Again the other nodded.

"It seemed to you in the desert, as if you'd saved your own life a
hundred times, as if you'd just willed food and drink and safety to come;
as if Providence had been at your elbow?"

"It was like a dream, and it stayed with me. I had to think in the
desert things I'd never thought before," was the half-abstracted answer.

"You felt good in the desert?" The other hung his head in shame.

"Makes you seem pretty small, doesn't it? You didn't stay long enough,
I guess, to get what you were feeling for; you started in on the new
racket too soon. You never got really possessed that you was a sinner.
I expect that's it."

The other made no reply.

"Well, I don't know much about such things. I was loose brought up; but
I've a friend"--Laura was before his eyes--"that says religion's all
right, and long ago as I can remember my mother used to pray three times
a day--with grace at meals, too. I know there's a lot in it for them
that need it; and there seems to be a lot of folks needing it, if I'm to
judge by folks down there at Jansen, specially when there's the laying-on
of hands and the Healing Springs. Oh, that was a pigsty game, Scranton,
that about God giving you the Healing Springs, like Moses and the rock!
Why, I discovered them springs myself two years ago, before I went South,
and I guess God wasn't helping me any--not after I've kept out of His way
as I have. But, anyhow, religion's real; that's my sense of it; and you