"But then, he knew it was hopeless—he said so. Was he angry because of his arm? Was he angry with her, do you think? Oh, Nick, my brain—my brain! It does whirl so! It won't let me think quietly."
"There is no need to make it think any more," said Nick, with quick decision. "Give it a rest! You've got hold of the main points, and that's enough for anyone. You mustn't fret either, dear. Remember, we are all going the same way. God knows why we take these things so hard. I suppose it's our silly little minds that won't let us look ahead."
"If we only could look ahead!" murmured Olga. "If we could only know!"
Nick's eyes sent a single flashing glance over the cypresses. His arm clasped her closely and very tenderly. "That's just where the trick of believing comes in," he said. "I don't see how those who honestly believe in the love of God can help believing that all is well with those who have gone on. To my mind it follows as the inevitable sequence. Those who doubt it are putting a limit to the Illimitable and placing a lower estimate on the love of God than they place upon their own. But we are all such wretched little pigmies—even the biggest of us. We are apt to forget that, don't you think? Horribly apt to try and measure the Infinite with a foot-rule. And see what comes of it! Only a deeper darkness and a narrowing of our own miserable limitations. We never get any further that way, Olga mia. Speculating and dogmatizing don't help us. We are up against the Unknown like a wall. But the love of God shines on both sides of it; and till the Door opens to us also, that's as much as we shall know."
He paused. Olga was listening with rapt attention. Her tears were gone, but the clasp of her hand was feverishly tense. Her breath came quickly.
"Go on, Nick!" she whispered. "Tell me more of the things you believe!"
He smiled whimsically. "My dear, I'm afraid I'm not over-orthodox. You see, I've knocked about a bit and seen something of other men's beliefs. The love of God is the backbone of my religion, and all that doesn't go with that, I discarded long ago. If Christianity doesn't mean that, it doesn't mean anything. I've no use for the people who think that none but their own select little circle will go to heaven. Such Gargantuan smugness takes one's breath away. It is almost too colossal to be funny. One wonders where on earth they get it from. I suppose it's a survival of the Dark Ages, but even then surely people had brains of some description."
"But death, Nick!" she said. "Death is such a baffling kind of thing."
"Yes, I know. You can't grasp it or fathom it. You can only project your love into it and be quite sure that it finds a hold on the other side. Why, my dear girl, that's what love is for. It's the connecting link that God Himself is bound to recognize because it is of His own forging. Don't you see—don't you know it is Divine? That is why our love can hold so strongly—even through Death. Just because it is part of His plan—a link in the everlasting Chain that draws the whole world up to Paradise at last. It's so divinely simple. One wonders how anyone can miss the meaning of it."
Olga's rapt face relaxed. She smiled at him—a very loving, comprehending smile. "Yes, I see it when you put it like that, Nick, of course. It is only just at first Death seems so staggering—such a plunge into the dark."