourable. I am sure he would think it so.«
    »How does your brother regard him?« Sylvia asked, smiling very slightly, but
with direct eyes.
    »Buckland can't credit anyone with sincerity except an aggressive agnostic.«
    »But I think he allows honest credulity.«
    Sidwell had no answer to this. After musing a little, she put a question
which indicated how her thoughts had travelled.
    »Have you met many women who declared themselves agnostics?«
    »Several.«
    Sylvia removed her hat, and began to fan herself gently with the brim. Here,
in the shade, bees were humming; from the house came faint notes of a piano -
Fanny practising a mazurka of Chopin.
    »But never, I suppose, one who found a pleasure in attacking Christianity?«
    »A girl who was at school with me in London,« Sylvia replied, with an air of
amused reminiscence. »Marcella Moxey. Didn't I ever speak to you of her?«
    »I think not.«
    »She was bitter against religion of every kind.«
    »Because her mother made her learn collects, I dare say?« suggested Sidwell,
in a tone of gentle satire.
    »No, no. Marcella was about eighteen then, and had neither father nor
mother. - (How Fanny's touch improves!) - She was a born atheist, in the fullest
sense of the word.«
    »And detestable?«
    »Not to
