Stapleton, and had been genuine enough in his little shrug of
disapproval in answer to Maggie's, after lunch; yet that lady's
remarks had been sufficient just to ignite the train of thought. This
train had smoldered in the afternoon, had been fanned ever so slightly
by two breezes--the sense of Maggie's superiority and the faint
rebellious reaction which had come upon him with regard to his
personal religion. Certainly he had had Mass said for Amy this
morning; but it had been by almost a superstitious rather than a
religious instinct. He was, in fact, in that state of religious
unreality which occasionally comes upon converts within a year or two
of the change of their faith. The impetus of old association is
absent, and the force of novelty has died.
Underneath all this then, it must be remembered that the one thing
that was intensely real to him was his sense of loss of the one soul
in whom his own had been wrapped up. Even this afternoon as yesterday,
even this morning as he lay awake, he had been conscious of an
irresistible impulse to demand some sign, to catch some glimpse of
that which was now denied to him.
It was in this mood that he had read the book; and it is not to be
wondered at that he had been excited by it.
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