“What promise?” she asked softly.
“To write to me sometimes when I am far away.”
“To tell you about Saul?” she added quietly. “Yes, Eustace, I will do that very willingly.”
“Thank you, Bride; but do not let your letters be restricted to news of Saul only. You will tell me of other things. You will tell me of St. Bride, St. Erme, of the St. Aubyns, Mr. Tremodart, of yourself.”
“I will tell you any news that I think will interest you,” she answered. “But you know there is little to happen at Penarvon. Nothing ever happens to me that would interest you.”
“Indeed, you are wrong there,” he answered with suppressed eagerness; “everything that happens to you is of the greatest possible interest to me.”
“I hardly think so,” she said musingly; “for you see one day here is outwardly just like another. Except at such times as these, there are no external events; and I do not think you take account of any but outward things—no one can speak of what is inward and spiritual to one who does, not understand.”
“And you think that I do not understand such things, Bride?”
Her glance into his face was very steady and searching.
“I do not think you do—yet,” she answered; “I may be wrong, but we generally feel those things. You have an intellectual life—a much deeper and fuller one than mine; but I think you have starved your spiritual life for a great many years. I think you have tried to judge all things spiritual by your intellectual standard, and all the things that cannot be made to agree with your philosophy are set aside as superstitions. I often think that the pride many men take in being above superstition is one of the subtlest and most destructive weapons the devil has ever forged. What is superstition? I have been told that long, long ago, it was almost the same in meaning as religion. It certainly means a belief in the unseen—in the powers of good and evil, in the mysterious actions of God—and of the devil—with regard to the children of men. But everything too deep or mysterious for human comprehension may be called superstition by those whose spiritual insight is blunted, and who have no experience of God’s dealing in the hearts of individual men. I know that hundreds and thousands of clever men call it superstition when they hear of men and women believing in special providences of God—believing that prayer is answered for such things as rainfall or drought or epidemic sickness. Others call it superstition when they are told of the coming kingdom of Christ and His Second Coming in glory, of which the Apostles constantly wrote and spoke, and which long ago the Early Church hoped to see. It is all so very, very sad to me when I think of it. Ah! Eustace, if you could but see the beautiful truth of God with eyes unclouded by the mists of your worldly philosophy! I sometimes think and believe that you will do so yet; but I do not think men can ever shake off the scales from their eyes until they begin to know that scales are there. Whilst they think it is their eyes that see, and their souls that embrace true wisdom, how can the Spirit of God find a home in their hearts? It is those who pray, ‘Lord, that I might receive my sight!’ who feel the Saviour’s hand laid upon them, and go away seeing.”