“I wouldn’t want to live unless I could feel that.”
Eppie paused at this, perplexed, and asked presently, with a slight embarrassment, “Why not?”
“Nothing would have any meaning,” said Gavan.
“No meaning, Gavan? You would still care for your mother and want to help her, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but without God there would be no hope of helping her, no hope of strength. Why, Eppie,” came the voice from behind the hat, “without God life would be death.”
Eppie retired to another discomfited silence. “I am afraid I don’t think much about God,” she confessed at last. “I always feel as if I had strength already—I suppose, heaps and heaps of strength. Only—to-day—I do know more what you mean. If only God would do something for you and your mother. You want something so big to help you if you are very, very unhappy.”
“Yes, and some one to turn to when you are lonely.”
Again Eppie hesitated. “Well, but, Gavan, while you’re here you have me, you know.”
At this Gavan pushed aside his hat almost to laugh at her. “What a funny little girl you are, Eppie! What a dear little girl! Yes, of course, I have you. But when I go away? And even while I’m here,—what if we were both lonely together? Can’t you imagine that? The feeling of being lost in a great forest at night. You have such quaint ideas about God.”
“I’ve never had any ideas at all. I’ve only thought of Some One who was there,—Some One I didn’t need yet. I’ve always thought of God as being more for grown-up people. Lost in a forest together? I don’t think I would mind that so much, Gavan. I don’t think I would be frightened, if we were together.”