After luncheon, Miss Merry excused herself and said she was going
to the village to see a farm-labourer's wife, who had lost a child
and was in great distress. "Poor soul!" said Mrs. Graves. "Give her
my love, and ask her to come and see me as soon as she can."
Presently as they sat together, Howard smoking, she asked him
something about his work. "Will you tell me what you are doing?"
she said. "I daresay I should not understand, but I like to know
what people are thinking about--don't use technical terms, but just
explain your idea!"

Howard was just in the frame of mind, trying to revive an old train
of thought, in which it is a great help to make a statement of the
range of a subject; he said so, and began to explain very simply
what was in his mind, the essential unity of all religion, and his
attempt to disentangle the central motive from outlying schemes and
dogmas. Mrs. Graves heard him attentively, every now and then
asking a question, which showed that she was following the drift of
his thought.

"Ah, that's very interesting and beautiful," she said at last. "May
I say that it is the one thing that attracts me, though I have
never followed it philosophically. Now," she went on, "I am going
to reduce it all to practical terms, and I don't want to beat about
the bush--there's no need for that! I want to ask you a plain
question. Have you any religion or faith of your own?"

"Ah," said Howard, "who can say? I am a conformist, certainly,
because I recognise in religion a fine sobering, civilising force
at work, and if one must choose one's side, I want to be on that
side and not on the other. But religion seems to me in its essence