‘Is that the most important thing? Is it not more important that he should know that you were his son? That he should support, guide, educate you, even though unseen? Do you not know that some one has been doing that?’
‘That I have been supported, guided, educated, I know full well; but by whom I know not. And I know, too, that I have been punished. And therefore—therefore I cannot free the thought of a Him—of a Person—only of a Destiny, of Laws and Powers, which have no faces wherewith to frown awful wrath upon me! If it be a Person who has been leading me, I must go mad, or know that He has forgiven!’
‘I conceive that it is He, and not punishment which you fear?’
Lancelot was silent a moment. . . . ‘Yes. He, and not hell at all, is what I fear. He can inflict no punishment on me worse than the inner hell which I have felt already, many and many a time.’
‘Bona verba! That is an awful thing to say: but better this extreme than the other. . . . And you would—what?’
‘Be pardoned.’
‘If He loves you, He has pardoned you already.’
‘How do I know that He loves me?’
‘How does Tregarva?’
‘He is a righteous man, and I—’