“What shall I do? I thought he had left me to myself, till that night in the library.”
She held down her head in silence. Then she said, slowly, in a tone of agony:
“I am a slave, body and soul.—Hugh!” she added, passionately, and looking up in his face, “do you think there is a God?”
Her eyes glimmered with the faint reflex from gathered tears, that silently overflowed.
And now Hugh’s own poverty struck him with grief and humiliation. Here was a soul seeking God, and he had no right to say that there was a God, for he knew nothing about him. He had been told so; but what could that far-off witness do for the need of a desolate heart? She had been told so a million of times. He could not say that he knew it. That was what she wanted and needed.
He was honest, and so replied:
“I do not know. I hope so.”
He felt that she was already beyond him; for she had begun to cry into the vague, seemingly heartless void, and say:
“Is there a God somewhere to hear me when I cry?”
And with all the teaching he had had, he had no word of comfort to give. Yes, he had: he had known David Elginbrod.