Yet he loved goodness, and the vicar had once heard a great Roman Catholic divine say that loving goodness was the same thing as loving God.

But Austin had never said that he loved God; he had only said that he was much obliged to Him.

The poor vicar worried himself about all this until he fell asleep, taking refuge in the reflection that if he couldn't understand the state of Austin's soul there was always the probability that God did.
Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was too much absorbed in her anxiety and sorrow to trouble herself with such misgivings.

The light of her life was burning very low, and bade fair to be extinguished altogether.
What were theological conundrums to her now?
It would be positively wicked to fear that anything dreadful could happen to Austin because he had forgotten his catechism and was not impressed by the vicar's prosy discourses in church.

Face to face with the possibility of losing him, all her conventionality collapsed.