I rose from my kneeling attitude.

"Poor Catherine!" I said--"Then indeed it is no use telling you
anything! You are in darkness instead of daylight, and no one can
make you see. Oh, what can I do to help you?"

"Nothing,"--she answered--"My faith--it was never very much,--was
taken from me altogether when I was quite young. Father made it seem
absurd. He's a clever man, you know--and in a few words he makes out
religion to be utter nonsense."

"I understand!"

And indeed I did entirely understand. Her father was one of a
rapidly increasing class of men who are a danger to the community,--
a cold, cynical shatterer of every noble ideal,--a sneerer at
patriotism and honour,--a deliberate iconoclast of the most callous
and remorseless type. That he had good points in his character was
not to be denied,--a murderer may have these. But to be in his
company for very long was to feel that there is no good in anything-
-that life is a mistake of Nature, and death a fortunate ending of
the blunder--that God is a delusion and the 'Soul' a mere expression
signifying certain intelligent movements of the brain only.

I stood silently thinking these things, while she watched me rather
wistfully. Presently she said:

"Are you going on deck now?"

"Yes."