He had struggled and been appalled,
he had wrestled in prayer and felt
himself unanswered, and in repentance
of the feeling had scourged himself
with thorns. Miss Montaubyn,
returning from the hospital, had filled
him at first with horror and protest.
"But who knows--who knows?"
he said to Dart, as they stood and
talked together afterward, "Faith as
a little child. That is literally hers.
And I was shocked by it--and tried
to destroy it, until I suddenly saw
what I was doing. I was--in my
cloddish egotism--trying to show
her that she was irreverent BECAUSE
she could believe what in my soul I
do not, though I dare not admit so
much even to myself. She took from
some strange passing visitor to her
tortured bedside what was to her a
revelation. She heard it first as a
child hears a story of magic. When
she came out of the hospital, she told
it as if it was one. I--I--" he
bit his lips and moistened them,
"argued with her and reproached
her. Christ the Merciful, forgive
me! She sat in her squalid little
room with her magic--sometimes
in the dark--sometimes without
fire, and she clung to it, and loved it
and asked it to help her, as a child
asks its father for bread. When she
was answered--and God forgive me
again for doubting that the simple
good that came to her WAS an answer
--when any small help came to her,
she was a radiant thing, and without
a shadow of doubt in her eyes told
me of it as proof--proof that she
had been heard.
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