SARA: Of course not. I suppose I believe in Him—in a way—on Sundays if the music’s good. But James, I’m in such a fog. I don’t know what I think. It would have been such a useless miracle. It ruined us. It gave you thirty empty years, and your uncle …

JAMES: I don’t understand either. But I couldn’t believe in a god so simple I could understand him.

SARA: Why did you come to see me, James?

JAMES: I want you to marry me.

SARA: Sometimes I’ve dreamed of you saying that. But James, it didn’t work the first time.

JAMES: Can’t we try again?

SARA: I remember the same words, but I spoke them.

JAMES: Poetic justice.

SARA: I don’t want justice. I love you, but love wasn’t enough before, was it? One’s got to understand. When I looked at you, I used to see nothing. But this belief of yours, James—it’s worse than nothing. It’s sent you so far away I can’t follow. I can’t love a God I don’t know exists. I can’t pray to a possibility.

JAMES: I don’t even want to pray. Something happened to me, that’s all. Like a street accident. I don’t want God. I don’t love God, but He’s there—it’s no good pretending; He’s in my lungs like air.

SARA: You haven’t any proof.

JAMES: Not the kind Baston needs. But don’t tell a man who has just seen a ghost he has no proof. I’ve seen the mark of His footsteps going away.

SARA: Footsteps?

JAMES: Have you ever seen a room from which faith has gone? A room without faith—oh, that can be pretty and full of flowers. You can fill it up with Regency furniture and the best modern pictures, but a room from which faith has gone is quite different. Like a marriage from which love has gone. All that’s left are habits and pet names and sentimental objects picked up on beaches and in foreign towns that don’t mean anything any more. And patience, patience everywhere like a fog.

SARA: Like our marriage?

JAMES: No. We were like the room without faith. We hadn’t lost anything valuable.

SARA: Don’t be cruel, James. Not tonight.