'Since yesterday morning,' she said.
'Tell me about it,' he whispered.
She swallowed a few sobs. 'I'm tired of saying prayers, nothing gets better—nothing comes. It—it's easy enough to believe in God, if you live in Sydney and have water laid on—and cool days and money and a mother. But out here—oh, He can't expect us to believe in Him!'
'I think a few of us do,' he said.
'Us!' she repeated. 'You don't believe anything, do you, father? I've never heard you say a word. I have thought for long enough you were an atheist too.'
He took his arm away and moved to the little window; it was almost ten minutes before he turned round and came back to her.
'Child,' he said, 'sometimes I think my mistakes are too many for me. I have nothing to say to you. I dare not even say, Forgive me. Poor little child, to have come to such rocks! I should have helped you long ago. Only, you see, I had got in the habit of leaving these things to mother.'
'Mother did not often go to church,' said Hermie discontentedly. 'I don't remember her talking religion much.'
'She breathed it instead,' he said; 'she is the best woman in the world, never forget that, Hermie. When we were first married I was full of the young university man's talk—brain at war with established doctrines. She never came over weakly to me, as some women might have done, she never kept spotlessly aloof, indeed, she conceded me freely many of my points. But she managed to make it plain to me that all these questions mattered very little—Christ, and prayer, and love, and doing our best—those were her rocks, and waves of dogma washing for ever on them could not move them.'
'Did she ever read any of those books of yours—those on the top shelf?' whispered Hermie.