Chapter XV

Paul came back, to Virginia's extreme relief, without the missing link. But he was still radiant in spite of his failure; for he had discovered, he said, a place where the creature had apparently slept, and he had collected in a card-paper box a large number of its parasites.

'I am glad,' said Virginia, 'that you have not found the missing link: though as to thinking that we really came from monkeys, of course that is too absurd. Now if you could have brought me a nice monkey, I should really have liked that. The Bishop has promised that I shall have a darling one, if I ever reach him--ah me!--if----Paul,' continued Virginia, in a very solemn voice, after a long pause, 'do you know that whilst you have been away I have been pursuing truth? I rather liked it; and I found it very, very significant.'

'Oh, joy!' exclaimed the Professor. 'Oh, unspeakable radiance! Oh, holy, oh essentially dignified Humanity! it will very soon be perfect! Tell me, Virginia, what truths have you been discovering?'

'One truth about you, Paul,' said Virginia, very gravely, 'and one truth about me. I burn--oh, I burn to tell them to you!'

The Professor was enraptured to hear that one half of Humanity had been thus studying human nature; and he began asking Virginia if her discoveries belonged to the domain of historical or biological science. Meanwhile Virginia had flung herself on her knees before him, and was exclaiming, in piteous accents--

'By my fault, by my own fault, by my very grievous fault, holy father, I confess to you----'

'Is the woman mad?' cried the Professor, starting up from his seat.

'You are a priest, Paul,' said Virginia; 'that is one of the things I have discovered. I am in a state of deadly sin; that is the other: and I must and will confess to you. Once a priest, always a priest. You cannot get rid of your orders, and you must and shall hear me.'

'I was once in orders, it is true,' said Paul, reluctantly; 'but how did you find out my miserable secret?'

'In my zeal for truth,' said Virginia, 'I broke open your tin box; I read all your letters; I looked at your early photographs; I saw all your beautiful prayers.'

'You broke open my box!' cried the Professor. 'You read my letters and my private papers! Oh, horrible! oh, immoral! What shall we do if one half of Humanity has no feeling of honour?'

'Oh!' said Virginia, 'it was all for the love of truth--of solemn and holy truth. I sacrificed every other feeling for that. But I have not told you my truth yet; and I am determined you shall hear it, or I must still remain in my sins. Paul, I am a married woman; and I discover, in spite of that, that I have fallen in love with you. My husband, it is true, is far away; and whatever we do, he could never possibly be the wiser. But I am in a state of mortal sin, nevertheless; and I would give anything in the world if you would only kiss me.'

'Woman!' exclaimed Paul, aghast with fright and horror, 'do you dare to abuse truth, by turning it to such base purposes?'

'Oh, you are so clever,' Virginia went on, 'and when the ends of your moustaches are waxed, you look positively handsome; and I love you so deeply and so tenderly, that I shall certainly go to hell if you do not give me absolution.'

At this the Professor jumped up, and, staring very hard at Virginia, asked her if, after all that he had said on the ship, she really believed in such exploded fallacies as hell, God, and priestcraft.

She reminded him that he had preached there without a surplice, and that she had therefore not thought it right to listen to a word he said.

'Ah!' cried the Professor, with a sigh of intense relief, 'I see it all now. How can Humanity ever be unspeakably holy so long as one half of it grovels in dreams of an unspeakably holy God? As Mr. Frederic Harrison truly says, a want of faith in "the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory."' The Professor accordingly re-delivered to Virginia the entire substance of his lectures in the ship. He fully impressed on her that all the intellect of the world was on the side of Humanity; and that God's existence could be disproved with a box of chemicals. He was agreeably surprised at finding her not at all unwilling to be convinced, and extremely unexacting in her demands for proof. In a few days she had not a remnant of superstition left. 'At last!' exclaimed the Professor; 'it has come at last. Unspeakable happiness will surely begin now.'