'But there is something else--there is God, and the love of beautiful
things. I spent all day yesterday playing Bach's Passion Music, and the
hours passed like a dream until my sisters came in from walking and
began to talk about marriage and men. It made me feel sick--it was
horrible; and it is such things that make me hate life--and I do hate
it; it is the way we are brought back to earth, and forced to realize
how vile and degraded we are. Society seems to me no better than a
pigsty; but in the beautiful convent--that we shall, alas! never see
again--it was not so. There, at least, life was pure--yes, and
beautiful. Do you not remember that beautiful white church with all its
white pillars and statues, and the dark-robed nuns, and the white-veiled
girls, their veils falling from their bent heads? They often seemed to
me like angels. I am sure that Heaven must be very much like that--pure,
desireless, contemplative.'

Amazed, Alice looked at her friend questioningly, for she had never
heard her speak like this before. But Cecilia did not see her; the
prominent eyes of the mystic were veiled with strange glamour, and, with
divine _gourmandise_, she savoured the ineffable sweetness of the
vision, and, after a long silence, she said:

'I often wonder, Alice, how you can think as you do; and, strange to
say, no one suspects you are an unbeliever; you're so good in all except
that one point.'

'But surely, dear, it isn't a merit to believe; it is hardly a thing
that we can call into existence.'

'You should pray for faith.'