conscience. MY pluck is nothing but my conscience."

"It's a damned fine thing to have anyhow, whatever name you put upon
it!" said Faber.

"Excuse me if I find your epithet more amusing than apt," said
Wingfold, laughing.

"You are quite right," said Faber. "I apologize."

"As to the pluck again," Wingfold resumed, "--if you think of this
one fact--that my whole desire is to believe in God, and that the
only thing I can be sure of sometimes is that, if there be a God,
none but an honest man will ever find him, you will not then say
there is much pluck in my speaking the truth?"

"I don't see that that makes it a hair easier, in the face of such a
set of gaping noodles as--"

"I beg your pardon:--there is more lack of conscience than of brains
in the Abbey of a Sunday, I fear."

"Well, all I have to say is, I can't for the life of me see what you
want to believe in a God for! It seems to me the world would go
rather better without any such fancy. Look here now: there is young
Spenser--out there at Harwood--a patient of mine. His wife died
yesterday--one of the loveliest young creatures you ever saw. The
poor fellow is as bad about it as fellow can be. Well, he's one of
your sort, and said to me the other day, just as you would have him,
'It's the will of God,' he said, 'and we must hold our peace.'--'Don't