chunk: The clergyman proves to be an inconvenient convert, however; he spends his time getting drunk and trying to kiss Virginia, and Paul's intellectual arguments have little influence on him. Physical intimidation is more effective, since the clergyman is both a "coward" and a "weakling." When the drunken clergyman falls off a cliff, Paul meditates on the utilitarian aspects of his death. Paul eventually converts Virginia; she gives up her religious faith, and replaces it with a sexual desire for Paul â which the intellectual Paul finds very uncomfortable. In her new commitment to "glorious truth," Virginia snoops through all of Paul's private papers, and discovers his secret: he himself was once a clergyman.