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We Two: A Novel

by Edna Lyall · English · Gutenberg #2007 · 966,901 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: We Two: A Novel

Author: Edna Lyall


        
Release date: December 1, 1999 [eBook #2007]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2007

Credits: Produced by Theresa Armao, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE TWO: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Theresa Armao





WE TWO

By Edna Lyall




CHAPTER I. Brian Falls in Love

     Still humanity grows dearer,
     Being learned the more.  Jean Ingelow.

     There are three things in this world which deserve no
     quarter--Hypocrisy, Pharisaism, and Tyranny.  F. Robertson

People who have been brought up in the country, or in small places where
every neighbor is known by sight, are apt to think that life in a large
town must lack many of the interests which they have learned to find in
their more limited communities. In a somewhat bewildered way, they gaze
at the shifting crowd of strange faces, and wonder whether it would be
possible to feel completely at home where all the surroundings of life
seem ever changing and unfamiliar.

But those who have lived long in one quarter of London, or of any other
large town, know that there are in reality almost as many links between
the actors of the town life-drama as between those of the country
life-drama.

Silent recognitions pass between passengers who meet day after day in
the same morning or evening train, on the way to or from work; the faces
of omnibus conductors grow familiar; we learn to know perfectly well on
what day of the week and at what hour the well-known organ-grinder will
make his appearance, and in what street we shall meet the city clerk or
the care-worn little daily governess on their way to office or school.
It so happened that Brian Osmond, a young doctor who had not been very
long settled in the Bloomsbury regions, had an engagement which took
him every afternoon down Gower Street, and here many faces had grown
familiar to him. He invariably met the same sallow-faced postman, the
same nasal-voiced milkman, the same pompous-looking man with the bushy
whiskers and the shiny black bag, on his way home from the city. But the
only passenger in whom he took any interest was a certain bright-faced
little girl whom he generally met just before the Montague Place
crossing. He always called her his “little girl,” though she was by no
means little in the ordinary acceptation of the word, being at least
sixteen, and rather tall for her years. But there was a sort of
freshness and naivete and youthfulness about her which made him use
that adjective. She usually carried a pile of books in a strap, so he
conjectured that she must be coming from school, and, ever since he had
first seen her, she had worn the same rough blue serge dress, and the
same quaint little fur hat. In other details, however, he could never
tell in the least how he should find her. She seemed to have a mood for
every day. Sometimes she would be in a great hurry and would almost run
past him; sometimes she would saunter along in the most unconventional
way, glancing from time to time at a book or a paper; sometimes her
eager face would look absolutely bewitching in its brightness; sometimes
scarcely less bewitching in a consuming anxiety which seemed unnatural
in one so young.

One rainy afternoon in November, Brian was as usual making his way down
Gower Street, his umbrella held low to shelter him from the driving rain
which seemed to come in all directions. The milkman's shrill voice was
still far in the distance, the man of letters was still at work upon
knockers some way off, it was not yet time for his little girl to make
her appearance, and he was not even thinking of her, when suddenly his
umbrella was nearly knocked out of his hand by coming violently into
collision with another umbrella. Brought thus to a sudden stand, he
looked to see who it was who had charged him with such violence, and
found himself face to face with his unknown friend. He had never been
quite so close to her before. Her quaint face had always fascinated him,
but on nearer view he thought it the loveliest face he had ever seen--it
took his heart by storm.

It was framed in soft, silky masses of dusky auburn hair which hung over
the broad, white forehead, but at the back was scarcely longer than a
boy's. The features, though not regular, were delicate and piquant; the
usual faint rose-flush on the cheeks deepened now to carnation, perhaps
because of the slight contretemps, perhaps because of some deeper
emotion--Brian fancied the latter, for the clear, golden-brown eyes that
were lifted to his seemed bright either with indignation or with unshed
tears. Today it was clear that the mood was not a happy one.

“I am very sorry,” she said, looking up at him, and speaking in a low,
musical voice, but with the unembarrassed frankness of a child. “I
really wasn't thinking or looking; it was very careless of me.”

Brian of course took all the blame to himself, and apologized profusely;
but though he would have given much to detain her, if only a moment, she
gave him no opportunity, but with a slight inclination passed rapidly
on. He stood quite still, watching her till she was out of sight, aware
of a sudden change in his life. He was a busy hard-working man, not at
all given to dreams, and it was no dream that he was in now. He knew
perfectly well that he had met his ideal, had spoken to her and she to
him; that somehow in a single moment a new world had opened out to him.
He had fallen in love.

The trifling occurrence had made no great impression on the “little
girl” herself. She was rather vexed with herself for the carelessness,
but a much deeper trouble was filling her heart. She soon forgot the
passing interruption and the brown-bearded man with the pleasant gray
eyes who had apologized for what was quite her fault. Something had
gone wrong that day, as Brian had surmised; the eyes grew brighter, the
carnation flush deepened as she hurried along, the delicate lips
closed with a curiously hard expression, the hands were clasped with
unnecessary tightness round the umbrella.

She passed up Guilford Square, but did not turn into any of the old
decayed houses; her home was far less imposing. At the corner of the
square there is a narrow opening which leads into a sort of blind alley
paved with grim flagstones. Here, facing a high blank wall, are four
or five very dreary houses. She entered one of these, put down her wet
umbrella in the shabby little hall, and opened the door of a barely
furnished room, the walls of which were, however, lined with books.
Beside the fire was the one really comfortable piece of furniture in the
room, an Ikeley couch, and upon it lay a very wan-looking invalid, who
glanced up with a smile of welcome. “Why, Erica, you are home early
today. How is that?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Erica, tossing down her books in a way which
showed her mother that she was troubled about something. “I suppose I
tore along at a good rate, and there was no temptation to stay at the
High School.”

“Come and tell me about it,” said the mother, gently, “what has gone
wrong, little one?”

“Everything!” exclaimed Erica, vehemently. “Everything always does go
wrong with us and always will, I suppose. I wish you had never sent me
to school, mother; I wish I need never see the place again!”

“But till today you enjoyed it so much.”

“Yes, the classes and the being with Gertrude. But that will never be
the same again. It's just this, mother, I'm never to speak to Gertrude
again--to have noting more to do with her.”

“Who said so? And Why?”

“Why? Because I'm myself,” said Erica, with a bitter little laugh. “How
I can help it, nobody seems to think. But Gertrude's father has come
back from Africa, and was horrified to learn that we were friends, made
her promise never to speak to me again, and made her write this note
about it. Look!” and she took a crumpled envelope from her pocket.

The mother read the note in silence, and an expression of pain came over
her face. Erica, who was very impetuous, snatched it away from her when
she saw that look of sadness.

“Don't read the horrid thing!” she exclaimed, crushing it up in her
hand. “There, we will burn it!” and she threw it into the fire with a
vehemence which somehow relieved her.

“You shouldn't have done that,” said her mother. “Your father will be
sure to want to see it.”

“No, no, no,” cried Erica, passionately. “He must not know; you must not
tell him, mother.”

“Dear child, have you not learned that it is impossible to keep anything
from him? He will find out directly that something is wrong.”

“It will grieve him so; he must not hear it,” said Erica. “He cares so
much for what hurts us. Oh! Why are people so hard and cruel? Why do
they treat us like lepers? It isn't all because of losing Gertrude;
I could bear that if there were some real reason--if she went away
or died. But there's no reason! It's all prejudice and bigotry and
injustice; it's that which makes it sting so.”

Erica was not at all given to tears, but there was now a sort of choking
in her throat, and a sort of dimness in her eyes which made her rather
hurriedly settle down on the floor in her own particular nook beside her
mother's couch, where her face could not be seen. There was a silence.
Presently the mother spoke, stroking back the wavy, auburn hair with her
thin white hand.

“For a long time I have dreaded this for you, Erica. I was afraid you
didn't realize the sort of position the world will give you. Till lately
you have seen scarcely any but our own people, but it can hardly be,
darling, that you can go on much longer without coming into contact with
others; and then, more and more, you must realize that you are cut off
from much that other girls may enjoy.”

“Why?” questioned Erica. “Why can't they be friendly? Why must they cut
us off from everything?”

“It does seem unjust; but you must remember that we belong to an
unpopular minority.”

“But if I belonged to the larger party, I would at least be just to
the smaller,” said Erica. “How can they expect us to think their system
beautiful when the very first thing they show us is hatred and meanness.
Oh! If I belonged to the other side I would show them how different it
might be.”

“I believe you would,” said the mother, smiling a little at the idea,
and at the vehemence of the speaker. “But, as it is, Erica, I am afraid
you must school yourself to endure. After all, I fancy you will be glad
to share so soon in your father's vexations.”

“Yes,” said Erica, pushing back the hair from her forehead, and giving
herself a kind of mental shaking. “I am glad of that. After all, they
can't spoil the best part of our lives! I shall go into the garden to
get rid of my bad temper; it doesn't rain now.”

She struggled to her feet, picked up the little fur hat which had fallen
off, kissed her mother, and went out of the room.

The “garden” was Erica's favorite resort, her own particular property.
It was about fifteen feet square, and no one but a Londoner would have
bestowed on it so dignified a name. But Erica, who was of an inventive
turn, had contrived to make the most of the little patch of ground, had
induced ivy to grow on the ugly brick walls, and with infinite care and
satisfaction had nursed a few flowers and shrubs into tolerably healthy
though smutty life. In one of the corners, Tom Craigie, her favorite
cousin, had put up a rough wooden bench for her, and here she read and
dreamed as contentedly as if her “garden ground” had been fairy-land.
Here, too, she invariably came when anything had gone wrong, when the
endless troubles about money which had weighed upon her all her
life became a little less bearable than usual, or when some act of
discourtesy or harshness to her father had roused in her a tingling,
burning sense of indignation.

Erica was not one of those people who take life easily; things went very
deeply with her. In spite of her brightness and vivacity, in spite of
her readiness to see the ludicrous in everything, and her singularly
quick perceptions, she was also very keenly alive to other and graver
impressions.

Her anger had passed, but still, as she paced round and round her small
domain, her heart was very heavy. Life seemed perplexing to her; but her
mother had somehow struck the right key-note when she had spoken of the
vexations which might be shared. There was something inspiriting in
that thought, certainly, for Erica worshipped her father. By degrees the
trouble and indignation died away, and a very sweet look stole over the
grave little face.

A smutty sparrow came and peered down at her from the ivy-colored wall,
and chirped and twittered in quite a friendly way, perhaps recognizing
the scatter of its daily bread.

“After all,” though Erica, “with ourselves and the animals, we might let
the rest of the world treat us as they please. I am glad they can't turn
the animals and birds against us! That would be worse than anything.”

Then, suddenly turning from the abstract to the practical, she took out
of her pocket a shabby little sealskin purse.

“Still sixpence of my prize money over,” she remarked to herself; “I'll
go and buy some scones for tea. Father likes them.”

Erica's father was a Scotchman, and, though so-called scones were to be
had at most shops, there was only one place where she could buy scones
which she considered worthy the name, and that was at the Scotch baker's
in Southampton Row. She hurried along the wet pavements, glad that the
rain was over, for as soon as her purchase was completed she made up
her mind to indulge for a few minutes in what had lately become a
very frequent treat, namely a pause before a certain tempting store of
second-hand books. She had never had money enough to buy anything except
the necessary school books, and, being a great lover of poetry, she
always seized with avidity on anything that was to be found outside the
book shop. Sometimes she would carry away a verse of Swinburne, which
would ring in her ears for days and days; sometimes she would read as
much as two or three pages of Shelley. No one had every interrupted her,
and a certain sense of impropriety and daring was rather stimulating
than otherwise. It always brought to her mind a saying in the proverbs
of Solomon, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is
pleasant.”

For three successive days she had found to her great delight
Longfellow's “Hiawatha.” The strange meter, the musical Indian names,
the delightfully described animals, all served to make the poem
wonderfully fascinating to her. She thought a page or two of “Hiawatha”
 would greatly sweeten her somewhat bitter world this afternoon, and
with her bag of scones in one hand and the book in the other she read
on happily, quite unconscious that three pair of eyes were watching her
from within the shop.

The wrinkled old man who was the presiding genius of the place had two
customers, a tall, gray-bearded clergyman with bright, kindly eyes, and
his son, the same Brian Osmond whom Erica had charged with her umbrella
in Gower Street.

“An outside customer for you,” remarked Charles Osmond, the clergyman,
glancing at the shop keeper. Then to his son, “What a picture she
makes!”

Brian looked up hastily from some medical books which he had been
turning over.

“Why that's my little Gower Street friend,” he exclaimed, the words
being somehow surprised out of him, though he would fain have recalled
them the next minute.

“I don't interrupt her,” said the shop owner. “Her father has done a
great deal of business with me, and the little lady has a fancy for
poetry, and don't get much of it in her life, I'll be bound.”

“Why, who is she?” asked Charles Osmond, who was on very friendly terms
with the old book collector.

“She's the daughter of Luke Raeburn,” was the reply, “and whatever folks
may say, I know that Mr. Raeburn leads a hard enough life.”

Brian turned away from the speakers, a sickening sense of dismay at his
heart. His ideal was the daughter of Luke Raeburn! And Luke Raeburn was
an atheist leader!

For a few minutes he lost consciousness of time and place, though always
seeing in a sort of dark mist Erica's lovely face bending over her book.
The shop keeper's casual remark had been a fearful blow to him; yet,
as he came to himself again, his heart went out more and more to the
beautiful girl who had been brought up in what seemed to him so barren
a creed. His dream of love, which had been bright enough only an hour
before, was suddenly shadowed by an unthought of pain, but presently
began to shine with a new and altogether different luster. He began to
hear again what was passing between his father and the shop keeper.

“There's a sight more good in him than folks think. However wrong his
views, he believes them right, and is ready to suffer for 'em, too.
Bless me, that's odd, to be sure! There is Mr. Raeburn, on the other
side of the Row! Fine-looking man, isn't he?”

Brian, looking up eagerly, fancied he must be mistaken for the only
passenger in sight was a very tall man of remarkably benign aspect,
middle-aged, yet venerable--or perhaps better described by the word
“devotional-looking,” pervaded too by a certain majesty of calmness
which seemed scarcely suited to his character of public agitator.
The clean-shaven and somewhat rugged face was unmistakably that of a
Scotchman, the thick waves of tawny hair overshadowing the wide brow,
and the clear golden-brown eyes showed Brian at once that this could be
no other than the father of his ideal.

In the meantime, Raeburn, having caught sight of his daughter, slowly
crossed the road, and coming noiselessly up to her, suddenly took hold
of the book she was reading, and with laughter in his eyes, said, in a
peremptory voice:

“Five shillings to pay, if you please, miss!”

Erica, who had been absorbed in the poem, looked up in dismay; then
seeing who had spoken, she began to laugh.

“What a horrible fright you gave me, father! But do look at this, it's
the loveliest thing in the world. I've just got to the 'very strong man
Kwasind.' I think he's a little like you!”

Raeburn, though no very great lover of poetry, took the book and read a
few lines.

“Long they lived in peace together, Spake with naked hearts together,
Pondering much and much contriving How the tribes of men might prosper.”

“Good! That will do very well for you and me, little one. I'm ready to
be your Kwasind. What's the price of the thing? Four and sixpence! Too
much for a luxury. It must wait till our ship comes in.”

He put down the book, and they moved on together, but had not gone many
paces before they were stopped by a most miserable-looking beggar child.
Brian standing now outside the shop, saw and heard all that passed.

Raeburn was evidently investigating the case, Erica, a little impatient
of the interruption, was remonstrating.

“I thought you never gave to beggars, and I am sure that harrowing story
is made up.”

“Very likely,” replied the father, “but the hunger is real, and I know
well enough what hunger is. What have you here?” he added, indicating
the paper bag which Erica held.

“Scones,” she said, unwillingly.

“That will do,” he said, taking them from her and giving them to the
child. “He is too young to be anything but the victim of another's
laziness. There! Sit down and eat them while you can.”

The child sat down on the doorstep with the bag of scones clasped in
both hands, but he continued to gaze after his benefactor till he
had passed out of sight, and there was a strange look of surprise and
gratification in his eyes. That was a man who knew! Many people had,
after hard begging, thrown him pence, many had warned him off harshly,
but this man had looked straight into his eyes, and had at once stopped
and questioned him, had singled out the one true statement from a mass
of lies, and had given him--not a stale loaf with the top cut off, a
suspicious sort of charity which always angered the waif--but his own
food, bought for his own consumption. Most wonderful of all, too,
this man knew what it was to be hungry, and had even the insight and
shrewdness to be aware that the waif's best chance of eating the scones
at all was to eat them then and there. For the first time a feeling of
reverence and admiration was kindled in the child's heart; he would have
done a great deal for his unknown friend.

Raeburn and Erica had meanwhile walked on in the direction of Guilford
Square.

“I had bought them for you,” said Erica, reproachfully.

“And I ruthlessly gave them away,” said Raeburn, smiling. “That was hard
lines; I though they were only household stock. But after all it comes
to the same thing in the end, or better. You have given them to me by
giving them to the child. Never mind, 'Little son Eric!'”

This was his pet name for her, and it meant a great deal to them. She
was his only child, and it had at first been a great disappointment to
every one that she was not a boy. But Raeburn had long ago ceased to
regret this, and the nickname referred more to Erica's capability of
being both son and daughter to him, able to help him in his work and at
the same time to brighten his home. Erica was very proud of her name,
for she had been called after her father's greatest friend, Eric
Haeberlein, a celebrated republican, who once during a long exile had
taken refuge in London. His views were in some respects more extreme
than Raeburn's, but in private life he was the gentlest and most
fascinating of men, and had quite won the heart of his little namesake.

As Mrs. Raeburn had surmised, Erica's father had at once seen that
something had gone wrong that day. The all-observing eyes, which had
noticed the hungry look in the beggar child's face, noticed at once that
his own child had been troubled.

“Something has vexed you,” he said. “What is the matter, Erica?”

“I had rather not tell you, father, it isn't anything much,” said Erica,
casting down her eyes as if all at once the paving stones had become
absorbingly interesting.

“I fancy I know already,” said Raeburn. “It is about your friend at the
High School, is it not. I thought so. This afternoon I had a letter from
her father.”

“What does he say? May I see it?” asked Erica.

“I tore it up,” said Raeburn, “I thought you would ask to see it, and
the thing was really so abominably insolent that I didn't want you to.
How did you hear about it?”

“Gertrude wrote me a note,” said Erica.

“At her father's dictation, no doubt,” said Raeburn; “I should know his
style directly, let me see it.”

“I thought it was a pity to vex you, so I burned it,” said Erica.

Then, unable to help being amused at their efforts to save each other,
they both laughed, though the subject was rather a sore one.

“It is the old story,” said Raeburn. “Life only, as Pope Innocent III
benevolently remarked, 'is to be left to the children of misbelievers,
and that only as an act of mercy.' You must make up your mind to bear
the social stigma, child. Do you see the moral of this?”

“No,” said Erica, with something between a smile and a sigh.

“The moral of it is that you must be content with your own people,” said
Raeburn. “There is this one good point about persecution--it does draw
us all nearer together, really strengthens us in a hundred ways. So,
little one, you must forswear school friends, and be content with your
'very strong man Kwasind,' and we will

     “'Live in peace together Speak with naked hearts together.'

By the bye, it is rather doubtful if Tom will be able to come to the
lecture tonight; do you think you can take notes for me instead?”

This was in reality the most delicate piece of tact and consideration,
for it was, of course, Erica's delight and pride to help her father.



CHAPTER II. From Effect to Cause

     Only the acrid spirit of the times, Corroded this true
     steel. Longfellow.

     Not Thine the bigot's partial plea,
     Not Thine the zealot's ban;
     Thou well canst spare a love of Thee
     Which ends in hate of man.
     Whittier.

Luke Raeburn was the son of a Scotch clergyman of the Episcopal Church.
His history, though familiar to his own followers and to them more
powerfully convincing than many arguments against modern Christianity,
was not generally known. The orthodox were apt to content themselves
with shuddering at the mention of his name; very few troubled themselves
to think or inquire how this man had been driven into atheism. Had they
done so they might, perhaps, have treated him more considerately, at any
rate they must have learned that the much-disliked prophet of atheism
was the most disinterested of men, one who had the courage of his
opinions, a man of fearless honesty.

Raeburn had lost his mother very early; his father, a well-to-do man,
had held for many years a small living in the west of Scotland. He was
rather a clever man, but one-sided and bigoted; cold-hearted, too, and
caring very little for his children. Of Luke, however, he was, in his
peculiar fashion, very proud, for at an early age the boy showed signs
of genius. The father was no great worker; though shrewd and clever,
he had no ambition, and was quietly content to live out his life in the
retired little parsonage where, with no parish to trouble him, and a
small and unexacting congregation on Sundays, he could do pretty much as
he pleased. But for his son he was ambitious. Ever since his sixteenth
year--when, at a public meeting the boy had, to the astonishment
of every one, suddenly sprung to his feet and contradicted a false
statement made by a great landowner as to the condition of the cottages
on his estate--the father had foreseen future triumphs for his son. For
the speech, though unpremeditated, was marvelously clever, and there was
a power in it not to be accounted for by a certain ring of indignation;
it was the speech of a future orator.

Then, too, Luke had by this time shown signs of religious zeal, a zeal
which his father, though far from attempting to copy, could not but
admire. His Sunday services over, he relapsed into the comfortable,
easy-going life of a country gentleman for the rest of the week; but
his son was indefatigable, and, though little more than a boy himself,
gathered round him the roughest lads of the village, and by his
eloquence, and a certain peculiar personal fascination which he retained
all his life, absolutely forced them to listen to him. The father
augured great things for him, and invariably prophesied that he would
“live to see him a bishop yet.”

It was a settled thing that he should take Holy Orders, and for some
time Raeburn was only too happy to carry out his father's plans. In his
very first term at Cambridge, however, he began to feel doubts, and,
becoming convinced that he could never again accept the doctrines in
which he had been educated, he told his father that he must give up all
thought of taking Orders.

Now, unfortunately, Mr. Raeburn was the very last man to understand
or sympathize with any phase of life through which he had not himself
passed. He had never been troubled with religious doubts; skepticism
seemed to him monstrous and unnatural. He met the confession, which
his son had made in pain and diffidence, with a most deplorable want of
tact. In answer to the perplexing questions which were put to him, he
merely replied testily that Luke had been overworking himself, and that
he had no business to trouble his head with matters which were beyond
him, and would fain have dismissed the whole affair at once.

“But,” urged the son, “how is it possible for me to turn my back on
these matters when I am preparing to teach them?”

“Nonsense,” replied the father, angrily. “Have not I taught all my life,
preached twice a Sunday these thirty years without perplexing myself
with your questionings? Be off to your shooting, and your golf, and let
me have no more of this morbid fuss.”

No more was said; but Luke Raeburn, with his doubts and questions shut
thus into himself, drifted rapidly from skepticism to the most positive
form of unbelief. When he next came home for the long vacation, his
father was at length awakened to the fact that the son, upon whom all
his ambition was set, was hopelessly lost to the Church; and with this
consciousness a most bitter sense of disappointment rose in his heart.
His pride, the only side of fatherhood which he possessed, was deeply
wounded, and his dreams of honorable distinction were laid low. His
wrath was great. Luke found the home made almost unbearable to him. His
college career was of course at an end, for his father would not hear
of providing him with the necessary funds now that he had actually
confessed his atheism. He was hardly allowed to speak to his sisters,
every request for money to start him in some profession met with a sharp
refusal, and matters were becoming so desperate that he would probably
have left the place of his own accord before long, had not Mr. Raeburn
himself put an end to a state of things which had grown insufferable.

With some lurking hope, perhaps, of convincing his son, he resolved
upon trying a course of argument. To do him justice he really tried to
prepare himself for it, dragged down volumes of dusty divines, and got
up with much pains Paley's “watch” argument. There was some honesty,
even perhaps a very little love, in his mistaken endeavors; but he did
not recognize that while he himself was unforgiving, unloving, harsh,
and self-indulgent, all his arguments for Christianity were of necessity
null and void. He argued for the existence of a perfectly loving, good
God, all the while treating his son with injustice and tyranny. Of
course there could be only one result from a debate between the
two. Luke Raeburn with his honesty, his great abilities, his gift of
reasoning, above all his thorough earnestness, had the best of it.

To be beaten in argument was naturally the one thing which such a man as
Mr. Raeburn could not forgive. He might in time have learned to tolerate
a difference of opinion, he would beyond a doubt have forgiven almost
any of the failings that he could understand, would have paid his son's
college debts without a murmur, would have overlooked anything connected
with what he considered the necessary process of “sowing his wild oats.”
 But that the fellow should presume to think out the greatest problems in
the world, should set up his judgment against Paley's, and worst of
all should actually and palpably beat HIM in argument--this was an
unpardonable offense.

A stormy scene ensued. The father, in ungovernable fury, heaped upon the
son every abusive epithet he could think of. Luke Raeburn spoke not a
word; he was strong and self-controlled; moreover, he knew that he had
had the best of the argument. He was human, however, and his heart was
wrung by his father's bitterness. Standing there on that summer day,
in the study of the Scotch parsonage, the man's future was sealed. He
suffered there the loss of all things, but at the very time there sprung
up in him an enthusiasm for the cause of free thought, a passionate,
burning zeal for the opinions for which he suffered, which never left
him, but served as the great moving impulse of his whole subsequent
life.

“I tell you, you are not fit to be in a gentleman's house,” thundered
the father. “A rank atheist, a lying infidel! It is against nature that
you should call a parsonage your home.”

“It is not particularly home-like,” said the son, bitterly. “I can leave
it when you please.”

“Can!” exclaimed the father, in a fury, “you WILL leave it, sir, and
this very day too! I disown you from this time. I'll have no atheist for
my son! Change your views or leave the house at once.”

Perhaps he expected his son to make some compromise; if so he showed
what a very slight knowledge he had of his character. Luke Raeburn had
certainly not been prepared for such extreme harshness, but with
the pain and grief and indignation there rose in his heart a mighty
resoluteness. With a face as hard and rugged as the granite rocks
without, he wished his father goodbye, and obeyed his orders.

Then had followed such a struggle with the world as few men would have
gone through with. Cut off from all friends and relations by his avowal
of atheism, and baffled again and again in seeking to earn his living,
he had more than once been on the very brink of starvation. By sheer
force of will he had won his way, had risen above adverse circumstances,
had fought down obstacles, and conquered opposing powers. Before long
he had made fresh friends and gained many followers, for there was an
extraordinary magnetism about the man which almost compelled those who
were brought into contact with him to reverence him.

It was a curious history. First there had been that time of grievous
doubt; then he had been thrown upon the world friendless and penniless,
with the beliefs and hopes hitherto most sacred to him dead, and in
their place an aching blank. He had suffered much. Treated on all sides
with harshness and injustice, it was indeed wonderful that he had not
developed into a mere hater, a passionate down-puller. But there was in
his character a nobility which would not allow him to rest at this
low level. The bitter hostility and injustice which he encountered
did indeed warp his mind, and every year of controversy made it more
impossible for him to take an unprejudiced view of Christ's teaching;
but nevertheless he could not remain a mere destroyer.

In that time of blankness, when he had lost all faith in God, when he
had been robbed of friendship and family love, he had seized desperately
on the one thing left him--the love of humanity. To him atheism meant
not only the assertion--“The word God is a word without meaning, it
conveys nothing to my understanding.” He added to this barren confession
of an intellectual state a singularly high code of duty. Such a code as
could only have emanated from one about whom there lingered what Carlyle
has termed a great after-shine of Christianity. He held that the only
happiness worth having was that which came to a man while engaged in
promoting the general good. That the whole duty of man was to devote
himself to the service of others. And he lived his creed.

Like other people, he had his faults, but he was always ready to spend
and he spent for what he considered the good of others, while every
act of injustice called forth his unsparing rebuke, and every oppressed
person or cause was sure to meet with his support at whatever cost to
himself. His zeal for what he regarded as the “gospel” of atheism grew
and strengthened year by year. He was the untiring advocate of what he
considered the truth. Neither illness nor small results, nor loss, could
quench his ardor, while opposition invariably stimulated him to
fresh efforts. After long years of toil, he had at length attained
an influential position in the country, and though crippled by debts
incurred in the struggle for freedom of speech, and living in absolute
penury, he was one of the most powerful men of the day.

The old bookseller had very truly observed that there was more good in
him than people thought, he was in fact a noble character twisted the
wrong way by clumsy and mistaken handling.

Brian Osmond was by no means bigoted; he had moreover, known those who
were intimate with Raeburn, and consequently had heard enough of the
truth about him to disbelieve the gross libels which were constantly
being circulated by the unscrupulous among his opponents. Still, as
on that November afternoon he watched Raeburn and his daughter down
Southampton Row, he was conscious that for the first time he fully
regarded the atheist as a fellow-man. The fact was that Raeburn had for
long years been the champion of a hated cause; he had braved the full
flood of opposition; and like an isolated rock had been the mark for so
much of the rage and fury of the elements that people who knew him only
by name had really learned to regard him more as a target than as a man.
It was he who could hit hardest, who could most effectually baffle and
ruin him; while the quieter spirits contented themselves with rarely
mentioning his obnoxious name, and endeavoring as far as possible, to
ignore his existence. Brian felt that till now he had followed with the
multitude to do evil. He had, as far as possible, ignored his existence;
had even been rather annoyed when his father had once publicly urged
that Raeburn should be treated with as much justice and courtesy and
consideration as if he had been a Christian. He had been vexed that his
father should suffer on behalf of such a man, had been half inclined to
put down the scorn and contempt and anger of the narrow-minded to the
atheist's account. The feeling had perhaps been natural, but all was
changed now; he only revered his father all the more for having suffered
in an unpopular cause. With some eagerness, he went back into the shop
to see if he could gather any more particulars from the old
bookseller. Charles Osmond had, however, finished his purchases and his
conversation, and was ready to go.

“The second house in Guilford Terrace, you say?” he observed, turning
at the door. “Thank you. I shall be sure to find it. Good day.”
 Then turning to his son, he added, “I had no idea we were such near
neighbors! Did you hear what he told me? Mr. Raeburn lives in Guilford
Terrace.”

“What, that miserable blind alley, do you mean at the other side of the
square?”

“Yes, and I am just going round there now, for our friend the
'book-worm' tells me he has heard it rumored that some unscrupulous
person who is going to answer Mr. Raeburn this evening, has hired a
band of roughs to make a disturbance at the meeting. Fancy how indignant
Donovan would be! I only wish he were here to take a word to Mr.
Raeburn.”

“Will he not most likely have heard from some other source?” said Brian.

“Possibly, but I shall go round and see. Such abominations ought to be
put down, and if by our own side all the better.”

Brian was only too glad that his father should go, and indeed he would
probably have wished to take the message himself had not his mind been
set upon getting the best edition of Longfellow to be found in all
London for his ideal. So at the turning into Guilford Square, the father
and son parted.

The bookseller's information had roused in Charles Osmond a keen sense
of indignation; he walked on rapidly as soon as he had left his son,
and in a very few minutes had reached the gloomy entrance to Guilford
Terrace. It was currently reported that Raeburn made fabulous sums
by his work, and lived in great luxury; but the real fact was that,
whatever his income, few men led so self-denying a life, or voluntarily
endured such privations. Charles Osmond could not help wishing that
he could bring some of the intolerant with him down that gloomy little
alley, to the door of that comfortless lodging house. He rang, and was
admitted into the narrow passage, then shown into the private study of
the great man. The floor was uncarpeted, the window uncurtained, the
room was almost dark; but a red-glow of fire light served to show a
large writing table strewn with papers, and walls literally lined with
books; also on the hearth-rug a little figure curled up in the most
unconventionally comfortable attitude, dividing her attention between
making toast and fondling a loud-purring cat.



CHAPTER III. Life From Another Point of View

     Toleration an attack on Christianity?  What, then, are we to
     come to this pass, to suppose that nothing can support
     Christianity but the principles of persecution?...  I am
     persuaded that toleration, so far from being an attack on
     Christianity, becomes the best and surest support that can
     possibly be given to it....  Toleration is good for all,
     or it is good for none...  God forbid.  I may be mistaken,
     but I take toleration to be a part of religion.  Burke

Erica was, apparently, well used to receiving strangers. She put down
the toasting fork, but kept the cat in her arms, as she rose to greet
Charles Osmond, and her frank and rather child-like manner fascinated
him almost as much as it had fascinated Brian.

“My father will be home in a few minutes,” she said; “I almost wonder
you didn't meet him in the square; he has only just gone to send off a
telegram. Can you wait? Or will you leave a message?”

“I will wait, if I may,” said Charles Osmond. “Oh, don't trouble about
a light. I like this dimness very well, and, please, don't let me
interrupt you.”

Erica relinquished a vain search for candle lighters, and took up her
former position on the hearth rug with her toasting fork.

“I like the gloaming, too,” she said. “It's almost the only nice thing
which is economical! Everything else that one likes specially costs too
much! I wonder whether people with money do enjoy all the great treats.”

“Very soon grow blase, I expect,” said Charles Osmond. “The essence of a
treat is rarity, you see.”

“I suppose it is. But I think I could enjoy ever so many things for
years and years without growing blase,” said Erica.

“Sometimes I like just to fancy what life might be if there were no
tiresome Christians, and bigots, and lawsuits.”

Charles Osmond laughed to himself in the dim light; the remark was made
with such perfect sincerity, and it evidently had not dawned on the
speaker that she could be addressing any but one of her father's
followers. Yet the words saddened Him too. He just caught a glimpse
through them of life viewed from a directly opposite point.

“Your father has a lawsuit going on now, has he not?” he observed, after
a little pause.

“Oh, yes, there is almost always one either looming in the distance or
actually going on. I don't think I can ever remember the time when we
were quite free. It must feel very funny to have no worries of that
kind. I think, if there wasn't always this great load of debt tied round
our necks, like a millstone, I should feel almost light enough to fly.
And then it IS hard to read in some of those horrid religious papers
that father lives an easy-going life. Did you see a dreadful paragraph
last week in the 'Church Chronicle?'”

“Yes, I did,” said Charles Osmond, sadly.

“It always has been the same,” said Erica. “Father has a delightful
story about an old gentleman who at one of his lectures accused him of
being rich and self-indulgent--it was a great many years ago, when I was
a baby, and father was nearly killing himself with overwork--and he just
got up and gave the people the whole history of his day, and it turned
out that he had had nothing to eat. Mustn't the old gentleman have felt
delightfully done? I always wonder how he looked when he heard about
it, and whether after that he believed that atheists are not necessarily
everything that's bad.”

“I hope such days as those are over for Mr. Raeburn,” said Charles
Osmond, touched both by the anecdote and by the loving admiration of the
speaker.

“I don't know,” said Erica, sadly. “It has been getting steadily worse
for the last few years; we have had to give up thing after thing. Before
long I shouldn't wonder if these rooms in what father calls 'Persecution
alley' grew too expensive for us. But, after all, it is this sort of
thing which makes our own people love him so much, don't you think?”

“I have no doubt it is,” said Charles Osmond, thoughtfully.

And then for a minute or two there was silence. Erica, having finished
her toasting, stirred the fire into a blaze, and Charles Osmond sat
watching the fair, childish face which looked lovelier than ever in the
soft glow of the fire light. What would her future be, he wondered. She
seemed too delicate and sensitive for the stormy atmosphere in which she
lived. Would the hard life embitter her, or would she sink under it?
But there was a certain curve of resoluteness about her well-formed chin
which was sufficient answer to the second question, while he could not
but think that the best safeguard against the danger of bitterness lay
in her very evident love and loyalty to her father.

Erica in the meantime sat stroking her cat Friskarina, and wondering a
little who her visitor could be. She liked him very much, and could
not help responding to the bright kindly eyes which seemed to plead
for confidence; though he was such an entire stranger she found herself
quite naturally opening out her heart to him.

“I am to take notes at my father's meeting tonight,” she said, breaking
the silence, “and perhaps write the account of it afterward, too, and
there's such a delightfully funny man coming to speak on the other
side.”

“Mr. Randolph, is it not?”

“Yes, a sort of male Mrs. Malaprop. Oh, such fun!” and at the
remembrance of some past encounter, Erica's eyes positively danced with
laughter. But the next minute she was very grave.

“I came to speak to Mr. Raeburn about this evening,” said Charles
Osmond. “Do you know if he has heard of a rumor that this Mr. Randolph
has hired a band of roughs to interrupt the meeting?”

Erica made an indignant exclamation.

“Perhaps that was what the telegram was about,” she continued, after
a moment's thought. “We found it here when we came in. Father said
nothing, but went out very quickly to answer it. Oh! Now we shall have a
dreadful time of it, I suppose, and perhaps he'll get hurt again. I did
hope they had given up that sort of thing.”

She looked so troubled that Charles Osmond regretted he had said
anything, and hastened to assure her that what he had heard was the
merest rumor, and very possibly not true.

“I am afraid,” she said, “it is too bad not to be true.”

It struck Charles Osmond that that was about the saddest little sentence
he had ever heard.

Partly wishing to change the subject, party from real interest, he made
some remark about a lovely little picture, the only one in the room; its
frame was lighted up by the flickering blaze, and even in the imperfect
light he could see that the subject was treated in no ordinary way.
It was a little bit of the Thames far away from London, with a bank
of many-tinted trees on one side, and out beyond a range of low hills,
purple in the evening light. In the sky was a rosy sunset glow, melted
above into saffron color, and this was reflected in the water, gilding
and mellowing the foreground of sedge and water lilies. But what made
the picture specially charming was that the artist had really caught
the peculiar solemn stillness of evening; merely to look at that quiet,
peaceful river brought a feeling of hush and calmness. It seemed a
strange picture to find as the sole ornament in the study of a man who
had all his life been fighting the world.

Erica brightened up again, and seemed to forget her anxiety when he
questioned her as to the artist.

“There is such a nice story about that picture,” she said, “I always
like to look at it. It was about two years ago, one very cold winter's
day, and a woman came with some oil paintings which she was trying to
sell for her husband, who was ill; he was rather a good artist, but had
been in bad health for a long time, till at last she had really come
to hawking about his pictures in this way, because they were in such
dreadful distress. Father was very much worried just then, there was a
horrid libel case going on, and that morning he was very busy, and he
sent the woman away rather sharply, and said he had no time to listen
to her. Then presently he was vexed with himself because she really had
looked in great trouble, and he thought he had been harsh, and, though
he was dreadfully pressed for time, he would go out into the square to
see if he couldn't find her again. I went with him, and we had walked
all round and had almost given her up, when we caught sight of her
coming out of a house on the opposite side. And then it was so nice,
father spoke so kindly to her, and found out more about her history, and
said that he was too poor to buy her pictures; but she looked dreadfully
tired and cold, so he asked her to come in and rest, and she came and
sat by the fire, and stayed to dinner with us, and we looked at her
pictures, because she seemed so proud of them and liked us to. One of
them was that little river scene, which father took a great fancy to,
and praised a great deal. She left us her address, and later on, when
the libel case was ended, and father had got damages, and so had a
little spare money, he sent some to this poor artist, and they were so
grateful; though, do you know, I think the dinner pleased them more than
the money, and they would insist on sending this picture to father. I'll
light the gas, and then you'll see it better.”

She twisted a piece of paper into a spill, and put an end to the
gloaming. Charles Osmond stood up to get a nearer view of the painting,
and Erica, too, drew nearer, and looked at it for a minute in silence.

“Father took me up the Thames once,” she said, by and by. “It was so
lovely. Some day, when all these persecutions are over, we are going
to have a beautiful tour, and see all sorts of places. But I don't know
when they will be over. As soon as one bigot--” she broke off suddenly,
with a stifled exclamation of dismay.

Charles Osmond, in the dim light, with his long gray beard, had not
betrayed his clerical dress; but, glancing round at him now, she saw at
once that the stranger to whom she had spoken so unreservedly was by no
means one of her father's followers.

“Well!” he said, smiling, half understanding her confusion.

“You are a clergyman!” she almost gasped.

“Yes, why not?”

“I beg your pardon, I never thought--you seemed so much too--”

“Too what?” urged Charles Osmond. Then, as she still hesitated, “Now,
you must really let me hear the end of that sentence, or I shall imagine
everything dreadful.”

“Too nice,” murmured Erica, wishing that she could sink through the
floor.

But the confession so tickled Charles Osmond that he laughed aloud, and
his laughter was so infectious that Erica, in spite of her confusion,
could not help joining in it. She had a very keen sense of the
ludicrous, and the position was undoubtedly a laughable one; still there
were certain appalling recollections of the past conversation which soon
made her serious again. She had talked of persecutions to one who was,
at any rate, on the side of persecutors; had alluded to bigots, and,
worst of all, had spoken in no measured terms of “tiresome Christians.”

She turned, rather shyly, and yet with a touch of dignity, to her
visitor, and said:

“It was very careless of me not to notice more, but it was dark, and I
am not used to seeing any but our own people here. I am afraid I said
things which must have hurt you; I wish you had stopped me.”

The beautiful color had spread and deepened in her cheeks, and there was
something indescribably sweet and considerate in her tone of apology.
Charles Osmond was touched by it.

“It is I who should apologize,” he said. “I am not at all sure that I
was justified in sitting there quietly, knowing that you were under
a delusion; but it is always very delightful to me in this artificial
world to meet any one who talks quite naturally, and the interest of
hearing your view of the question kept me silent. You must forgive me,
and as you know I am too nice to be a clergyman--”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. How rude I have been,” cried Erica, blushing
anew; “but you did make me say it.”

“Of course, and I take it as a high compliment from you,” said Charles
Osmond, laughing again at the recollection. “Come, may we not seal
our friendship? We have been sufficiently frank with each other to be
something more than acquaintances for the future.”

Erica held out her hand and found it taken in a strong, firm clasp,
which somehow conveyed much more than an ordinary handshake.

“And, after all, you ARE too nice for a clergyman!” she thought to
herself. Then, as a fresh idea crossed her mind, she suddenly exclaimed:
“But you came to tell us about Mr. Randolph's roughs, did you not? How
came you to care that we should know beforehand?”

“Why, naturally I hoped that a disturbance might be stopped.”

“Is it natural?” questioned Erica. “I should have thought it more
natural for you to think with your own party.”

“But peace and justice and freedom of speech must all stand before party
questions.”

“Yet you think that we are wrong, and that Christianity is right?”

“Yes, but to my mind perfect justice is part of Christianity.”

“Oh,” said Erica, in a tone which meant unutterable things.

“You think that Christians do not show perfect justice to you?” said
Charles Osmond, reading her thoughts.

“I can't say I think they do,” she replied. Then, suddenly firing up at
the recollection of her afternoon's experiences, she said: “They are not
just to us, though they preach justice; they are not loving, though they
talk about love. If they want us to think their religion true, I wonder
they don't practice it a little more and preach it less. What is the use
of talking of 'brotherly kindness and charity,' when they hardly treat
us like human beings, when they make up wicked lies about us, and will
hardly let us sit in the same room with them!”

“Come, now, we really are sitting in the same room,” said Charles
Osmond, smiling.

“Oh, dear, what am I to do!” exclaimed Erica. “I can't remember that you
are one of them! You are so very unlike most.”

“I think,” said Charles Osmond, “you have come across some very bad
specimens.”

Erica, in her heart, considered her visitor as the exception which
proved the rule; but not wishing to be caught tripping again, she
resolved to say no more upon the subject.

“Let us talk of something else,” she said.

“Something nicer?” said Charles Osmond, with a little mischievous
twinkle in his eyes.

“Safer,” said Erica, laughing. “But stop, I hear my father.”

She went out into the passage to meet him. Charles Osmond heard her
explaining his visit and the news he had brought, heard Raeburn's
brief responses; then, in a few moments, the two entered the room, a
picturesque looking couple, the clergyman thought; the tall, stately
man, with his broad forehead and overshadowing masses of auburn hair;
the little eager-faced, impetuous girl, so winsome in her unconventional
frankness.

The conversation became a trifle more ceremonious, though with Erica
perched on the arm of her father's chair, ready to squeeze his hand at
every word which pleased her, it could hardly become stiff. Raeburn had
just heard the report of Mr. Randolph's scheme, and had already taken
precautionary measures; but he was surprised and gratified that Charles
Osmond should have troubled to bring him word about it. The two men
talked on with the most perfect friendliness; and by and by, to Erica's
great delight, Charles Osmond expressed a wish to be present at the
meeting that night, and made inquiries as to the time and place.

“Oh, couldn't you stay to tea and go with us?” she exclaimed, forgetting
for the third time that he was a clergyman, and offering the ready
hospitality she would have offered to any one else.

“I should be delighted,” he said, smiling, “if you can really put up
with one of the cloth.”

Raeburn, amused at his daughter's spontaneous hospitality, and pleased
with the friendly acceptance it had met with, was quite ready to second
the invitation. Erica was delighted; she carried off the cat and
the toast into the next room, eager to tell her mother all about the
visitor.

“The most delightful man, mother, not a bit like a clergyman. I didn't
find out for ever so long what he was, and said all sorts of dreadful
things; but he didn't mind, and was not the least offended.”

“When will you learn to be cautious, I wonder,” said Mrs. Raeburn,
smiling. “You are a shocking little chatter-box.”

And as Erica flitted busily about, arranging the tea table, her mother
watched her half musedly, half anxiously. She had always been remarkably
frank and outspoken, and there was something so transparently sincere
about her, that she seldom gave offense. But the mother could not help
wondering how it would be as she grew older and mixed with a greater
variety of people. In fact, in every way she was anxious about the
child's future, for Erica's was a somewhat perplexing character, and
seemed very ill fitted for her position.

Eric Haeberlein had once compared her to a violin, and there was a good
deal of truth in his idea. She was very sensitive, responding at once to
the merest touch, and easily moved to admiration and devoted love, or
to strong indignation. Naturally high-spirited, she was subject, too, to
fits of depression, and was always either in the heights or the depths.
Yet with all these characteristics was blended her father's indomitable
courage and tenacity. Though feeling the thorns of life far more keenly
than most people, she was one of those who will never yield; though
pricked and wounded by outward events, she would never be conquered by
circumstances. At present her capabilities for adoration, which were
very great, were lavished in two directions; in the abstract she
worshipped intellect, in the concrete she worshipped her father.

From the grief and indignation of the afternoon she had passed with
extraordinary rapidity to a state of merriment, which would have been
incomprehensible to one who did not understand her peculiarly complex
character. Mrs. Raeburn listened with a good deal of amusement to her
racy description of Charles Osmond.

“Strange that this should have happened so soon after our talk this
afternoon,” she said, musingly. “Perhaps it is as well that you should
have a glimpse of the other side, against which you were inveighing, or
you might be growing narrow.”

“He is much too good to belong to them!” said Erica enthusiastically.

As she spoke Raeburn entered, bringing the visitor with him, and they
all sat down to their meal, Erica pouring out tea and attending to every
one's wants, fondling her cat, and listening to the conversation, with
all the time a curious perception that to sit down to table with one of
her father's opponents was a very novel experience. She could not help
speculating as to the thoughts and impressions of her companions. Her
mother was, she thought, pleased and interested for about her worn face
there was the look of contentment which invariably came when for a
time the bitterness of the struggle of life was broken by any sign
of friendliness. Her father was--as he generally was in his own
house--quiet, gentle in manner, ready to be both an attentive and an
interested listener. This gift he had almost as markedly as the gift of
speech; he at once perceived that his guest was no ordinary man, and
by a sort of instinct he had discovered on what subjects he was best
calculated to speak, and wherein they could gain most from him. Charles
Osmond's thoughts she could only speculate about; but that he was ready
to take them all as friends, and did not regard them as a different
order of being, was plain.

The conversation had drifted into regions of abstruse science, when
Erica, who had been listening attentively, was altogether diverted
by the entrance of the servant, who brought her a brown-paper parcel.
Eagerly opening it, she was almost bewildered by the delightful surprise
of finding a complete edition of Longfellow's poems, bound in dark blue
morocco. Inside was written: “From another admirer of 'Hiawatha.'”

She started up with a rapturous exclamation, and the two men paused in
their talk, each unable to help watching the beautiful little face all
aglow with happiness. Erica almost danced round the room with her new
treasure.

“What HEAVENLY person can have sent me this?” she cried. “Look, father!
Did you ever see such a beauty?”

Science went to the winds, and Raeburn gave all his sympathy to Erica
and Longfellow. “The very thing you were wishing for. Who could have
sent it?”

“I can't think. It can't be Tom, because I know he's spent all his
money, and auntie would never call herself an admirer of 'Hiawatha,' nor
Herr Haeberlein, nor Monsieur Noirol, nor any one I can think of.”

“Dealings with the fairies,” said Raeburn, smiling. “Your beggar-child
with the scones suddenly transformed into a beneficent rewarder.”

“Not from you, father?”

Raeburn laughed.

“A pretty substantial fairy for you. No, no, I had no hand in it. I
can't give you presents while I am in debt, my bairn.”

“Oh, isn't it jolly to get what one wants!” said Erica, with a fervor
which made the three grown-up people laugh.

“Very jolly,” said Raeburn, giving her a little mute caress.

“But now, Erica, please to go back and eat something, or I shall have my
reporter fainting in the middle of a speech.”

She obeyed, carrying away the book with her, and enlivening them with
extracts from it; once delightedly discovering a most appropriate
passage.

“Why, of course,” she exclaimed, “you and Mr. Osmond, father, are
smoking the Peace Pipe.” And with much force and animation she read them
bits from the first canto.

Raeburn left the room before long to get ready for his meeting, but
Erica still lingered over her new treasure, putting it down at length
with great reluctance to prepare her notebook and sharpen her pencil.
“Isn't that a delightful bit where Hiawatha was angry,” she said; “it
has been running in my head all day--

     “'For his heart was hot within him,
     Like a living coal his heart was.'

That's what I shall feel like tonight when Mr. Randolph attacks father.”

She ran upstairs to dress, and, as the door closed upon her, Mrs.
Raeburn turned to Charles Osmond with a sort of apology.

“She finds it very hard not to speak out her thoughts; it will often get
her into trouble, I am afraid.”

“It is too fresh and delightful to be checked, though,” said Charles
Osmond; “I assure you she has taught me many a lesson tonight.”

The mother talked on almost unreservedly about the subject that was
evidently nearest her heart--the difficulties of Erica's education,
the harshness they so often met with, the harm it so evidently did the
child--till the subject of the conversation came down again much too
excited and happy to care just then for any unkind treatment. Had
she not got a Longfellow of her very own, and did not that unexpected
pleasure make up for a thousand privations and discomforts?

Yet, with all her childishness and impetuosity, Erica was womanly, too,
as Charles Osmond saw by the way she waited on her mother, thinking of
everything which the invalid could possibly want while they were gone,
brightening the whole place with her sunshiny presence. Whatever
else was lacking, there was no lack of love in this house. The tender
considerateness which softened Erica's impetuosity in her mother's
presence, the loving comprehension, between parent and child, was very
beautiful to see.



CHAPTER IV. “Supposing it is true!”

     A man who strives earnestly and perseveringly to convince
     others, at least convinces us that he is convinced himself.
     Guesses at Truth.

     The rainy afternoon had given place to a fine and starlit
     night. Erica, apparently in high spirits, walked between her
     father and Charles Osmond.

“Mother won't be anxious about us,” she said. “She has not heard a word
about Mr. Randolph's plans. I was so afraid some one would speak
about it at tea time, and then she would have been in a fright all the
evening, and would not have liked my going.”

“Mr. Randolph is both energetic and unscrupulous,” said Raeburn. “But
I doubt if even he would set his roughs upon you, little one, unless
he has become as blood thirsty as a certain old Scotch psalm we used to
sing.”

“What was that?” questioned Erica.

“I forget the beginning, but the last verse always had a sort of
horrible fascination for us--

“'How happy should that trooper be Who, riding on a naggie, Should take
thy little children up, And dash them 'gin the craggie!'”

Charles Osmond and Erica laughed heartily.

“They will only dash you against metaphorical rocks in the nineteenth
century,” continued Raeburn. “I remember wondering why the old clerk in
my father's church always sung that verse lustily; but you see we have
exactly the same spirit now, only in a more civilized form, barbarity
changed to polite cruelty, as for instance the way you were treated this
afternoon.”

“Oh, don't talk about that,” said Erica, quickly, “I am going to enjoy
my Longfellow and forget the rest.”

In truth, Charles Osmond was struck with this both in the father and
daughter; each had a way of putting back their bitter thoughts, of
dwelling whenever it was possible on the brighter side of life. He knew
that Raeburn was involved in most harassing litigation, was burdened
with debt, was confronted everywhere with bitter and often violent
opposition, yet he seemed to live above it all, for there was a
wonderful repose about him, an extraordinary serenity in his aspect,
which would have seemed better fitted to a hermit than to one who has
spent his life in fighting against desperate odds. One thing was quite
clear, the man was absolutely convinced that he was suffering for
the truth, and was ready to endure anything in what he considered the
service of his fellow men. He did not seem particularly anxious as to
the evening's proceedings. On the whole, they were rather a merry party
as they walked along Gower Street to the station.

But when they got out again at their destination, and walked through the
busy streets to the hall where the lecture was to be given, a sort of
seriousness fell upon all three. They were each going to work in their
different ways for what they considered the good of humanity, and
instinctively a silence grew and deepened.

Erica was the first to break it as they came in sight of the hall.

“What a crowd there is!” she exclaimed. “Are these Mr. Randolph's
roughs?”

“We can put up with them outside,” said Raeburn; but Charles Osmond
noticed that as he spoke he drew the child nearer to him, with a
momentary look of trouble in his face, as though he shrunk from taking
her through the rabble. Erica, on the other hand, looked interested
and perfectly fearless. With great difficulty they forced their way
on, hooted and yelled at by the mob, who, however, made no attempt at
violence. At length, reaching the shelter of the entrance lobby, Raeburn
left them for a moment, pausing to give directions to the door keepers.
Just then, to his great surprise, Charles Osmond caught sight of his
son standing only a few paces from them. His exclamation of astonishment
made Erica look up. Brian came forward eagerly to meet them.

“You here!” exclaimed his father, with a latent suspicion confirmed into
a certainty. “This is my son, Miss Raeburn.”

Brian had not dreamed of meeting her, he had waited about curious to
see how Raeburn would get on with the mob; it was with a strange pang
of rapture and dismay that he had seen his fair little ideal. That she
should be in the midst of that hooting mob made his heart throb with
indignation, yet there was something so sweet in her grave, steadfast
face that he was, nevertheless, glad to have witnessed the scene. Her
color was rather heightened, her eyes bright but very quiet, yet as
Charles Osmond spoke, and she looked at Brian, her face all at once
lighted up, and with an irresistible smile she exclaimed, in the most
childlike of voices:

“Why, it's my umbrella man!” The informality of the exclamation seemed
to make them at once something more than ordinary acquaintances. They
told Charles Osmond of their encounter in the afternoon, and in a very
few minutes Brian, hardly knowing whether he was not in some strange
dream, found himself sitting with his father and Erica in a crowded
lecture hall, realizing with an intensity of joy and an intensity of
pain how near he was to the queen of his heart and yet how far from her.

The meeting was quite orderly. Though Raeburn was addressing many
who disagreed with him, he had evidently got the whole and undivided
attention of his audience; and indeed his gifts both as rhetorician and
orator were so great that they must have been either willfully deaf or
obtuse who, when under the spell of his extraordinary earnestness and
eloquence, could resist listening. Not a word was lost on Brian; every
sentence which emphasized the great difference of belief between himself
and his love seemed to engrave itself on his heart; no minutest detail
of that evening escaped him.

He saw the tall, commanding figure of the orator, the vast sea of
upturned faces below, the eager attention imprinted on all, sometimes a
wave of sympathy and approval sweeping over them, resulting in a storm
of applause, at times a more divided disapproval, or a shout of “No,
no,” which invariably roused the speaker to a more vigorous, clear, and
emphatic repetition of the questioned statement. And, through all, he
was ever conscious of the young girl at his side, who, with her head
bent over her notebook, was absorbed in her work. While the most vital
questions of life were being discussed, he was yet always aware of that
hand traveling rapidly to and fro, of the pages hurriedly turned, of the
quick yet weary-looking change of posture.

Though not without a strong vein of sarcasm, Raeburn's speech was,
on the whole, temperate; it certainly should have been met with
consideration. But, unfortunately, Mr. Randolph was incapable of seeing
any good in his opponent; his combative instincts were far stronger than
his Christianity, and Brian, who had winced many times while listening
to the champion of atheism, was even more keenly wounded by the champion
of his own cause. Abusive epithets abounded in his retort; at last
he left the subject under discussion altogether, and launched into
personalities of the most objectionable kind. Raeburn sat with folded
arms, listening with a sort of cold dignity. He looked very different
now from the genial-mannered, quiet man whom Charles Osmond had seen in
his own home but an hour or two ago. There was a peculiar look in his
tawny eyes hardly to be described in words, a look which was hard, and
cold, and steady. It told of an originally sensitive nature inured to
ill treatment; of a strong will which had long ago steeled itself to
endure; of a character which, though absolutely refusing to yield to
opposition, had grown slightly bitter, even slightly vindictive in the
process.

Brian could only watch in silent pain the little figure beside him. Once
at some violent term of abuse she looked up, and glanced for a moment
at the speaker; he just caught a swift, indignant flash from her bright
eyes, then her head was bent lower than before over her notebook, and
the carnation deepened in her cheek, while her pencil sped over the
paper fast and furiously. Presently came a sharp retort from Raeburn,
ending with the perfectly warrantable accusation that Mr. Randolph was
wandering from the subject of the evening merely to indulge his personal
spite. The audience was beginning to be roused by the unfairness, and a
storm might have ensued had not Mr. Randolph unintentionally turned the
whole proceedings from tragedy to farce.

Indignant at Raeburn's accusation, he sprung to his feet and began a
vigorous protest.

“Mr. Chairman, I denounce my opponent as a liar. His accusation is
utterly false. I deny the allegation, and I scorn the alligator--”

He was interrupted by a shout of laughter, the whole assembly was
convulsed, even Erica's anger changed to mirth.

“Fit for 'Punch,'” she whispered to Brian, her face all beaming with
merriment.

Raeburn, whose grave face had also relaxed into a smile, suddenly stood
up, and, with a sort of dry Scotch humor, remarked:

“My enemies have compared me to many obnoxious things, but never till
tonight have I been called a crocodile. Possibly Mr. Randolph has been
reading of the crocodiles recently dissected at Paris. It has been
discovered that they are almost brainless, and, being without reason,
are probably animated by a violent instinct of destruction. I believe,
however, that the power of their 'jaw' is unsurpassed.”

Then, amid shouts of laughter and applause, he sat down again, leaving
the field to the much discomfited Mr. Randolph.

Much harm had been done that evening to the cause of Christianity. The
sympathies of the audience could not be with the weak and unmannerly Mr.
Randolph; they were Englishmen, and were, of course, inclined to side
with the man who had been unjustly dealt with, who, moreover, had really
spoken to them--had touched their very hearts.

The field was practically lost when, to the surprise of all, another
speaker came forward. Erica, who knew that their side had had the best
of it, felt a thrill of admiration when she saw Charles Osmond move
slowly to the front of the platform. She was very tired, but out of a
sort of gratitude for his friendliness, a readiness to do him honor,
she strained her energies to take down his speech verbatim. It was not
a long one, it was hardly, perhaps, to be called a speech at all, it was
rather as if the man had thrown his very self into the breach made by
the unhappy wrangle of the evening.

He spoke of the universal brotherhood and of the wrong done to it
by bitterness and strife; he stood there as the very incarnation of
brotherliness, and the people, whether they agreed with him or not,
loved him. In the place where the religion of Christ had been reviled
as well by the Christians as by the atheist, he spoke of the revealer
of the Father, and a hush fell on the listening men; he spoke of the
Founder of the great brotherhood, and by the very reality, by the fervor
of his convictions, touched a new chord in many a heart. It was no time
for argument, the meeting was almost over; he scarcely attempted to
answer to many of the difficulties and objections raised by Raeburn
earlier in the evening. But there was in his ten minutes' speech the
whole essence of Christianity, the spirit of loving sacrifice to
self, the strength of an absolute certainty which no argument, however
logical, can shake, the extraordinary power which breathes in the
assertion: “I KNOW Him whom I have believed.”

To more than one of Raeburn's followers there came just the slightest
agitation of doubt, the questioning whether these things might not be.
For the first time in her life the question began to stir in Erica's
heart. She had heard many advocates of Christianity, and had regarded
them much as we might regard Buddhist missionaries speaking of a
religion that had had its day and was now only fit to be discarded, or
perhaps studied as an interesting relic of the past, about which in its
later years many corruptions had gathered.

Raeburn, being above all things a just man, had been determined to give
her mind no bias in favor of his own views, and as a child he had left
her perfectly free. But there was a certain Scotch proverb which he did
not call to mind, that “As the auld cock crows the young cock learns.”
 When the time came at which he considered her old enough really to study
the Bible for herself, she had already learned from bitter experience
that Christianity--at any rate, what called itself Christianity--was the
religion whose votaries were constantly slandering and ill-treating
her father, and that all the privations and troubles of their life were
directly or indirectly due to it. She, of course, identified the conduct
of the most unfriendly and persecuting with the religion itself; it
could hardly be otherwise.

But tonight as she toiled away, bravely acting up to her lights,
taking down the opponent's speech to the best of her abilities, though
predisposed to think it all a meaningless rhapsody, the faintest attempt
at a question began to take shape in her mind. It did not form
itself exactly into words, but just lurked there like a
cloud-shadow--“supposing Christianity were true?”

All doubt is pain. Even this faint beginning of doubt in her creed made
Erica dreadfully uncomfortable. Yet she could not regret that Charles
Osmond had spoken, even though she imagined him to be greatly mistaken,
and feared that that uncomfortable question might have been suggested
to others among the audience. She could not wish that the speech had
not been made, for it had revealed the nobility of the man, his
broad-hearted love, and she instinctively reverenced all the really
great and good, however widely different their creeds.

Brian tried in vain to read her thoughts, but as soon as the meeting was
over her temporary seriousness vanished, and she was once more almost a
child again, ready to be amused by anything. She stood for a few minutes
talking to the two Osmonds; then, catching sight of an acquaintance
a little way off, she bade them a hasty good night, much to Brian's
chagrin, and hurried forward with a warmth of greeting which he could
only hope was appreciated by the thickset, honest-looking mechanic who
was the happy recipient. When they left the hall she was still deep in
conversation with him.

The fates were kind, however, to Brian that day; they were just too late
for a train, and before the next one arrived, Raeburn and Erica were
seen slowly coming down the steps, and in another minute had joined
them on the platform. Charles Osmond and Raeburn fell into an amicable
discussion, and Brian, to his great satisfaction, was left to an
uninterrupted tete-a-tete with Erica. There had been no further
demonstration by the crowd, and Erica, now that the anxiety was over,
was ready to make fun of Mr. Randolph and his band, checking herself
every now and then for fear of hurting her companion, but breaking
forth again and again into irresistible merriment as she recalled the
“alligator” incident and other grotesque utterances. All too soon they
reached their destination. There was still, however, a ten minutes' walk
before them, a walk which Brian never forgot. The wind was high, and it
seemed to excite Erica; he could always remember exactly how she looked,
her eyes bright and shining, her short, auburn hair, all blown about by
the wind, one stray wave lying across the quaint little sealskin hat. He
remembered, too, how, in the middle of his argument, Raeburn had stepped
forward and had wrapped a white woolen scarf more closely round the
child, securing the fluttering ends. Brian would have liked to do it
himself had he dared, and yet it pleased him, too, to see the father's
thoughtfulness; perhaps in that “touch of nature,” he, for the first
time, fully recognized his kinship with the atheist.

Erica talked to him in the meantime with a delicious, childlike
frankness, gave him an enthusiastic account of her friend, Hazeldine,
the working man whom he had seen her speaking to, and unconsciously
reveled in her free conversation a great deal of the life she led, a
busy, earnest, self-denying life Brian could see. When they reached the
place of their afternoon's encounter, she alluded merrily to what she
called the “charge of umbrellas.”

“Who would have thought, now, that in a few hours' time we should have
learned to know each other!” she exclaimed. “It has been altogether the
very oddest day, a sort of sandwich of good and bad, two bits of the
dry bread of persecution, put in between, you and Mr. Osmond and my
beautiful new Longfellow.”

Brian could not help laughing at the simile, and was not a little
pleased to hear the reference to his book; but his amusement was soon
dispelled by a grim little incident. Just at that minute they happened
to pass an undertaker's cart which was standing at the door of one of
the houses; a coffin was born across the pavement in front of them.
Erica, with a quick exclamation, put her hand on his arm and shrank back
to make room for the bearers to pass. Looking down at her, he saw that
she was quite pale. The coffin was carried into the house and they
passed on.

“How I do hate seeing anything like that!” she exclaimed. Then looking
back and up to the windows of the house: “Poor people! I wonder whether
they are very sad. It seems to make all the world dark when one comes
across such things. Father thinks it is good to be reminded of the
end, that it makes one more eager to work, but he doesn't even wish for
anything after death, nor do any of the best people I know. It is
silly of me, but I never can bear to think of quite coming to an end, I
suppose because I am not so unselfish as the others.”

“Or may it not be a natural instinct, which is implanted in all, which
perhaps you have not yet crushed by argument.”

Erica shook her head.

“More likely to be a little bit of one of my covenanting ancestors
coming out in me. Still, I own that the hope of the hereafter is the one
point in which you have the better of it. Life must seem very easy if
you believe that all will be made up to you and all wrong set right
after you are dead. You see we have rather hard measure here, and don't
expect anything at all by and by. But all the same, I am always rather
ashamed of this instinct, or selfishness, or Scottish inheritance,
whichever it is!”

“Ashamed! Why should you be?”

“It is a sort of weakness, I think, which strong characters like my
father are without. You see he cares so much for every one, and thinks
so much of making the world a little less miserable in this generation,
but most of my love is for him and for my mother; and so when I think of
death--of their death--” she broke off abruptly.

“Yet do not call it selfishness,” said Brian, with a slightly choked
feeling, for there had been a depth of pain in Erica's tone. “My father,
who has just that love of humanity of which you speak, has still the
most absolute belief in--yes, and longing for--immortality. It is no
selfishness in him.”

“I am sure it is not,” said Erica, warmly, “I shouldn't think he could
be selfish in any way. I am glad he spoke tonight; it does one good to
hear a speech like that, even if one doesn't agree with it. I wish
there were a few more clergymen like him, then perhaps the tolerance and
brotherliness he spoke of might become possible. But it must be a long
way off, or it would not seem such an unheard-of thing that I should
be talking like this to you. Why, it is the first time in my whole
life that I have spoken to a Christian except on the most every-day
subjects.”

“Then I hope you won't let it be the last,” said Brian.

“I should like to know Mr. Osmond better,” said Erica, “for you know it
seems very extraordinary to me that a clever scientific man can speak
as he spoke tonight. I should like to know how you reconcile all the
contradictions, how you can believe what seems to me so unlikely, how
even if you do believe in a God you can think Him good while the world
is what it is. If there is a good God why doesn't He make us all know
Him, and end all the evil and cruelty?”

Brian did not reply for a moment. The familiar gas-lit street, the usual
number of passengers, the usual care-worn or vice-worn faces passing by,
damp pavements, muddy roads, fresh winter wind, all seemed so natural,
but to talk of the deepest things in heaven and earth was so unnatural.
He was a very reserved man, but looking down at the eager, questioning
face beside him his reserve all at once melted. He spoke very quietly,
but in a voice which showed Erica that he was, at least, as she
expressed it “honestly deluded.” Evidently he did from his very heart
believe what he said.

“But how are we to judge what is best?” he replied. “My belief is that
God is slowly and gradually educating the world, not forcing it on
unnaturally, but drawing it on step by step, making it work out its own
lessons as the best teachers do with their pupils. To me the idea of a
steady progression, in which man himself may be a co-worker with God, is
far more beautiful than the conception of a Being who does not work by
natural laws at all, but arbitrarily causes this and that to be or not
to be.”

“But then if your God is educating the world, He is educating many of
us in ignorance of Himself, in atheism. How can that be good or right?
Surely you, for instance, must be rather puzzled when you come across
atheists, if you believe in a perfect God, and think atheism the most
fearful mistake possible?”

“If I could not believe that God can, and does, educate some of us
through atheism, I should indeed be miserable,” said Brian, with a
thrill of pain in his voice which startled Erica. “But I do believe that
even atheism, even blank ignorance of Him, may be a stage through which
alone some of us can be brought onward. The noblest man I ever knew
passed through that state, and I can't think he would have been half the
man he is if he had not passed through it.”

“I have only known two or three people who from atheists became theists,
and they were horrid,” said Erica, emphatically. “People always are
spiteful to the side they have left.”

“You could not say that of my friend,” said Brian, musingly, “I wish you
could meet him.”

They had reached the entrance to Guilford Terrace, Raeburn and Charles
Osmond overtook them, and the conversation ended abruptly. Perhaps
because Erica had made no answer to the last remark, and was conscious
of a touch of malice in her former speech, she put a little additional
warmth into her farewell. At any rate, there was that which touched
Brian's very heart in the frank innocence of her hand clasp, in the
sweet yet questioning eyes that were raised to his.

He turned away, happier and yet sadder than he had ever been in his
life. Not a word passed between him and his father as they crossed the
square, but when they reached home they instinctively drew together over
the study fire. There was a long silence even then, broken at last by
Charles Osmond.

“Well, my son?” he said.

“I cannot see how I can be of the least use to her,” said Brian,
abruptly, as if his father had been following the whole of his train of
thought, which, indeed, to a certain extent, he had.

“Was this afternoon your first meeting?”


“Our first speaking. I have seen her many times, but only today realized
what she is.”

“Well, your little Undine is very bewitching, and much more than
bewitching, true to the core and loyal and loving. If only the hardness
of her life does not embitter her, I think she will make a grand woman.”

“Tell me what you did this afternoon,” said Brian; “you must have been
some time with them.”

Charles Osmond told him all that had passed; then continued:

“She is, as I said, a fascinating, bright little Undine, inclined to be
willful, I should fancy, and with a sort of warmth and quickness about
her whole character, in many ways still a child, and yet in others
strangely old for her years; on the whole I should say as fair a
specimen of the purely natural being as you would often meet with. The
spiritual part of her is, I fancy, asleep.”

“No, I fancy tonight has made it stir for the first time,” said Brian,
and he told his father a little of what had passed between himself and
Erica.

“And the Longfellow was, I suppose, from you,” said Charles Osmond. “I
wish you could have seen her delight over it. Words absolutely failed
her. I don't think any one else noticed it, but, her own vocabulary
coming to an end, she turned to ours, it was 'What HEAVENLY person can
have sent me this?'”

Brian smiled, but sighed too.

“One talks of the spiritual side remaining untouched,” he said, “yet how
is it ever to be otherwise than chained and fettered, while such men
as that Randolph are recognized as the champions of our cause, while
injustice and unkindness meet her at every turn, while it is something
rare and extraordinary for a Christian to speak a kind word to her. If
today she has first realized that Christians need not necessarily behave
as brutes, I have realized a little what life is from her point of
view.”

“Then, realizing that perhaps you may help her, perhaps another chapter
of the old legend may come true, and you may be the means of waking the
spirit in your Undine.”

“I? Oh, no! How can you think of it! You or Donovan, perhaps, but even
that idea seems to me wildly improbable.”

There was something in his humility and sadness which touched his father
inexpressibly.

“Well,” he said, after a pause, “if you are really prepared for all the
suffering this love must bring you, if you mean to take it, and cherish
it, and live for it, even though it brings you no gain, but apparent
pain and loss, then I think it can only raise both you and your Undine.”

Brian knew that not one man in a thousand would have spoken in such a
way; his father's unworldliness was borne in upon him as it had never
been before. Greatly as he had always reverenced and loved him, tonight
his love and reverence deepened unspeakably--the two were drawn nearer
to each other than ever.

It was not the habit in this house to make the most sacred ties of life
the butt for ill-timed and ill-judged joking. No knight of old thought
or spoke more reverently or with greater reserve of his lady love than
did Brian of Erica. He regarded himself now as one bound to do her
service, consecrated from that day forward as her loyal knight.



CHAPTER V. Erica's Resolve

     Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many
     South Sea Islanders; but a real human heart, with Divine
     love in it, beats with the same glow under all the patterns
     of all earth's thousand tribes.  O. Wendell Holmes.

For the next fortnight Brian and Erica continued to pass each other
every afternoon in Gower Street, as they had done for so long, the only
difference was that now they greeted each other, that occasionally Brian
would be rendered happy for the rest of the day by some brief passing
remark from his Undine, or by one of her peculiarly bright smiles. One
day, however, she actually stopped; her face was radiant.

“I must just tell you our good news,” she said. “My father has won his
case, and has got heavy damages.”

“I am very glad,” said Brian. “It must be a great relief to you all to
have it over.”

“Immense! Father looks as if a ton's weight had been taken off his mind.
Now I hope we shall have a little peace.”

With a hasty good bye she hurried on, an unusual elasticity in her
light footsteps. In Guilford Square she met a political friend of her
father's, and was brought once more to a standstill. This time it was a
little unwillingly, for M. Noirol teased her unmercifully, and at their
last meeting had almost made her angry by talking of a friend of his
at Paris who offered untold advantages to any clever and well-educated
English girl who wished to learn the language, and who would in return
teach her own. Erica had been made miserable by the mere suggestion that
such a situation would suit her; the slightest hint that it might be
well for her to go abroad had roused in her a sort of terror lest her
father might ever seriously think of the scheme. She had not quite
forgiven M. Noirol for having spoken, although the proposal had not
been gravely made, and probably only persevered in out of the spirit of
teasing. But today M. Noirol looked very grave.

“You have heard our good news?” said Erica. “Now don't begin again about
Madame Lemercier's school; I don't want to be made cross today of all
days, when I am so happy.”

“I will tease you no more, dear mademoiselle,” said the Frenchman; but
he offered no congratulations, and there was something in his manner
which made Erica uneasy.

“Is anything wrong? Has anything happened?” she asked quickly.

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows! It is an evil world, Mademoiselle Erica, as you will realize
when you have lived in it as long as I have. But I detain you. Good bye.
AU REVOIR!”

He took off his hat with a flourish, and passed on.

Erica, feeling baffled and a little cross, hurried home. M. Noirol had
not teased her today, but he had been inscrutable and tiresome, and he
had made her feel uneasy. She opened the front door, and went at once to
her father's study, pausing for a moment at the sound of voices within.
She recognized, however, that it was her cousin, Tom Craigie, who was
speaking, and without more delay she entered. Then in a moment she
understood why M. Noirol had been so mysterious. Tom was speaking
quickly and strongly, and there was a glow of anger on his face. Her
father was standing with his back to the mantlepiece, and there was a
sort of cold light in his eyes, which filled Erica with dismay. Never
in the most anxious days had she seen him look at once so angry, yet as
weighed down with care.

“What is the matter?” she questioned, breathlessly, instinctively
turning to Tom, whose hot anger was more approachable.

“The scamp of a Christian has gone bankrupt,” he said, referring to
the defendant in the late action, but too furious to speak very
intelligibly.

“Mr. Cheale, you mean?” asked Erica.

“The scoundrel! Yes! So not a farthing of costs and damages shall we
see! It is the most fiendish thing ever heard of!”

“Will the costs be very heavy?”

“Heavy! I should think they would indeed!” He named the probable sum; it
seemed a fearful addition to the already existing burden of debts.

A look of such pain and perplexity came over Erica's face that Raeburn
for the first time realizing what was passing in the room, drew her
toward him, his face softening, and the cold, angry light in his eyes
changing to sadness.

“Never mind, my child,” he said, with a sigh. “'Tis a hard blow, but we
must bear up. Injustice won't triumph in the end.”

There was something in his voice and look which made Erica feel
dreadfully inclined to cry; but that would have disgraced her forever in
the eyes of stoical Tom, so she only squeezed his hand hard and tried
to think of that far-distant future of which she had spoken to Charles
Osmond, when there would be no tiresome Christians and bigots and
lawsuits.

There was, however, one person in the house who was invariably the
recipient of all the troubled confidences of others. In a very few
minutes Erica had left the study and was curled up beside her
mother's couch, talking out unreservedly all her grief, and anger, and
perplexity.

Mrs. Raeburn, delicate and invalided as she was, had nevertheless a
great deal of influence, though perhaps neither Raeburn, nor Erica, nor
warm-hearted Tom Craigie understood how much she did for them all. She
was so unassuming, so little given to unnecessary speech, so reticent,
that her life made very little show, while it had become so entirely a
matter of course that every one should bring his private troubles to
her that it would have seemed extraordinary not to meet with exactly
the sympathy and counsel needed. Today, however, even Mrs. Raeburn was
almost too despondent to cheer the others. It comforted Erica to talk
to her, but she could not help feeling very miserable as she saw the
anxiety and sadness in her mother's face.

“What more can we do, mother?” she questioned. “I can't think of a
single thing we can give up.”

“I really don't know, dear,” said her mother with a sigh. “We have
nothing but the absolute necessaries of life now, except indeed your
education at the High School, and that is a very trifling expense, and
one which cannot be interfered with.”

Erica was easily depressed, like most high-spirited persons; but she was
not used to seeing either her father or her mother despondent, and the
mere strangeness kept her from going down to the very deepest depths.
She had the feeling that at least one of them must try to keep up. Yet,
do what she would, that evening was one of the saddest and dreariest she
had ever spent. All the excitement of contest was over, and a sort of
dead weight of gloom seemed to oppress them. Raeburn was absolutely
silent. From the first Erica had never heard him complain, but his
anger, and afterward his intense depression, spoke volumes. Even Tom,
her friend and play fellow, seemed changed this evening, grown somehow
from a boy to a man; for there was a sternness about him which she had
never seen before, and which made the days of their childhood seem far
away. And yet it was not so very long ago that she and Tom had been the
most light-hearted and careless beings in the world, and had imagined
the chief interest of life to consist in tending dormice, and tame rats,
and silk worms! She wondered whether they could ever feel free again,
whether they could ever enjoy their long Saturday afternoon rambles, or
whether this weight of care would always be upon them.

With a very heavy heart she prepared her lessons for the next day,
finding it hard to take much interest in Magna Charta and legal
enactments in the time of King John, when the legal enactments of today
were so much more mind-engrossing. Tom was sitting opposite to her,
writing letters for Raeburn. Once, notwithstanding his grave looks, she
hazarded a question. “Tom,” she said, shutting up her 'History of the
English People,' “Tom, what do you think will happen?”

Tom looked across at her with angry yet sorrowful eyes.

“I think,” he said, sternly, “that the chieftain will try to do the work
of ten men at once, and will pay off these debts or die in the attempt.”

The “chieftain” was a favorite name among the Raeburnites for their
leader, and there was a great deal of the clan feeling among them. The
majority of them were earnest, hard-working, thoughtful men, and their
society was both powerful and well-organized, while their personal
devotion to Raeburn lent a vigor and vitality to the whole body which
might otherwise have been lacking. Perhaps comparatively few would
have been enthusiastic for the cause of atheism had not that cause been
represented by a high-souled, self-denying man whom they loved with all
their hearts.

The dreary evening ended at length, Erica helped her mother to bed, and
then with slow steps climbed up to her little attic room. It was cold
and comfortless enough, bare of all luxuries, but even here the walls
were lined with books, and Erica's little iron bedstead looked somewhat
incongruous surrounded as it was with dingy-looking volumes, dusky
old legal books, works of reference, books atheistical, theological,
metaphysical, or scientific. On one shelf, amid this strangely
heterogeneous collection, she kept her own particular treasures--Brian's
Longfellow, one or two of Dickens's books which Tom had given her, and
the beloved old Grimm and Hans Andersen, which had been the friends
of her childhood and which for “old sakes' sake” she had never had the
heart to sell. The only other trace of her in the strange little bedroom
was in a wonderful array of china animals on the mantlepiece. She was a
great animal lover, and, being a favorite with every one, she received
many votive offerings. Her shrine was an amusing one to look at. A green
china frog played a tuneless guitar; a pensive monkey gazed with clasped
hands and dreadfully human eyes into futurity; there were sagacious
looking elephants, placid rhinoceroses, rampant hares, two pug dogs
clasped in an irrevocable embrace, an enormous lobster, a diminutive
polar bear, and in the center of all a most evil-looking jackdaw about
half an inch high.

But tonight the childish side of Erica was in abeyance; the cares of
womanhood seemed gathering upon her. She put out her candle and sat down
in the dark, racking her brain for some plan by which to relieve her
father and mother. Their life was growing harder and harder. It
seemed to her that poverty in itself was bearable enough, but that the
ever-increasing load of debt was not bearable. As long as she could
remember, it had always been like a mill-stone tied about their necks,
and the ceaseless petty economies and privations seemed of little avail;
she felt very much as if she were one of the Danaids, doomed forever to
pour water into a vessel with a hole in it.

Yet in one sense she was better off than many, for these debts were not
selfish debts--no one had ever known Raeburn to spend an unnecessary
sixpence on himself; all this load had been incurred in the defense of
what he considered the truth--by his unceasing struggles for liberty.
She was proud of the debts, proud to suffer in what she regarded as
the sacred cause; but in spite of that she was almost in despair this
evening, the future looked so hopelessly black.

Tom's words rang in her head--“The chieftain will try to do the work of
ten men!” What if he overworked himself as he had done once a few years
ago? What if he died in the attempt? She wished Tom had not spoken so
strongly. In the friendly darkness she did not try to check the tears
which would come into her eyes at the thought. Something must be done!
She must in some way help him! And then, all at once, there flashed into
her mind M. Noirol's teasing suggestion that she should go to Paris.
Here was a way in which, free of all expense, she might finish her
education, might practically earn her living! In this way she might
indeed help to lighten the load, but it would be at the cost of absolute
self-sacrifice. She must leave home, and father and mother, and country!

Erica was not exactly selfish, but she was very young. The thought of
the voluntary sacrifice seemed quite unbearable, she could not make up
her mind to it.

“Why should I give up all this? Why should prejudice and bigotry spoil
my whole life?” she thought, beginning to pace up and down the room with
quick, agitated steps. “Why should we suffer because that wretch has
gone bankrupt? It is unfair, unjust, it can't be right.”

She leaned her arms on the window sill and looked out into the silent
night. The stars were shining peacefully enough, looking down on this
world of strife and struggle; Erica grew a little calmer as she looked;
Nature, with its majesty of calmness, seemed to quiet her troubled heart
and “sweep gradual-gospels in.”

From some recess of memory there came to her some half-enigmatical
words; they had been quoted by Charles Osmond in his speech, but she did
not remember where she had heard them, only they began to ring in her
ears now:

“There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death, Nor
glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame.”

She did not altogether understand the verse, but there was a truth in
it which could hardly fail to come home to one who knew what persecution
meant. What if the very blame and injustice of the present brought
in the future reign of justice! She seemed to hear her father's voice
saying again, “We must bear up, child; injustice won't triumph in the
end.”

“There is no gain except by loss!”

What if her loss of home and friends brought gain to the world! That was
a thought which brought a glow of happiness to her even in the midst of
her pain. There was, after all, much of the highest Christianity about
her, though she would have been very much vexed if any one had told
her so, because Christianity meant to her narrow-mindedness instead of
brotherly love. However it might be, there was no denying that the child
of the great teacher of atheism had grasped the true meaning of life,
had grasped it, and was prepared to act on it too. She had always lived
with those who were ready to spend all in the promotion of the general
good; and all that was true, all that was noble in her creed, all that
had filled her with admiration in the lives of those she loved, came to
her aid now.

She went softly down the dark staircase to Raeburn's study; it was late,
and, anxious not to disturb the rest of the house, she opened the door
noiselessly and crept in. Her father was sitting at his desk writing;
he looked very stern, but there was a sort of grandeur about his rugged
face. He was absorbed in his work and did not hear her, and for a minute
she stood quite still watching him, realizing with pain and yet with
a happy pride how greatly she loved him. Her heart beat fast at the
thought of helping him, lightening his load even a little.

“Father,” she said, softly.

Raeburn was the sort of a man who could not be startled, but he looked
up quickly, apparently returning from some speculative region with a
slight effort. He was the most practical of men, and yet for a minute he
felt as if he were living in a dream, for Erica stood beside him, pale
and beautiful, with a sort of heroic light about her whole face which
transformed her from a merry child to a high-souled woman. Instinctively
he rose to speak to her.

“I will not disturb you for more than a minute, father,” she said, “it
is only that I have thought of a way in which I think I could help you
if you would let me.”

“Well, dear, what is it?” said Raeburn, still watching half dreamily the
exceeding beauty of the face before him. Yet an undefined sense of dread
chilled his heart. Was anything too hard or high for her to propose? He
listened without a word to her account of M. Noirol's Parisian scheme,
to her voluntary suggestion that she should go into exile for two years.
At the end he merely put a brief question. “Are you ready to bear two
years of loneliness?”

“I am ready to help you,” she said, with a little quiver in her voice
and a cloud of pain in her eyes.

Raeburn turned away from her and began to pace up and down the little
room, his eyes not altogether free from tears, for, pachydermatous as he
was accounted by his enemies, this man was very tender over his child,
he could hardly endure to see her pain. Yet after all, though she had
given him a sharp pang, she had brought him happiness which any father
might envy. He came back to her, his stern face inexpressibly softened.

“And I am ready to be helped, my child; it shall be as you say.”

There was something in his voice and in the gentle acceptance of help
from one so strong and self-reliant which touched Erica more than any
praise or demonstrative thanks could have done. They were going to work
together, he had promised that she should fight side by side with him.

“Lawsuits may ruin us,” said Raeburn, “but, after all, the evil has a
way of helping out the good.” He put his arm round her and kissed her.
“You have taught me, little one, how powerless and weak are these petty
persecutions. They can only prick and sting us! Nothing can really hurt
us while we love the truth and love each other.”

That was the happiest moment Erica had ever known, already her loss had
brought a rapturous gain.

“I shall never go to sleep tonight,” she said. “Let me help you with
your letters.”

Raeburn demurred a little, but yielded to her entreaties, and for the
next two hours the father and daughter worked in silence. The bitterness
which had lurked in the earlier part of the pamphlet that Raeburn had in
hand was quite lacking in its close; the writer had somehow been lifted
into a higher, purer atmosphere, and if his pen flew less rapidly over
the paper, it at any rate wrote words which would long outlive the mere
overflow of an angry heart.

Coming back to the world of realities at last somewhere in the small
hours, he found his fire out, a goodly pile of letters ready for
his signature, and his little amanuensis fast asleep in her chair.
Reproaching himself for having allowed her to sit up, he took her in his
strong arms as though she had been a mere baby, and carried her up
to her room so gently that she never woke. The next morning she found
herself so swathed in plaids and rugs and blankets that she could hardly
move, and, in spite of a bad headache, could not help beginning the day
with a hearty laugh.

Raeburn was not a man who ever let the grass grow under his feet, his
decisions were made with thought, but with very rapid thought, and his
action was always prompt. His case excited a good deal of attention; but
long before the newspapers had ceased to wage war either for or against
him, long before the weekly journals had ceased to teem with letters
relating to the lawsuit, he had formed his plans for the future. His
home was to be completely broken up, Erica was to go to Paris, his wife
was to live with his sister, Mrs. Craigie, and her son, Tom, who had
agreed to keep on the lodgings in Guilford Terrace, while for himself
he had mapped out such a programme of work as could only have been
undertaken by a man of “Titanic energy” and “Herculean strength,”
 epithets which even the hostile press invariably bestowed on him. How
great the sacrifice was to him few people knew. As we have said before,
the world regarded him as a target, and would hardly have believed that
he was in reality a man of the gentlest tastes, as fond of his home as
any man in England, a faithful friend and a devoted father, and perhaps
all the more dependent on the sympathies of his own circle because of
the bitter hostility he encountered from other quarters. But he made his
plans resolutely, and said very little about them either one way or the
other, sometimes even checking Erica when she grumbled for him, or gave
vent to her indignation with regard to the defendant.

“We work for freedom, little one,” he used to say; “and it is an honor
to suffer in the cause of liberty.”

“But every one says you will kill yourself with overwork,” said Erica,
“and especially when you are in America.”

'“They don't know what stuff I'm made of,” said Raeburn; “and, even if
it should use me up, what then? It's better to wear out than to rust
out, as a wise man once remarked.”

“Yes,” said Erica, rather faintly.

“But I've no intention of wearing out just yet,” said Raeburn,
cheerfully. “You need not be afraid, little son Eric; and, if at the end
of those two years you do come back to find me gray and wrinkled, what
will that matter so long as we are free once more. There's a good time
coming; we'll have the coziest little home in London yet.”

“With a garden for you to work in,” said Erica, brightening up like a
child at the castle in the air. “And we'll keep lots of animals, and
never bother again about money all our lives.”

Raeburn smiled at her ides of felicity--no cares, and plenty of dogs
and cats! He did not anticipate any haven of rest at the end of the two
years for himself. He knew that his life must be a series of conflicts
to the very end. Still he hoped for relief from the load of debt, and
looked forward to the reestablishment of his home.

Brian Osmond heard of the plans before long, but he scarcely saw Erica;
the Christmas holidays began, and he no longer met her each afternoon
in Gower Street, while the time drew nearer and nearer for her departure
for Paris. At length, on the very last day, it chanced that they were
once more thrown together.

Raeburn was a great lover of flowers, and he very often received
floral offerings from his followers. It so happened that some beautiful
hot-house flowers had been sent to him from a nursery garden one day in
January, and, unwilling to keep them all, he had suggested that Erica
should take some to the neighboring hospitals. Now there were two
hospitals in Guilford Square; Erica felt much more interested in the
children's hospital than in the one for grown-up people; but, wishing to
be impartial she arranged a basketful for each, and well pleased to have
anything to give, hastened on her errand. Much to her delight, her first
basket of flowers was not only accepted very gratefully, but the lady
superintendent took her over the hospital, and let her distribute the
flowers among the children. She was very fond of children, and was as
happy as she could be passing up and down among the little beds, while
her bright manner attracted the little ones, and made them unusually
affectionate and responsive.

Happy at having been able to give them pleasure, and full of tender,
womanly thoughts, she crossed the square to another small hospital; she
was absorbed in pitiful, loving humanity, had forgotten altogether
that the world counted her as a heretic, and wholly unprepared for what
awaited her, she was shown into the visitors' room and asked to give her
name. Not only was Raeburn too notorious a name to pass muster, but the
head of the hospital knew Erica by sight, and had often met her out of
doors with her father. She was a stiff, narrow-minded, uncompromising
sort of person, and, in her own words was “determined to have no
fellowship with the works of darkness.” How she could consider
bright-faced Erica, with her loving thought for others and her free
gift, a “work of darkness,” it is hard to understand. She was not at all
disposed, however, to be under any sort of obligation to an atheist, and
the result of it was that after a three minutes' interview, Erica found
herself once more in the square, with her flowers still in her hand,
“declined WITHOUT thanks.”

No one ever quite knew what the superintendent had said to her, but
apparently the rebuff had been very hard to bear. Not content with
declining any fellowship with the poor little “work of darkness,” she
had gone on in accordance with the letter of the text to reprove her;
and Erica left the house with burning cheeks, and with a tumult of angry
feeling stirred up in her heart. She was far too angry to know or
care what she was doing; she walked down the quiet square in the very
opposite direction to “Persecution Alley,” and might have walked on for
an indefinite time had not some one stopped her.

“I was hoping to see you before you left,” said a pleasant quiet voice
close by her. She looked up and saw Charles Osmond.

Thus suddenly brought to a standstill, she became aware that she was
trembling from head to foot. A little delicate, sensitive thing, the
unsparing censure and the rude reception she had just met with had quite
upset her.

Charles Osmond retained her hand in his strong clasp, and looked
questioningly into her bright, indignant eyes.

“What is the matter, my child?” he asked.

“I am only angry,” said Erica, rather breathlessly; “hurt and angry
because one of your bigots has been rude to me.”

“Come in and tell me all about it,” said Charles Osmond; and there
was something so irresistible in his manner that Erica at once allowed
herself to be led into one of the tall, old-fashioned houses, and taken
into a comfortable and roomy study, the nicest room she had ever been
in. It was not luxurious; indeed the Turkey carpet was shabby and
the furniture well worn, but it was home-like, and warm and cheerful,
evidently a room which was dear to its owner. Charles Osmond made her
sit down in a capacious arm chair close to the fire.

“Well, now, who was the bigot?” he said, in a voice that would have won
the confidence of a flint.

Erica told as much of the story as she could bring herself to repeat,
quite enough to show Charles Osmond the terrible harm which may be
wrought by tactless modern Christianity. He looked down very sorrowfully
at the eager, expressive face of the speaker; it was at once very white
and very pink, for the child was sorely wounded as well as indignant.
She was evidently, however, a little vexed with herself for feeling the
insult so keenly.

“It is very stupid of me,” she said laughing a little; “it is time I was
used to it; but I never can help shaking in this silly way when any one
is rude to us. Tom laughs at me, and says I am made on wire springs like
a twelfth-cake butterfly! But it is rather hard, isn't it, to be shut
out from everything, even from giving?”

“I think it is both hard and wrong,” said Charles Osmond. “But we do not
all shut you out.”

“No,” said Erica. “You have always been kind, you are not a bit like
a Christian. Would you”--she hesitated a little--“would you take the
flowers instead?”

It was said with a shy grace inexpressibly winning. Charles Osmond was
touched and gratified.

“They will be a great treat to us,” he said. “My mother is very fond of
flowers. Will you come upstairs and see her? We shall find afternoon tea
going on, I expect.”

So the rejected flowers found a resting place in the clergyman's house;
and Brian, coming in from his rounds, was greeted by a sight which
made his heart beat at double time. In the drawing room beside his
grandmother sat Erica, her little fur hat pushed back, her gloves off,
busily arranging Christmas roses and red camellias. Her anger had died
away, she was talking quite merrily. It seemed to Brian more like a
beautiful dream than a bit of every-day life, to have her sitting there
so naturally in his home; but the note of pain was struck before long.

“I must go home,” she said. “This is my last day, you know. I am going
to Paris tomorrow.”

A sort of sadness seemed to fall on them at the words; only gentle Mrs.
Osmond said, cheerfully:

“You will come to see us again when you come back, will you not?”

And then, with the privilege of the aged, she drew down the young, fresh
face to hers and kissed it.

“You will let me see you home,” said Brian. “It is getting dark.”

Erica laughingly protested that she was well used to taking care of
herself, but it ended in Brian's triumphing. So together they crossed
the quiet square. Erica chattered away merrily enough, but as they
reached the narrow entrance to Guilford Terrace a shadow stole over her
face.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “this is the last time I shall come home for two
whole years.”

“You go for so long,” said Brian, stifling a sigh. “You won't forget
your English friends?”

“Do you mean that you count yourself our friend?” asked Erica, smiling.

“If you will let me.”

“That is a funny word to use,” she replied, laughing. “You see we are
treated as outlaws generally. I don't think any one ever said 'will you
let' to me before. This is our house; thank you for seeing me home.”
 Then with a roguish look in her eyes, she added demurely, but with a
slight emphasis on the last word, “Good bye, my friend.”

Brian turned away sadly enough; but he had not gone far when he heard
flying footsteps, and looking back saw Erica once more.

“Oh, I just came to know whether by any chance you want a kitten,” she
said; “I have a real beauty which I want to find a nice home for.”

Of course Brian wanted a kitten at once; one would have imagined by the
eagerness of his manner that he was devoted to the whole feline tribe.

“Well, then, will you come in and see it?” said Erica. “He really is
a very nice kitten, and I shall go away much happier if I can see him
settled in life first.”

She took him in, introduced him to her mother, and ran off in search of
the cat, returning in a few minutes with a very playful-looking tabby.

“There he is,” she said, putting the kitten on the table with an air of
pride. “I don't believe he has an equal in all London.

“What do you call him?” asked Brian.

“His name is St. Anthony,” said Erica. “Oh, I hope, by the bye, you
won't object to that; it was no disrespect to St. Anthony at all, but
only that he always will go and preach to my gold fish. We'll make him
do it now to show you. Come along Tony, and give them a sermon, there's
a good little kit!”

She put him on a side table, and he at once rested his front paws on a
large glass bowl and peered down at the gold fish with great curiosity.

“I believe he would have drowned himself sooner or later, like Gray's
cat, so I dare say it is a good thing for him to leave. You will be kind
to him, won't you?”

Brian promised that he should be well attended to, and, indeed there
was little doubt that St. Anthony would from that day forth be lapped
in luxury. He went away with his new master very contentedly, Erica
following them to the door with farewell injunctions.

“And you'll be sure to butter his feet well or else he won't stay with
you. Good bye, dear Tony. Be a good little cat!”

Brian was pleased to have this token from his Undine, but at the same
time he could not help seeing that she cared much more about parting
with the kitten than about saying good bye to him. Well, it was
something to have that lucky St. Anthony, who had been fondled and
kissed. And after all it was Erica's very childishness and simplicity
which made her so dear to him.

As soon as they were out of sight, Erica, with the thought of the
separation beginning to weigh upon her, went back to her mother. They
knew that this was the last quiet time they would have together for many
long months. But last days are not good days for talking. They spoke
very little. Every now and then Mrs. Raeburn would make some inquiry
about the packing or the journey, or would try to cheer the child by
speaking of the house they would have at the end of the two years. But
Erica was not to be comforted; a dull pain was gnawing at her heart,
and the present was not to be displaced by any visions of a golden
future. “If it were not for leaving you alone, mother, I shouldn't mind
so much,” she said, in a choked voice. “But it seems to me that you have
the hardest part of all.”

“Aunt Jean will be here, and Tom,” said Mrs. Raeburn.

“Aunt Jean is very kind,” said Erica, doubtfully. “But she doesn't know
how to nurse people. Tom is the one hope, and he has promised always
to tell me the whole truth about you; so if you get worse, I shall come
home directly.”

“You mustn't grudge me my share of the work,” said Mrs. Raeburn. “It
would make me very miserable if I did hinder you or your father.”

Erica sighed. “You and father are so dreadfully public-spirited! And yet,
oh, mother! What does the whole world matter to me if I think you are
uncomfortable, and wretched, and alone?”

“You will learn to think differently, dear, by and by,” said her mother,
kissing the eager, troubled face. “And, when you fancy me lonely, you
can picture me instead as proud and happy in thinking of my brave little
daughter who has gone into exile of her own accord to help the cause of
truth and liberty.”

They were inspiriting words, and they brought a glow to Erica's face;
she choked down her own personal pain. No religious martyr went through
the time of trial more bravely than Luke Raeburn's daughter lived
through the next four and twenty hours. She never forgot even the most
trivial incident of that day, it seemed burned in upon her brain. The
dreary waking on the dark winter morning, the hurried farewells to her
aunt and Tom, the last long embrace from her mother, the drive to the
station, her father's recognition on the platform, the rude staring and
ruder comments to which they were subjected, then the one supreme wrench
of parting, the look of pain in her father's face, the trembling of
his voice, the last long look as the train moved off, and the utter
loneliness of all that followed. Then came dimmer recollections, not
less real, but more confused; of a merry set of fellow passengers who
were going to enjoy themselves in the south of France; of a certain
little packet which her father had placed in her hand, and which proved
to be “Mill on Liberty;” of her eager perusal of the first two or three
chapters; of the many instances of the “tyranny of the majority” which
she had been able to produce, not without a certain satisfaction. And
afterward more vividly she could recall the last look at England, the
dreary arrival at Boulogne, the long weary railway journey, and the
friendly reception at Mme Lemercier's school. No one could deny that her
new life had been bravely begun.



CHAPTER VI. Paris

     But we wake in the young morning when the light is breaking
     forth; And look out on its misty gleams, as if the moon were
     full; And the Infinite around, seems but a larger kind of
     earth Ensphering this, and measured by the self-same handy
     rule.  Hilda among the Broken Gods.

Not unfrequently the most important years of a life, the years which
tell most on the character, are unmarked by any notable events. A
steady, orderly routine, a gradual progression, perseverance in hard
work, often do more to educate and form than a varied and eventful life.
Erica's two years of exile were as monotonous and quiet as the life
of the secularist's daughter could possibly be. There came to her, of
course, from the distance the echoes of her father's strife; but she was
far removed from it all, and there was little to disturb her mind in the
quiet Parisian school. There is no need to dwell on her uneventful life,
and a very brief description of her surroundings will be sufficient to
show the sort of atmosphere in which she lived.

The school was a large one, and consisted principally of French
provincial girls, sent to Paris to finish their education. Some of them
Erica liked exceedingly; every one of them was to her a curious and
interesting study. She liked to hear them talk about their home life,
and, above all things, to hear their simple, naive remarks about
religion. Of course she was on her honor not to enter into discussions
with them, and they regarded all English as heretics, and did not
trouble themselves to distinguish between the different grades. But
there was nothing to prevent her from observing and listening, and
with some wonder she used to hear discussions about the dresses for the
“Premiere Communion,” remarks about the various services, or laments
over the confession papers. The girls went to confession once a month,
and there was always a day in which they had to prepare and write out
their misdemeanors. One day, a little, thin, delicate child from the
south of France came up to Erica with her confession in her hand.

“Dear, good Erica,” she said, wearily, “have the kindness to read this
and to correct my mistakes.”

Erica took the little thing on her knee, and began to read the paper. It
was curiously spelled. Before very long she came to the sentence, “J'ai
trop mange.”

“Why, Ninette,” exclaimed Erica, “you hardly eat enough to feed a
sparrow; it is nonsense to put that.”

“Ah, but it was a fast day,” signed Ninette. “And I felt hungry, and did
really eat more than I need have.”

Erica felt half angry and contemptuous, half amused, and could only hope
that the priest would see the pale, thin face of the little penitent,
and realize the ludicrousness of the confession.

Another time all the girls had been to some special service; on their
return, she asked what it had been about.

“Oh,” remarked a bright-faced girl, “it was about the seven joys--or the
seven sorrows--of Mary.”

“Do you mean to say you don't know whether it was very solemn or very
joyful?” asked Erica, astonished and amused.

“I am really not sure,” said the girl, with the most placid
good-tempered indifference.

On the whole, it was scarcely to be wondered at that Erica was not
favorably impressed with Roman Catholicism.

She was a great favorite with all the girls; but, though she was very
patient and persevering, she did not succeed in making any of them
fluent English speakers, and learned their language far better than they
learned hers. Her three special friends were not among the pupils, but
among the teachers. Dear old Mme. Lemercier, with her good-humored black
eyes, her kind, demonstrative ways, and her delightful stories about
the time of the war and the siege, was a friend worth having. So was her
husband, M. Lemercier the journalist. He was a little dried-up man, with
a fierce black mustache; he was sarcastic and witty, and he would
talk politics by the hour together to any one who would listen to him,
especially if they would now and then ask a pertinent and intelligent
question which gave him scope for an oration.

Erica made a delightful listener, for she was always anxious to learn
and to understand, and before long she was quite AU FAIT, and understood
a great deal about that exceedingly complicated thing, the French
political system. M. Lemercier was a fiery, earnest little man, with
very strong convictions; he had been exiled as a communist but had now
returned, and was a very vigorous and impassioned writer in one of the
advanced Republican journals. He and his wife became very fond of Erica,
Mme. Lemercier loving her for her brightness and readiness to help,
and monsieur for her beauty and her quickness of perception. It was
surprising and gratifying to meet with a girl who, without being a femme
savante, was yet capable of understanding the difference between the
Extreme Left and the Left Center, and who took a real interest in what
was passing in the world.

But Erica's greatest friend was a certain Fraulein Sonnenthal, the
German governess. She was a kind-eyed Hanoverian, homely and by no means
brilliantly clever, but there was something in her unselfishness and in
her unassuming humility that won Erica's heart. She never would hear a
word against the fraulein.

“Why do you care so much for Fraulein Sonnenthal?” she was often asked.
“She seems uninteresting and dull to us.”

“I love her because she is so good,” was Erica's invariable reply.

She and the fraulein shared a bedroom, and many were the arguments they
had together. The effect of being separated from her own people was,
very naturally, to make Erica a more devoted secularist. She was
exceedingly enthusiastic for what she considered the truth and not
unfrequently grieved and shocked the Lutheran fraulein by the vehemence
of her statements. Very often they would argue far on into the night;
they never quarreled, however hot the dispute, but the fraulein often
had a sore time of it, for, naturally, Luke Raeburn's daughter was well
up in all the debatable points, and she had, moreover, a good deal of
her father's rapidity of thought and gift of speech. She was always
generous, however, and the fraulein had in some respects the advantage
of her, for they spoke in German.

One scene in that little bedroom Erica never forgot. They had gone
to bed one Easter-eve, and had somehow fallen into a long and stormy
argument about the resurrection and the doctrine of immortality. Erica,
perhaps because she was conscious of the “weakness” she had confessed
to Brian Osmond, argued very warmly on the other side; the poor little
fraulein was grieved beyond measure, and defended her faith gallantly,
though, as she feared, very ineffectually. Her arguments seemed
altogether extinguished by Erica's remorseless logic; she was not nearly
so clever, and her very earnestness seemed to trip her up and make all
her sentences broken and incomplete. They discussed the subject till
Erica was hoarse, and at last from very weariness she fell asleep while
the Lutheran was giving her a long quotation from St. Paul.

She slept for two or three hours; when she woke, the room was flooded
with silvery moonlight, the wooden cross which hung over the German's
bed stood out black and distinct, but the bed was empty. Erica looked
round the room uneasily, and saw a sight which she never forgot. The
fraulein was kneeling beside the window, and even the cold moonlight
could not chill or hide the wonderful brightness of her face. She was a
plain, ordinary little woman, but her face was absolutely transformed;
there was something so beautiful and yet so unusual in her expression
that Erica could not speak or move, but lay watching her almost
breathlessly. The spiritual world about which they had been speaking
must be very real indeed to Thekla Sonnenthal! Was it possible that
this was the work of delusion? While she mused, her friend rose, came
straight to her bedside, and bent over her with a look of such love and
tenderness that Erica, though not generally demonstrative, could not
resist throwing her arms round her neck.

“Dear Sunnyvale! You look just like your name!” she exclaimed, “all
brightness and humility! What have you been doing to grow so like
Murillo's Madonna?”

“I thought you were asleep,” said the fraulein. “Good night,
Herzolattchen, or rather good morning, for the Easter day has begun.”

Perhaps Erica liked her all the better for saying nothing more definite,
but in the ordinary sense of the word she did not have a good night,
for long after Thekla Sonnenthal was asleep, and dreaming of her German
home, Luke Raeburn's daughter lay awake, thinking of the faith which
to some was such an intense reality. Had there been anything excited or
unreal about her companion's manner, she would not have thought
twice about it; but her tranquillity and sweetness seemed to her very
remarkable. Moreover, Fraulein Sonnenthal was strangely devoid of
imagination; she was a matter-of-fact little person, not at all a likely
subject for visions and delusions. Erica was perplexed. Once more there
came to her that uncomfortable question: “Supposing Christianity were
true?”

The moonlight paled and the Easter morn broke, and still she tossed to
and fro, haunted by doubts which would not let her sleep. But by and by
she returned to the one thing which was absolutely certain, namely, that
her German friend was lovable and to be loved, whatever her creed.

And, since Erica's love was of the practical order, it prompted her
to get up early, dress noiselessly, and steal out of the room without
waking her companion; then, with all the church bells ringing and the
devout citizens hurrying to mass, she ran to the nearest flower stall,
spent one of her very few half-francs on the loveliest white rose to be
had, and carried it back as an Easter offering to the fraulein.

It was fortunate in every way that Erica had the little German lady for
her friend, for she would often have fared badly without some one to
nurse and befriend her.

She was very delicate, and worked far too hard; for, besides all her
work in the school, she was preparing for an English examination which
she had set her heart on trying as soon as she went home. Had it not
been for Fraulein Sonnenthal, she would more than once have thoroughly
overworked herself; and indeed as it was, the strain of that two years
told severely on her strength.

But the time wore on rapidly, as very fully occupied time always does,
and Erica's list of days grew shorter and shorter, and the letters from
her mother were more and more full of plans for the life they would lead
when she came home. The two years would actually end in January; Erica
was, however, to stay in Paris till the following Easter, partly to
oblige Mme. Lemercier, partly because by that time her father hoped to
be in a great measure free from his embarrassments, able once more to
make a home for her.



CHAPTER VII. What the New Year Brought

     A voice grows with the growing years;
     Earth, hushing down her bitter cry,
     Looks upward from her graves, and hears,
     “The Resurrection and the Life am I.”

     O love Divine,--whose constant beam
     Shines on the eyes that will not see,
     And waits to bless us, while we dream
     Thou leavest us because we turn from Thee!

     Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed Thou know'st,
     Wide as our need Thy favors fall;
     The white wings of the Holy Ghost
     Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.  Whittier

It was the eve of the new year, and great excitement prevailed in the
Lemerciers' house. Many of the girls whose homes were at a distance had
remained at school for the short winter holiday, and on this particular
afternoon a number of them were clustered round the stove talking about
the festivities of the morrow and the presents they were likely to have.

Erica, who was now a tall and very pretty girl of eighteen, was sitting
on the hearth rug with Ninette on her lap; she was in very high spirits,
and kept the little group in perpetual laughter, so much so indeed that
Fraulein Sonnenthal had more than once been obliged to interfere, and do
her best to quiet them.

“How wild thou art, dear Erica?” she exclaimed. “What is it?”

“I am happy, that is all,” said Erica. “You would be happy if the year
of freedom were just dawning for you. Three months more and I shall be
home.”

She was like a child in her exultant happiness, far more child-like,
indeed, than the grave little Ninette whom she was nursing.

“Thou art not dignified enough for a teacher,” said the fraulein,
laughingly.

“She is no teacher,” cried the girls. “It is holiday time and she need
not talk that frightful English.”

Erica made a laughing defense of her native tongue, and such a babel
ensued that the fraulein had to interfere again.

“Liebe Erica! Thou art beside thyself! What has come to thee?”

“Only joy, dear Thekla, at the thought of the beautiful new year which
is coming,” cried Erica. “Father would say I was 'fey,' and should pay
for all this fun with a bad headache or some misfortune. Come, give me
the French 'David Copperfield,' and let me read you how 'Barkis Veut
Bien,' and 'Mrs. Gummidge a Pense de l'Ancien.'”

The reading was more exquisitely ludicrous to Erica herself than to her
hearers. Still the wit of Charles Dickens, even when translated,
called forth peals of laughter from the French girls, too. It was the
brightest, happiest little group imaginable; perhaps it was scarcely
wonderful that old Mme. Lemercier, when she came to break it up, should
find her eyes dim with tears.

“My dear Erica--” she said, and broke off abruptly.

Erica looked up with laughing eyes.

“Don't scold, dear madame,” she said, coaxingly. “We have been very
noisy; but it is New year's eve, and we are so happy.”

“Dear child, it is not that,” said madame. “I want to speak to you for a
minute; come with me, cherie.”

Still Erica noticed nothing; did not detect the tone of pity, did not
wonder at the terms of endearment which were generally reserved for more
private use. She followed madame into the hall, still chattering gayly.

“The 'David Copperfield' is for monsieur's present tomorrow,” she said,
laughingly. “I knew he was too lazy to read it in English, so I got him
a translation.”

“My dear,” said madame, taking her hand, “try to be quiet a moment. I--I
have something to tell you. My poor little one, monsieur your father is
arrived--”

“Father! Father here!” exclaimed Erica, in a transport of delight.
“Where is he, where? Oh, madame, why didn't you tell me sooner?”

Mme. Lemercier tried in vain to detain her, as with cheeks all glowing
with happiness and dancing eyes, she ran at full speed to the salon.

“Father!” she cried, throwing open the door and running to meet him.
Then suddenly she stood quite still as if petrified.

Beside the crackling wood fire, his arms on the chimney piece, his face
hidden, stood a gray-haired man. He raised himself as she spoke. His
news was in his face; it was written all too plainly there.

“Father!” gasped Erica in a voice which seemed altogether different from
the first exclamation, almost as if it belonged to a different person.

Raeburn took her in his arms.

“My child--my poor little Eric!” he said.

She did not speak a word, but clung to him as though to keep herself
from falling. In one instant it seemed as though her whole world had
been wrecked, her life shattered. She could not even realize that
her father was still left to her, except in so far as the mere bodily
support was concerned. He was strong; she clung to him as in a hurricane
she would have clung to a rock.

“Say it,” she gasped, after a timeless silence, perhaps of minutes,
perhaps of hours, it might have been centuries for aught she knew. “Say
it in words.”

She wanted to know everything, wanted to reduce this huge, overwhelming
sorrow to something intelligible. Surely in words it would not be so
awful--so limitless.

And he said it, speaking in a low, repressed voice, yet very tenderly,
as if she had been a little child. She made a great effort to listen,
but the sentences only came to her disjointedly and as if from a great
distance. It had been very sudden--a two hours' illness, no very great
suffering. He had been lecturing at Birmingham--had been telegraphed
for--had been too late.

Erica made a desperate effort to realize it all; at last she brought
down the measureless agony to actual words, repeating them over and over
to herself--“Mother is dead.”

At length she had grasped the idea. Her heart seemed to die within her,
a strange blue shade passed over her face, her limbs stiffened. She
felt her father carry her to the window, was perfectly conscious of
everything, watched as in a dream, while he wrenched open the clumsy
fastening of the casement, heard the voices in the street below, heard,
too, in the distance the sound of church bells, was vaguely conscious of
relief as the cold air blew upon her.

She was lying on a couch, and, if left to herself, might have lain there
for hours in that strange state of absolute prostration. But she was not
alone, and gradually she realized it. Very slowly the re-beginning of
life set in; the consciousness of her father's presence awakened her,
as it were, from her dream of unmitigated pain. She sat up, put her arms
round his neck, and kissed him, then for a minute let her aching head
rest on his shoulder. Presently, in a low but steady voice, she said:
“What would you like me to do, father?”

“To come home with me now, if you are able,” he said; “tomorrow morning,
though, if you would rather wait, dear.”

But the idea of waiting seemed intolerable to her. The very sound of the
word was hateful. Had she not waited two weary years, and this was the
end of it all? Any action, any present doing, however painful, but no
more waiting. No terrible pause in which more thoughts and, therefore,
more pain might grow. Outside in the passage they met Mme. Lemercier,
and presently Erica found herself surrounded by kind helpers, wondering
to find them all so tearful when her own eyes felt so hot and dry. They
were very good to her, but, separated from her father, her sorrow
again completely overwhelmed her; she could not then feel the slightest
gratitude to them or the slightest comfort from their sympathy. She lay
motionless on her little white bed, her eyes fixed on the wooden
cross on the opposite wall, or from time to time glancing at Fraulein
Sonnenthal, who, with little Ninette to help, was busily packing her
trunk. And all the while she said again and again the words which summed
up her sorrow: “Mother is dead! Mother is dead!”

After a time her eyes fell on her elaborately drawn paper of days.
Every evening since her first arrival she had gone through the almost
religious ceremony of marking off the day; it had often been a great
consolation to her. The paper was much worn; the weeks and days yet to
be marked were few in number. She looked at it now, and if there can be
a “more” to absolute grief, an additional pang to unmitigated sorrow, it
came to her at the sight of that visible record of her long exile. She
snatched down the paper and tore it to pieces; then sunk back again,
pale and breathless. Fraulein Sonnenthal saw and understood. She came to
her, and kissed her.

“Herzbluttchen,” she said, almost in a whisper, and, after a moment's
pause: “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.”

Erica made an impatient gesture, and turned away her head.

“Why does she choose this time of all others to tell me so,” she thought
to herself. “Now, when I can't argue or even think! A sure tower! Could
a delusion make one feel that anything is sure but death at such a time
as this! Everything is gone--or going. Mother is dead!--mother is dead!
Yet she meant to be kind, poor Thekla, she didn't know it would hurt.”

Mme. Lemercier came into the room with a cup of coffee and a brioche.

“You have a long journey before you, my little one,” she said; “you must
take this before you start.”

Yes, there was the journey; that was a comfort. There was something
to be done, something hard and tiring--surely it would blunt her
perceptions. She started up with a strange sort of energy, put on her
hat and cloak, swallowed the food with an effort, helped to lock her
trunk, moved rapidly about the room, looking for any chance possession
which might have been left out. There was such terrible anguish in her
tearless eyes that little Ninette shrunk away from her in alarm. Mme.
Lemercier, who in the time of the siege had seen great suffering, had
never seen anything like this; even Thekla Sonnenthal realized that for
the time she was beyond the reach of human comfort.

Before long the farewells were over. Erica was once more alone with her
father, her cheeks wet with the tears of others, her own eyes still hot
and dry. They were to catch the four o'clock train; the afternoon was
dark, and already the streets and shops were lighted; Paris, ever bright
and gay, seemed tonight brighter and gayer than ever. She watched the
placid-looking passengers, the idle loungers at the cafes; did they know
what pain was? Did they know that death was sure? Presently she found
herself in a second-class carriage, wedged in between her father and a
heavy-featured priest; who diligently read a little dogs-eared breviary.
Opposite was a meek, weasel-faced bourgeois, with a managing wife, who
ordered him about; then came a bushy-whiskered Englishman and a newly
married couple, while in the further corner, nearly hidden from view
by the burly priest, lurked a gentle-looking Sister of Mercy, and a
mischievous and fidgety school boy. She watched them all as in a dream
of pain. Presently the priest left off muttering and began to snore,
and sleep fell, too, upon the occupants of the opposite seat. The little
weasel-faced man looked most uncomfortable, for the Englishman used him
as a prop on one side and the managing wife nearly overwhelmed him
on the other; he slept fitfully, and always with the air of a martyr,
waking up every few minutes and vainly trying to shake off his burdens,
who invariably made stifled exclamations and sunk back again.

“That would have been funny once,” thought Erica to herself. “How I
should have laughed. Shall I always be like this all the rest of my
life, seeing what is ludicrous, yet with all the fun taken out of it?”

But her brain reeled at the thought of the “rest of life.” The blank of
bereavement, terrible to all, was absolute and eternal to her, and
this was her first great sorrow. She had known pain, and privation, and
trouble and anxiety, but actual anguish never. Now it had come to her
suddenly, irrevocably, never to be either more or less; perhaps to be
fitted on as a garment as time wore on, and to become a natural part of
her life; but always to be the same, a blank often felt, always present,
till at length her end came and she too passed away into the great
Silence.

Despair--the deprivation of all hope--is sometimes wild, but oftener
calm with a deathly calmness. Erica was absolutely still--she scarcely
moved or spoke during the long weary journey to Calais. Twice only
did she feel the slightest desire for any outward vent. At the Amiens
station the school boy in the corner, who had been growing more restless
and excited every hour, sprung from the carriage to greet a small crowd
of relations who were waiting to welcome him. She saw him rush to
his mother, heard a confused affectionate babel of inquiries,
congratulations, laughter. Oh! To think of that happy light-heartedness
and the contrast between it and her grief. The laughter seemed
positively to cut her; she could have screamed from sheer pain. And, as
if cruel contrasts were fated to confront her, no sooner had her father
established her in the cabin on board the steamer, than two bright
looking English girls settled themselves close by, and began chatting
merrily about the new year, and the novel beginning it would be on board
a Channel steamer. Erica tried to stop her ears that she might not hear
the discussion of all the forthcoming gayeties. “Lady Reedham's dance
on Thursday, our own, you know, next week,” etc., etc. But she could not
shut out the sound of the merry voices, or that wounding laughter.

Presently an exclamation made her look and listen.

“Hark!” said one of her fellow passengers. “We shall start now; I
hear the clock striking twelve. A happy new year to you, Lily, and all
possible good fortune.”

“Happy new year!” echoed from different corners of the cabin; the
little Sister of Mercy knelt down and told her beads, the rest of the
passengers talked, congratulated, laughed. Erica would have given
worlds to be able to cry, but she could not. The terrible mockery of her
surroundings was too great, however, to be borne; her heart seemed like
ice, her head like fire; with a sort of feverish strength she rushed out
of the cabin, stumbled up the companion, and ran as if by instinct to
that part of the deck where a tall, solitary figure stood up darkly in
the dim light.

“It's too cold for you, my child,” said Raeburn, turning round at her
approach.

“Oh, father, let me stay with you,” sobbed Erica, “I can't bear it
alone.”

Perhaps he was glad to have her near him for his own sake, perhaps he
recognized the truth to which she unconsciously testified that human
nature does at times cry out for something other than self, stronger and
higher.

He raised no more objections, they listened in silence till the sound
of the church bells died away in the distance, and then he found a more
sheltered seat and wrapped her up closely in his own plaid, and together
they began their new year. The first lull in Erica's pain came in that
midnight crossing; the heaving of the boat, the angry dashing of the
waves, the foam-laden wind, all seemed to relieve her. Above all there
was comfort in the strong protecting arm round her. Yet she was too
crushed and numb to be able to wish for anything but that the end might
come for her there, that together they might sink down into the painless
silence of death.

Raeburn only spoke once throughout the passage; instinctively he knew
what was passing in Erica's mind. He spoke the only word of comfort
which he had to speak: a noble one, though just then very insufficient:

“There is work to be done.”

Then came the dreary landing in the middle of the dark winter's night,
and presently they were again in a railway carriage, but this time
alone. Raeburn made her lie down, and himself fell asleep in the
opposite corner; he had been traveling uninterruptedly for twenty hours,
had received a shock which had tried him very greatly, now from sheer
exhaustion he slept. But Erica, to whom the grief was more new, could
not sleep. Every minute the pain of realization grew keener. Here she
was in England once more, this was the journey she had so often thought
of and planned. This was going home. Oh, the dreariness of the reality
when compared with those bright expectations. And yet it was neither
this thought nor the actual fact of her mother's death which first
brought the tears to her burning eyes.

Wearily shifting her position, she looked across to the other side of
the carriage, and saw, as if in a picture, her father. Raeburn was a
comparatively young man, very little over forty; but his anxieties and
the almost incredible amount of hard work of the past two years had told
upon him, and had turned his hair gray. There was something in his
stern set face, in the strong man's reserved grief, in the pose of his
grand-looking head, dignified, even in exhaustion, that was strangely
pathetic. Erica scarcely seemed to realize that he was her father.
It was more as if she were gazing at some scene on the stage, or on a
wonderfully graphic and heart-stirring picture. The pathos and sadness
of it took hold of her; she burst into a passion of tears, turned her
face from the light, and cried as if no power on earth could ever stop
her, her long-drawn sobs allowed to go unchecked since the noise of the
train made them inaudible. She was so little given to tears, as a rule,
that now they positively frightened her, nor could she understand how,
with a real and terrible grief for which she could not weep, the mere
pathetic sight should have brought down her tears like rain. But the
outburst brought relief with it, for it left her so exhausted that for
a brief half hour she slept, and awoke just before they reached London,
with such a frightful headache that the physical pain numbed the mental.

“How soon shall we be--” home she would have said, but the word choked
her. “How soon shall we get there?” she asked faintly. She was so
ill, so weary, that the mere thought of being still again--even in the
death-visited home--was a relief, and she was really too much worn out
to feel very acutely while they drove through the familiar streets.

At last, early in the cold, new year's morning, they were set down in
Guilford Square, at the grim entrance to Persecution Alley. She looked
round at the gray old houses with a shudder, then her father drew her
arm within his, and led her down the dreary little cul-de-sac. There
was the house, looking the same as ever, and there was Aunt Jean coming
forward to meet them, with a strange new tenderness in her voice and
look, and there was Tom in the background, seeming half shy and afraid
to meet her in her grief, and there, above all, was the one great
eternal void.

To watch beside the dying must be anguish, and yet surely not such keen
anguish as to have missed the last moments, the last farewells, the last
chance of serving. For those who have to come back to the empty house,
the home which never can be home again, may God comfort them--no one
else can.

Stillness, and food, and brief snatches of sleep somewhat restored
Erica. Late in the afternoon she was strong enough to go into her
mother's room, for that last look so inexpressibly painful to all, so
entirely void of hope or comfort to those who believe in no hereafter.
Not even the peacefulness of death was there to give even a slight, a
momentary relief to her pain; she scarcely even recognized her mother.
Was that, indeed, all that was left? That pale, rigid, utterly changed
face and form? Was that her mother? Could that once have been her
mother? Very often had she heard this great change wrought by death
referred to in discussions; she knew well the arguments which were
brought forward by the believers in immortality, the counter arguments
with which her father invariably met them, and which had always seemed
to her conclusive. But somehow that which seemed satisfactory in the
lecture hall did not answer in the room of death. Her whole being seemed
to flow out into one longing question: Might there not be a Beyond--an
Unseen? Was this world indeed only

     “A place to stand and love in for an hour,
     With darkness and the death-hour rounding it?”

She had slept in the afternoon, but at night, when all was still, she
could not sleep. The question still lurked in her mind; her sorrow and
loneliness grew almost unbearable. She thought if she could only make
herself cry again perhaps she might sleep, and she took down a book
about Giordano Bruno, and read the account of his martyrdom, an account
which always moved her very much. But tonight not even the description
of the valiant unshrinking martyr of Free-thought ascending the scaffold
to meet his doom could in the slightest degree affect her. She tried
another book, this time Dickens's “Tale of Two Cities.” She had never
read the last two chapters without feeling a great desire to cry, but
tonight she read with perfect unconcern of Sydney Carton's wanderings
through Paris on the night before he gave himself up--read the last
marvelously written scene without the slightest emotion. It was
evidently no use to try anything else; she shut the book, put out her
candle, and once more lay down in the dark.

Then she began to think of the words which had so persistently haunted
Sydney Carton: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” She, too, seemed
to be wandering about the Parisian streets, hearing these words over and
over again. She knew that it was Jesus of Nazareth who had said this.
What an assertion it was for a man to make! It was not even “I BRING
the resurrection,” or “I GIVE the resurrection,” but “I AM the
Resurrection.” And yet, according to her father, his humility had been
excessive, carried almost to a fault. Was he the most inconsistent man
that ever lived, or what was he? At last she thought she would get up
and see whether there was any qualifying context, and when and where he
had uttered this tremendous saying.

Lighting her candle, she crept, a little shivering, white-robed figure,
round the book-lined room, scanning the titles on every shelf, but
bibles were too much in use in that house to be relegated to the attics,
she found only the least interesting and least serviceable of her
father's books. There was nothing for it but to go down to the study;
so wrapping herself up, for it was a freezing winter's night, she went
noiselessly downstairs, and soon found every possible facility for
Biblical research.

A little baffled and even disappointed to find the words in that which
she regarded as the least authentic of the gospels, she still resolved
to read the account; she read it, indeed, in two or three translations,
and compared each closely with the others, but in all the words stood
out in uncompromising greatness of assertion. This man claimed to BE the
resurrection, of as Wyclif had it, “the agen risying and lyf.”

And then poor Erica read on to the end of the story and was quite thrown
back upon herself by the account of the miracle which followed. It was
a beautiful story, she said to herself, poetically written, graphically
described, but as to believing it to be true, she could as soon have
accepted the “Midsummer Night's Dream” as having actually taken place.

Shivering with cold she put the books back on their shelf, and stole
upstairs once more to bear her comfortless sorrow as best she could.



CHAPTER VIII. “Why Do You Believe It?”

     Then the round of weary duties, cold and formal, came to
     meet her, With the life within departed that had given them
     each a soul; And her sick heart even slighted gentle words
     that came to greet her, For grief spread its shadowy pinions
     like a blight upon the whole. A. A. Proctor

The winter sunshine which glanced in a side-long, half-and-half way
into Persecution Alley, and struggled in at the closed blinds of Erica's
little attic, streamed unchecked into a far more cheerful room in
Guilford Square, and illumined a breakfast table, at which was seated
one occupant only, apparently making a late and rather hasty meal. He
was a man of about eight-and-twenty, and though he was not absolutely
good-looking, his face was one which people turned to look at again, not
so much because it was in any way striking as far as features went, but
because of an unusual luminousness which pervaded it. The eyes, which
were dark gray, were peculiarly expressive, and their softness, which
might to some have seemed a trifle unmasculine, was counterbalanced
by the straight, dark, noticeable eyebrows, as well as by a thoroughly
manly bearing and a general impression of unfailing energy which
characterized the whole man. His hair, short beard, and mustache were of
a deep nut-brown. He was of medium height and very muscular looking.

On the whole it was as pleasant a face as you would often meet with, and
it was not to be wondered at that his old grandmother looked up pretty
frequently from her arm chair by the fire, and watched him with that
beautiful loving pride which in the aged never seems exaggerated and
very rarely misplaced.

“You were out very late, were you not, Brian?” she observed, letting
her knitting needles rest for a minute, and scrutinizing the rather
weary-looking man.

“Till half-past five this morning,” he replied, in a somewhat
preoccupied voice.

There was a sad look in his eyes, too, which his grandmother partly
understood. She knitted another round of her sock and then said:

“Have you seen Tom Craigie yet?”

“Yes, last night I came across him,” replied Brian. “He told me she had
come home. They traveled by night and got in early yesterday morning.”

“Poor little thing!” sighed old Mrs. Osmond. “What a home-coming it must
have been?”

“Grannie,” said Brian, pushing back his chair and drawing nearer to the
fire “I want you to tell me what I ought to do. I have a message to her
from her mother, there was no one else to take it, you know, except the
landlady, and I suppose she did not like that. I want to know when I
might see her; one has no right to keep it back, and yet how am I to
know whether she is fit to bear it? I can't write it down, it won't
somehow go on to paper, yet I can hardly ask to see her.”

“We cannot tell that the message might not comfort her,” said Mrs.
Osmond. Then, after a few minutes' thought she added: “I think, Brian,
if I were you, I would write her a little note, tell her why you want to
see her, and let her fix her own time. You will leave it entirely in her
own hands in that way.”

He mused for a minute, seemed satisfied with the suggestion, and
moving across to the writing table, began his first letter to his love.
Apparently it was hard to write, for he wasted several sheets and much
time that he could ill afford. When it was at length finished, it ran as
follows:

“Dear Miss Raeburn,--I hardly like to ask to see you yet for fear you
should think me intrusive, but a message was entrusted to me on Tuesday
night which I dare not of myself keep back from you. Will you see me?
If you are able to, and will name the time which will suit you best, I
shall be very grateful. Forgive me for troubling you, and believe me,
Yours faithfully, Brian Osmond.”

He sent it off a little doubtfully, by no means satisfied that he had
done a wise thing. But when he returned from his rounds later in the day
the reply set his fears at rest.

It was written lengthways across a sheet of paper; the small delicate
writing was full of character, but betrayed great physical exhaustion.

“It is good of you to think of us. Please come this afternoon if you are
able. Erica.”

That very afternoon! Now that his wish was granted, now that he was
indeed to see her, Brian would have given worlds to have postponed the
meeting. He was well accustomed to visiting sorrow-stricken people, but
from meeting such sorrow as that in the Raeburns' house he shrunk back
feeling his insufficiency. Besides, what words were delicate enough to
convey all that had passed in that death scene? How could he dare to
attempt in speech all that the dying mother would fain have had conveyed
to her child? And then his own love! Would not that be the greatest
difficulty of all? Feeling her grief as he did, could he yet modify his
manner to suit that of a mere outsider--almost a stranger? He was very
diffident; though longing to see Erica, he would yet have given anything
to be able to transfer his work to his father. This, however, was of
course impossible.

Strange though it might seem, he--the most unsuitable of all men in his
own eyes--was the man singled out to bear this message, to go to the
death-visited household. He went about his afternoon work in a sort of
steady, mechanical manner, the outward veil of his inward agitation.
About four o'clock he was free to go to Guilford Terrace.

He was shown into the little sitting room; it was the room in which
Mrs. Raeburn had died, and the mere sight of the outer surroundings, the
well-worn furniture, the book-lined walls made the whole scene vividly
present to him. The room was empty, there was a blazing fire but no
other light, for the blinds were down, and even the winter twilight shut
out. Brian sat down and waited. Presently the door opened, he looked up
and saw Erica approaching him. She was taller than she had been when he
last saw her, and now grief had given her a peculiar dignity which made
her much more like her father. Every shade of color had left her
face, her eyes wee full of a limitless pain, the eyelids were slightly
reddened, but apparently rather from sleeplessness than from tears, the
whole face was so altered that a mere casual acquaintance would hardly
have recognized it, except by the unchanged waves of short auburn hair
which still formed the setting as it were to a picture lovely even now.
Only one thing was unchanged, and that was the frank, unconventional
manner. Even in her grief she could not be quite like other people.

“It is very good of you to let me see you,” said Brian, “you are sure
you are doing right; it will not be too much for you today.”

“There is no great difference in says, I think,” said Erica, sitting
down on a low chair beside the fire. “I do not very much believe in
degrees in this kind of grief. I do not see why it should be ever more
or ever less. Perhaps I am wrong, it is all new to me.”

She spoke in a slow, steady, low-toned voice. There was an absolute
hopelessness about her whole aspect which was terrible to see. A
moment's pause followed, then, looking up at Brian, she fancied that she
read in his face, something of hesitation, of a consciousness that he
could ill express what he wished to say, and her innate courtesy made
her even now hasten to relieve him.

“Don't be afraid of speaking,” she said, a softer light coming into her
eyes. “I don't know why people shrink from meeting trouble. Even Tom
is half afraid of me. I am not changed, I am still Erica; can't you
understand how much I want every one now?

“People differ so much,” said Brian, a little huskily, “and then when
one feels strongly words do not come easily.”

“Do you think I would not rather have your sympathy than an oration
from any one else! You who were here to the end! You who did everything
for--for her. My father has told me very little, he was not able to, but
he told me of you, how helpful you were, how good, not like an outsider
at all!”

Evidently she clung to the comforting recollection that at least one
trustable, sympathetic person had been with her mother at the last.
Brian could only say how little he had done, how much more he would fain
have done had it been possible.

“I think you do comfort me by talking,” said Erica. “And now I want you,
if you don't mind, to tell me all from the very first. I can't torture
my father by asking him, and I couldn't hear it from the landlady. But
you were here, you can tell me all. Don't be afraid of hurting me; can't
you understand, if the past were the only thing left to you, you would
want to know every tiniest detail!”

He looked searchingly into her eyes, he thought she was right. There
were no degrees to pain like hers! Besides, it was quite possible that
the lesser details of her mother's death might bring tears which would
relieve her. Very quietly, very reverently, he told her all that had
passed--she already knew that her mother had died from aneurism of the
heart--he told her how in the evening he had been summoned to her, and
from the first had known that it was hopeless, had been obliged to
tell her that the time for speech even was but short. He had ordered a
telegram to be sent to her father at Birmingham, but Mrs. Craigie and
Tom were out for the evening, and no one knew where they were to be
found. He and the landlady had been alone.

“She spoke constantly of you,” he continued. “The very last words she
said were these, 'Tell Erica that only love can keep from bitterness,
that love is stronger than the world's unkindness.' Then, after a
minute's pause, she added, 'Be good to my little girl, promise to be
good to her.' After that, speech became impossible, but I do not think
she suffered. Once she motioned to me to give her the frame off the
mantlepiece with your photograph; she looked at it and kept it near
her--she died with it in her hand.”

Erica hid her face; that one trifling little incident was too much for
her, the tears rained down between her fingers. That it should have come
to that! No one whom she loved there at the last--but she had looked
at the photograph, had held it to the very end, the voiceless, useless
picture had been there, the real Erica had been laughing and talking
at Paris! Brian talked on slowly, soothingly. Presently he paused; then
Erica suddenly looked up, and dashing away her tears, said, in a voice
which was terrible in its mingled pain and indignation.

“I might have been here! I might have been with her! It is the fault of
that wretched man who went bankrupt; the fault of the bigots who will
not treat us fairly--who ruin us!”

She sobbed with passionate pain, a vivid streak of crimson dyed her
cheek, contrasting strangely with the deathly whiteness of her brow.

“Forgive me if I pain you,” said Brian; “but have you forgotten the
message I gave you? 'It is only love that can keep from bitterness!'”

“Love!” cried Erica; she could have screamed it, if she had not been so
physically exhausted. “Do you mean I am to love our enemies?”

“It is only the love of all humanity that can keep from bitterness,”
 said Brian.

Erica began to think over his reply, and in thinking grew calm once
more. By and by she lifted up her face; it was pale again now, and
still, and perfectly hopeless.

“I suppose you think that only Christians can love all humanity,” she
said, a little coldly.

“I should call all true lovers of humanity Christians,” replied Brian,
“whether they are consciously followers of Christ or not.”

She thought a little; then with a curiously hard look in her face, she
suddenly flashed round upon him with a question, much as her father
was in the habit of doing when an adversary had made some broad-hearted
statement which had baffled him.

“Some of you give us a little more charity than others; but what do you
mean by Christianity? You ask us to believe what is incredible. WHY do
you believe in the resurrection: What reason have you for thinking it
true?”

She expected him to go into the evidence question, to quote the number
of Christ's appearances, to speak of the five hundred witnesses of whom
she was weary of hearing. Her mind was proof against all this; what
could be more probable than that a number of devoted followers should be
the victims of some optical delusion, especially when their minds were
disturbed by grief. Here was a miracle supported on one side by the
testimony of five hundred and odd spectators all longing to see their
late Master, and contradicted on the other side by common sense and the
experience of the remainder of the human race during thousands of years!
She looked full at Brian, a hard yet almost exultant expression in her
eyes, which spoke more plainly than words her perfect conviction:

“You can't set your evidences against my counter-evidences! You can't
logically maintain that a few uneducated men are to have more weight
than all the united experience of mankind.”

Never would she so gladly have believed in the doctrine of immortality
as now, yet with characteristic honesty and resoluteness she set herself
into an attitude of rigid defense, lest through strong desire or mere
bodily weariness she should drift into the acceptance of what might be,
what indeed she considered to be error. But to her surprise, half to her
disappointment, Brian did not even mention the evidences. She had braced
herself up to withstand arguments drawn from the five hundred brothers,
but the preparation was useless.

“I believe in the resurrection,” said Brian, “because I cannot doubt
Jesus Christ. He is the most perfectly lovable and trustable being
I know, or can conceive of knowing. He said He should rise again, I
believe that He did rise. He was perfectly truthful, therefore He could
not mislead; He KNEW, therefore He could not be misled.”

“We do not consider Him to be all that you assert,” said Erica. “Nor do
His followers make one inclined to think that either He or His teaching
were so perfect as you try to make out. You are not so hard-hearted as
some of them--”

She broke off, seeing a look of pain on her companion's face. “Oh, what
am I saying!” she cried in a very different tone, “you who have done so
much--you who were always good to us--I did not indeed mean to hurt you,
it is your creed that I can't help hating, not you. You are our friend,
you said so long ago.”

“Always,” said Brian; “never doubt that.”

“Then you must forgive me for having wounded you,” said Erica, her whole
face softening. “You must remember how hard it all is, and that I am so
very, very miserable.”

He would have given his life to bring her comfort, but he was not a very
great believer in words, and besides, he thought she had talked quite as
long as she ought.

“I think,” he said, “that, honestly acted out, the message intrusted to
me ought to comfort your misery.”

“I can't act it out,” she said.

“You will begin to try,” was Brian's answer; and then, with a very full
heart, he said goodbye and left his Undine sitting by the fire, with her
head resting on her hands, and the words of her mother's message echoing
in her ears. “It is only love that can keep from bitterness; love is
stronger than the world's unkindness.”

Presently, not daring to dwell too much on that last scene which Brian
had described, she turned to his strange, unexpected reason for his
belief in the resurrection, and mused over the characteristics of his
ideal. Then she thought she would like to see again what her ideal man
had to say about his, and she got up and searched for a small book in
a limp red cover, labeled “Life of Jesus of Nazareth--Luke Raeburn.” It
was more than two years since she had seen it; she read it through once
more. The style was vigorous, the veiled sarcasms were not unpleasant
to her, she detected no unfairness in the mode of treatment, the book
satisfied her, the conclusion arrived at seemed to her inevitable--Brian
Osmond's ideal was not perfect.

With a sigh of utter weariness she shut the book and leaned back in her
chair with a still, white, hopeless face. Presently Friskarina sprung up
on her knee with a little sympathetic mew; she had been too miserable
as yet to notice even her favorite cat very much, now a scarcely
perceptible shade of relief came to her sadness, she stroked the soft
gray head. But scarcely had she spoken to her favorite, when the cat
suddenly turned away, sprung from her knee and trotted out of the room.
It seemed like actual desertion, and Erica could ill bear it just then.

“What, you too, Friskie,” she said to herself, “are even you glad to
keep away from me?”

She hid her face in her hands; desolate and miserable as she had been
before, she now felt more completely alone.

In a few minutes something warm touching her feet made her look up, and
with one bound Friskarina sprung into her lap, carrying in her mouth
a young kitten. She purred contentedly, looking first at her child and
then at her mistress, saying as plainly as if she had spoken:

“Will this comfort you?”

Erica stroked and kissed both cat and kitten, and for the first time
since her trouble a feeling of warmth came to her frozen heart.



CHAPTER IX. Rose

     A life of unalloyed content,
     A life like that of land-locked seas.
     J. R. Lowell

“Elspeth, you really must tell me, I'm dying of curiosity, and I can see
by your face you know all about it! How is it that grandpapa's name is
in the papers when he has been dead all these years? I tell you I saw
it, a little paragraph in today's paper, headed, 'Mr. Luke Raeburn.' Is
this another namesake who has something to do with him?”

The speaker was a tall, bright-looking girl of eighteen, a blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired blond, with a saucy little mouth, about which there now
lurked an expression of undisguised curiosity. Rose, for that was her
name, was something of a coax, and all her life long she had managed
to get her own way; she was an only child, and had been not a little
spoiled; but in spite of many faults she was lovable, and beneath her
outer shell of vanity and self-satisfaction there lay a sterling little
heart.

Her companion, Elspeth, was a wrinkled old woman, whose smooth gray
hair was almost hidden by a huge mob-cap, which, in defiance of modern
custom, she wore tied under her chin. She had nursed Rose and her mother
before her and had now become more like a family friend than a servant.

“Miss Rose,” she replied, looking up from her work, “if you go on
chatter-magging away like this, there'll be no frock ready for you
tonight,” and with a most uncommunicative air, the old woman turned
away, and gave a little impressive shake to the billowy mass of white
tarletan to which she was putting the finishing touches.

“The white lilies just at the side,” said Rose, her attention diverted
for a moment. “Won't it be lovely! The prettiest dress in the room, I'm
sure.” Then, her curiosity returning, “But, Elspeth, I sha'nt enjoy the
dance a bit unless you tell me what Mr. Luke Raeburn has to do with us?
Listen, and I'll tell you how I found out. Papa brought the paper up
to Mamma, and said, 'Did you see this?' And then mamma read it, and the
color came all over her face, and she did not say a word, but went out
of the room pretty soon. And then I took up the paper, and looked at the
page she had been reading, and saw grandpapa's name.”

“What was it about?” asked old Elspeth.

“That's just what I couldn't understand; it was all about secularists.
What are secularists? But it seems that this Luke Raeburn, whoever he
is, has lost his wife. While he was lecturing at Birmingham on the soul,
it is said, his wife died, and this paragraph said it seemed like a
judgment, which was rather cool, I think.”

“Poor laddie!” signed old Elspeth.

“Elspeth,” cried Rose, “do you know who the man is?”

“Miss Rose,” said the old woman severely, “in my young days there was a
saying that you'd do well to lay to heart, 'Ask no questions, and you'll
be told no stories.'”

“It isn't your young days now, it's your old days, Elsie,” said the
imperturbable Rose. “I will ask you questions as much as I please, and
you'll tell me what this mystery means, there's a dear old nurse! Have I
not a right to know about my own relations?”

“Oh, bairn, bairn! If it were anything you'd like to hear, but why
should you know what is all sad and gloomful? No, no, go to your balls,
and think of your fine dresses and gran' partners, though, for the
matter of that, it is but vanity of vanities--”

“Oh, if you're going to quote Ecclesiastes, I shall go!” said Rose,
pouting. “I wish that book wasn't in the Bible! I'm sure such an old
grumbler ought to have been in the Apocrypha.”

Elspeth shook her head, and muttered something about judgment and
trouble. Rose began to be doubly curious.

“Trouble, sadness, a mystery--perhaps a tragedy! Rose had read of such
things in books; were there such things actually in the family, and
she had never known of them? A few hours ago and she had been unable to
think of anything but her first ball, her new dress, her flowers; but
she was seized now with the most intense desire to fathom this mystery.
That it bid fair to be a sad mystery only made her more eager and
curious. She was so young, so ignorant, there was still a halo of
romance about those unknown things, trouble and sadness.

“Elspeth, you treat me like a child!” she exclaimed; “it's really too
bad of you.”

“Maybe you're right, bairn,” said the old nurse; “but it's no doing of
mine. But look here, Miss Rose, you be persuaded by me, go straight
to your mamma and ask her yourself. Maybe there is a doubt whether you
oughtn't to know, but there is no doubt that I mustn't tell you.”

Rose hesitated, but presently her curiosity overpowered her reluctance.

Mrs. Fane-Smith, or, as she had been called in her maiden days, Isabel
Raeburn, was remarkably like her daughter in so far as features
and coloring were concerned, but she was exceedingly unlike her in
character, for whereas Rose was vain and self-confident, and had a
decided will of her own, her mother was diffident and exaggeratedly
humble. She was a kind-hearted and a good woman, but she was in danger
of harassing herself with the question, “What will people say?”

She looked up apprehensively as her daughter came into the room.
Rose felt sure she had been crying, her curiosity was still further
stimulated, and with all the persuasiveness at her command, she urged
her mother to tell her the meaning of the mysterious paragraph.

“I am sorry you have asked me,” said Mrs. Fane-Smith, “but, perhaps,
since you are no longer a child, you had better know. It is a sad story,
however, Rose, and I should not have chosen to tell it to you today of
all days.”

“But I want to hear, mamma,” said Rose, decidedly. “Please begin. Who is
this Mr. Raeburn?”

“He is my brother,” said Mrs. Fane-Smith, with a little quiver in her
voice.

“Your brother! My uncle!” cried Rose, in amazement.

“Luke was the oldest of us,” said Mrs. Fane-Smith, “then came Jean, and
I was the youngest of all, at least of those who lived.”

“Then I have an aunt, too, an Aunt Jean?” exclaimed Rose.

“You shall hear the whole story,” replied her mother. She thought for a
minute, then in rather a low voice she began: “Luke and Jean were always
the clever ones, Luke especially; your grandfather had set his heart on
his being a clergyman, and you can fancy the grief it was to us when he
threw up the whole idea, and declared that he could never take Orders.
He was only nineteen when he renounced religion altogether; he and my
father had a great dispute, and the end of it was that Luke was sent
away from home, and I never have seen him since. He has become a very
notorious infidel lecturer. Jean was very much unsettled by his change
of views, and I believe her real reason for marrying old Mr. Craigie
was that she had made him promise to let her see Luke again. She married
young and settled down in London, and when, in a few years, her husband
died, she too, renounced Christianity.”

To tell the truth, Rose was not deeply interested in the story, it fell
a little flat after her expectations of a tragedy. It had, moreover, a
sort of missionary flavor, and she had till the last few months lived in
India, and had grown heartily tired of the details of mission work,
in which both her father and mother had been interested. Conversions,
relapses, heathenism, belief and unbelief were words which had sounded
so often in her ears that now they bored her; as they were the merest
words to her it could hardly be otherwise. But Rose's best point was her
loyalty to her own family, she had the “clan” feeling very strongly,
and she could not understand how her mother could have allowed such a
complete estrangement to grow up between her and her nearest relations.

“Mamma,” she said, quickly, “I should have gone to see Uncle Luke if I
had been you.”

“It is impossible, dear,” replied Mrs. Fane-Smith. “Your father would
not allow it for one thing, and then only think what people would say!
This is partly my reason for telling you, Rose; I want to put you upon
your guard. We heard little or nothing of your uncle when we were in
India, but you will find it very different here. He is one of the most
notorious men in England; you must never mention his name, never allude
to him, do you understand me?”

“Is he then so wicked?”

“My dear, consider what his teaching is, that is sufficient; I would
not for the whole world allow our Greyshot friends to guess that we
are connected with him in any way. It might ruin all your prospects in
life.”

“Mamma,” said Rose, “I don't think Mr. Raeburn will injure my
prospects--of course you mean prospects of marrying. If a man didn't
care enough for me to take me whether I am the niece of the worst man in
England or not, do you think I would accept him?”

There was an angry ring in her voice as she spoke, her little saucy
mouth looked almost grand. After a moment's pause, she added, more
quietly, but with all the force of the true woman's heart which lay
hidden beneath her silliness and frivolity, “Besides, mamma, is it quite
honest?”

“We are not bound to publish our family history to the world, Rose. If
any one asked me, of course I should tell the truth; if there was any
way of helping my brother or his child I would gladly serve them, even
though the world would look coldly on me for doing so; but while they
remain atheists how is it possible?”

“Then he has a child?”

“One only, I believe, a girl of about your own age.”

“Oh, mamma, how I should like to know her!”

“My dear Rose, how can you speak of such a thing? You don't realize that
she is an atheist, has not even been baptized, poor little thing!”

“But she is my cousin, and she is a girl just like me,” said Rose. “I
should like to know her very much. I wonder whether she has come out
yet. I wonder how she enjoyed her first ball.”

“My dear! They are not in society.”

“How dull! What does she do all day, I wonder?”

“I cannot tell, I wish you would not talk about her, Rose; I should not
wish you even to think about her, except, indeed, to mention her in your
prayers.”

“Oh, I'd much rather have her here to stay,” said Rose, with a little
mischievous gleam in her eyes.

“Rose!”

“Why mamma, if she were a black unbeliever you would be delighted to
have her; it is only because she is white that you won't have anything
to do with her. You would have been as pleased as possible if I had made
friends with any of the ladies in the Zenanas.”

Mrs. Fane-Smith looked uncomfortable, and murmured that that was a very
different question. Rose, seeing her advantage, made haste to follow it
up.

“At any rate, mamma, you will write to Uncle Luke now that he is in
trouble, and you'll let me send a note to his daughter? Only think,
mamma, she has lost her mother so suddenly! Just think how wretched she
must be! Oh, mamma, dear, I can't think how she can bear it!” and Rose
threw her arms round her mother's neck. “I should die too if you were to
die! I'm sure I should.”

Rose was very persuasive, Mrs. Fane-Smith's motherly heart was touched;
she sat down there and then, and for the first time since the summer day
when Luke Raeburn had been turned out of his father's house, she wrote
to her brother. Rose in the meantime had taken a piece of paper from her
mother's writing desk, and with a fat volume of sermons by way of a desk
was scribbling away as fast as she could. This was her letter:

“My dear cousin,--I don't know your name, and have only just heard
anything about you, and the first thing I heard was that you were in
dreadful trouble. I only write to send you my love, and to say how very
sorry I am for you. We only came to England in the autumn. I like it
very much. I am going to my first ball tonight, and expect to enjoy it
immensely. My dress is to be white tarle--Oh, dear! How horrid of me to
be writing like this to you. Please forgive me. I don't like to be so
happy when you are unhappy; but, you see, I have only just heard of
you, so it is a little difficult. With love, I remain, your affectionate
cousin, Rose Fane-Smith.”

That evening, while Erica, with eyes dim with grief and weariness, was
poring over the books in her father's study, Rose was being initiated
into all the delights of the ballroom. She was in her glory. Everything
was new to her; she enjoyed dancing, she knew that she looked pretty,
knew that her dress was charming, knew that she was much admired, and
of course she liked it all. But the chaperons shook their heads; it was
whispered that Miss Fane-Smith was a terrible flirt, she had danced no
less than seven dances with Captain Golightly. If her mother erred by
thinking too much of what people said, perhaps Rose erred in exactly the
opposite way; at any rate, she managed to call down upon her silly but
innocent little head an immense amount of blame from the mothers and
elderly ladies.

“A glorious moonlight night,” said Captain Golightly. “What do you say,
Miss Fane-Smith? Shall we take a turn in the garden? Or are you afraid
of the cold?”

“Afraid! Oh, dear no,” said Rose; “it's the very thing I should enjoy. I
suppose I must get my shawl, though; it is upstairs.”

They were in the vestibule.

“Have my ulster,” said Captain Golightly. “Here it is, just handy, and
it will keep you much warmer.”

Rose laughed and blushed, and allowed herself to be put into her
partner's coat, rather to the detriment of her billowy tarletan. After
a while they came back again from the dim garden to the brightly lighted
vestibule, and as ill luck would have it, chanced to encounter a stream
of people going into the supper room. Every one stared at the apparition
of Miss Fane-Smith in Captain Golightly's coat. With some difficulty
she struggled out of it, and with very hot cheeks sought shelter in the
ballroom.

“How dreadfully they looked! Do you think it was wrong of me?” she half
whispered to her partner.

“Oh, dear, no! Sensible and plucky, and everything delightful! You are
much too charming to be bound down to silly conventionalities. Come, let
us have this dance. I'm sure you are engaged to some one in the supper
room who can't deserve such a delightful partner. Let us have this TROIS
TEMPS, and hurl defiance at the Greyshot chaperons.”

Rose laughed, and allowed herself to be borne off. She had been excited
before, now she was doubly excited, and Captain Golightly had the most
delicious step imaginable.



CHAPTER X. Hard at Work

     Longing is God's fresh heavenward will
     With our poor earthward striving;
     We quench it that we may be still
     Content with merely living;
     But, would we learn that heart's full scope
     Which we are hourly wronging,
     Our lives must climb from hope to hope
     And realize our longing.  J. R. Lowell

Perhaps it was only natural that there should be that winter a good deal
of communication between the secularist's house in Guilford Terrace and
the clergyman's house in Guilford Square.

From the first Raeburn had taken a great fancy to Charles Osmond, and
now that Brian had become so closely connected with the memory of their
sudden bereavement, and had made himself almost one of them by his
silent, unobtrusive sympathy, and by his numberless acts of delicate
considerateness, a tie was necessarily formed which promised to deepen
into one of those close friendships that sometimes exist between two
entire families.

It was a bleak, chilly afternoon in March, when Charles Osmond,
returning from a long round of parish work, thought he would look in for
a few minutes at the Raeburns'; he had a proposal to make to Erica, some
fresh work which he thought might interest her. He rang the bell at the
now familiar door and was admitted; it carried him back to the day when
he had first called there and had been shown into the fire-lit room,
with the book-lined walls, and the pretty little girl curled up on the
rug, with her cat and her toasting fork. Time had brought many changes
since then. This evening he was again shown into the study, but this
time the gas was lighted, and there was no little girl upon the hearth
rug. Erica was sitting at her desk hard at work. Her face lighted up at
the sight of her visitor.

“Every one is out except me,” she said, more brightly than he had heard
her speak since her return. “Did you really come to see me. How good of
you.”

“But you are busy?” said Charles Osmond, glancing at the papers on the
desk. “Press work?”

“Yes, my first article,” said Erica, “it is just finished; but if you'll
excuse me for one minute, I ought to correct it; the office boy will
call for it directly.”

“Don't hurry; I will wait and get warm in the meantime,” said Charles
Osmond, establishing himself by the fire.

There was a silence broken only by the sound of Erica's pen as she
crossed out a word or a line. Charles Osmond watched her and mused. This
beautiful girl, whose development he could trace now for more than two
years back, what would she grow into? Already she was writing in the
“Idol Breaker.” He regretted it. Yet it was obviously the most natural
employment for her. He looked at her ever-changing face. She was
absorbed in her work, her expression varying with the sentences she
read; now there was a look of triumphant happiness as she came
to something which made her heart beat quickly; again, a shade of
dissatisfaction at the consciousness of her inability to express what
was in her mind. He could not help thinking that it was one of the
noblest faces he had ever seen, and now that the eyes were downcast it
was not so terribly sad; there was, moreover, for the first time since
her mother's death, a faint tinge of color in her cheeks. Before five
minutes could have passed, the bell rang again.

“That is my boy,” she exclaimed, and hastily blotting her sheets, she
rolled them up, gave them to the servant, closed her desk, and crossing
the room, knelt down in front of the fire to warm her hands, which were
stiff and chilly.

“How rude I have been to you,” she said, smiling a little; “I always
have been rude to you since the very first time we met.”

“We were always frank with each other,” said Charles Osmond; “I remember
you gave me your opinion as to bigots and Christians in the most
delightfully open way. So you have been writing your first article?”

“Yes,” and she stretched herself as though she were rather tired and
cramped. “I have had a delicious afternoon. Yesterday I was in despair
about it, but today it just came--I wrote it straight off.”

“And you are satisfied with it?”

“Satisfied? Oh, no! Is anybody ever satisfied? By the time it is in
print I shall want to alter every sixth line. Still, I dare say it will
say a little of what I want said?”

“Oh, you do want something said?”

“Of course!” she replied, a little indignantly. “If not, how could I
write.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Charles Osmond, “and you mean to take
this up as your vocation?”

“If I am thought worthy,” said Erica, coloring a little.

“I see you have high ideas of the art,” said Charles Osmond; “and what
is your reason for taking it up?”

“First of all, though it sounds rather illogical,” said Erica, “I write
because I MUST; there is something in me which will have its way. Then,
too, it is part of our creed that every one should do all in his power
to help on the cause, and of course, if only for my father's sake, it
would be my greatest pleasure. Then, last of all, I write because I must
earn my living.”

“Good reasons all,” said Charles Osmond. “But I don't feel sure that you
won't regret having written when you look back several years hence.”

“Oh! I dare say it will all seem crude and ridiculous then, but one must
make a beginning,” said Erica.

“And are you sure you have thought out these great questions so
thoroughly and fairly that you are capable of teaching others about
them?”

“Ah! Now I see what you mean!” exclaimed Erica; “you think I write in
defense of atheism, or as an attacker of Christianity. I do nothing
of the kind; father would not allow me to, he would not think me old
enough. Oh! No, I am only to write the lighter articles which are needed
every now and then. Today I had a delightful subject--'Heroes--what are
they?'”

“Well, and what is your definition of a hero, I wonder; what are the
qualities you think absolutely necessary to make one?”

“I think I have only two absolutely necessary ones,” said Erica; “but my
heroes must have these two, they must have brains and goodness.”

“A tolerably sweeping definition,” said Charles Osmond, laughing,
“almost equal to a friend of mine who wanted a wife, and said there were
only two things he would stipulate for--1,500 a year, and an angel. But
it brings us to another definition, you see. We shall agree as to the
brains, but how about goodness! What is your definition of that very
wide, not to say vague, term?”

“I don't think I can define it,” she said; “but one knows it when one
sees it.”

“Do you mean by it unselfishness, courage, truthfulness, or any other
virtue?”

“Oh, it isn't any one virtue, or even a parcel of virtues, it will not
go into words.”

“It is then the nearest approach to some perfect ideal which is in your
mind?”

“I suppose it is,” she said, slowly.

“How did that ideal come into your mind?”

“I don't know; I suppose I got it by inheritance.”

“From the original moneron?”

“You are laughing at me. I don't know how of course, but I have it,
which, as far as I can see, is all that matters.”

“I am not sure of that,” said Charles Osmond. “The explanation of that
ideal of goodness which more or less clearly exists in all our minds,
seems to me to rest only in the conviction that all are children of one
perfect Father. And I can give you our definition of goodness without
hesitation, it is summed up for us in one word--'Christlikeness.'”

“I cannot see it; it seems to me all exaggerated,” said Erica.
“I believe it is only because people are educated to believe and
predisposed to think it all good and perfect that there are so many
Christians. You may say it is we who are prejudiced. If we are, I'm
sure you Christians have done enough to make us so! How could I, for
instance, be anything but an atheist? Shall I tell you the very first
thing I can remember?”

Her eyes were flashing with indignant light.

“I was a little tiny child--only four years old--but there are some
scenes one never forgets. I can see it all as plainly as possible, the
room in a hotel, the very doll I was playing with. There was a great
noise in the street, trampling, hissing, hooting. I ran to the window,
an immense crowd was coming nearer and nearer, the street was black with
the throng, they were all shouting and yelling--'Down with the infidel!'
'Kill the atheist!' Then I saw my father, he was there strong and
fearless, one man against a thousand! I tell you I saw him, I can see
him now, fighting his way on single-handed, not one creature brave
enough to stand up for him. I saw him pushed, struck, spit upon, stoned.
At last a great brick struck him on the head. I think I must have been
too sick or too angry to see any more after that. The next thing I
remember is lying on the floor sobbing, and hearing father come into the
room and say: 'Why, little son Eric, did you think they'd killed me?'
And he picked me up and let me sit on his knee, but there was blood on
his face, and as he kissed me it dropped upon my forehead. I tell you,
you Christians baptized me into atheism in my own father's blood. They
were Christians who stoned him, champions of religion, and they were
egged on by the clergy. Did I not hear it all then in my babyhood?
And it is true; it is all fact; ask anybody you like; I have not
exaggerated.”

“My dear child, I know you have not,” said Charles Osmond, putting his
strong hand upon hers. He could feel that she was all trembling with
indignation. Was it to be wondered at? “I remember those riots perfectly
well,” he continued. “I think I felt and feel as indignant about them
as yourself. A fearful mistake was made--Mr. Raeburn was shamefully
treated. But, Erica”--it was the first time he had called her by her
name--“you who pride yourself upon fairness, you who make justice your
watchword must be careful not to let the wrong doing of a few Christians
prejudice you against Christianity. You say that we are all predisposed
to accept Christ; but candidly you must allow, I think, that you are
trebly prejudiced against the very name of Christian. A Christian almost
inevitably means to you only one of your father's mistaken persecutors.”

“Yes, you are so much of an exception that I always forget you are
one,” said Erica, smiling a little. “Yet you are not like one of
us--quite--you somehow stand alone, you are unlike any one I ever
met; you and Thekla Sonnenthal and your son make to me a sort of new
variety.”

Charles Osmond laughed, and changed the subject. “You are busy with your
examination work, I suppose?” And the question led to a long talk about
books and lectures.

In tru

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