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.”