As rarely happened, they had conversed on religion. Noemi clung
blindly to her own religion, and disliked discussions. Notwithstanding
her tenderness for Maria, and her affectionate respect for Giovanni,
she feared she should lean more towards the scepticism of Jeanne than
towards the liberal and progressive Catholicism of the Selvas, if she
stopped to examine the reasons and nature of her own belief. This
Catholicism appeared to her a hybrid thing, and she had perhaps learned
from Jeanne to consider it such; for Jeanne, in moments of nervous
irritability, defended her own scepticism with acrimony against that
faith which, because it shone with spirituality and truth, might prove
formidable to her. Noemi was always suspicious, not of her sister, but
of Giovanni, fearing he would attempt to convert her, and her suspicion
had that day been apparent when, discussing the confessional, she had
several times answered him very sharply. Then Giovanni had reminded her,
gently and gravely, that error harboured unconsciously, in the sincere
and pure desire of truth, is innocent in the eyes of God, but that if
a sentiment foreign to that desire have any part in the repulsion of
truth, then sin alone is the outcome.
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