The question was like a match applied to a haystack. At once the
Pasteur took fire:

"Because they accept error, not truth," he began. "What foundation
have they for much of their belief? It is not here," and again he
slapped the Bible.

Then followed a long tirade, for the one thing this good and tolerant
old man could not endure was the Roman Catholic branch of the
Christian Faith.

Godfrey listened with patience, till at last the Pasteur, having burnt
himself out, asked him if he were not convinced.

"I do not know," he replied. "These quarrels of the Churches and of
the different faiths puzzle and tire me. I, too, Monsieur, believe in
God and a future life, but I do not think it matters much by what road
one travels to them, I mean so long as it is a road."

The Pasteur looked at him alarmed, and exclaimed:

"Surely you will not be a fish caught in the net which already I have
observed that cunning and plausible cure trying to throw about you!
Oh! what then should I answer to your father?"

"Do not be frightened, Monsieur. I shall never become a Roman
Catholic. But all the same I think the Roman Catholics very good
people, and that their faith is as well as another, at any rate for
those who believe it."