“And doesn’t weather ever upset you?” asked Maud.
He laughed.
“Oh dear, yes,” he said. “I’ve been having false claims all over me all day, like—like a shower-bath, and all day I’ve been reversing them till I’m dizzy.”
“You have looked serene enough,” she said. “I shouldn’t have guessed it.”
“Well, I hope not, since it is by the serenity that comes from complete conviction of the one Omnipotence that you fight them. If you abandon that, what are you to fight them with?”
He looked at her, smiling; but then his smile faded, for he felt for a moment that, in spite of himself, his love must betray itself by word or gesture. And surely there was some answering struggle going on in her, or was it only sympathy, only gratitude for what he had done, that made that beacon in her eyes? Whatever it was she had it in control also.
“Won’t you tell me of them?” she asked. “Sometimes telling a thing, the very putting of it into definite words, shows us how shadowy and indefinite it really is. I—I don’t ask from inquisitiveness.”
“I am sure of that,” he said, “but the thing that has been worrying me most to-day is—at present—absolutely a private affair. Then there is another—I have been letting myself be anxious about your brother, and that is very bad for him as well as me. When I was treating him this morning all sorts of doubts kept coming into my mind. Half the time I was fighting them, instead of giving myself entirely to him.”
“Ah, but you never really doubted,” she said. “I am sure that you denied them.”
“Yes, but I was feeble. I was a muddy, choked channel for the flowing of Divine Love. And I am now. I have to be continually dusting and cleansing myself. I have been having fears.”