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We Two

by Edna Lyall

December, 1999 [Etext #2007]

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Etext typed 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 allegator

--"

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