“You don't think I would leave the poor girl to the mercy of a man who would tell her there was nobody anywhere to help her out of her troubles!”
“I don't think I should have told her that; I might have told her there was nobody to bring worse trouble upon her!”
“What comfort would that be, when the trouble was come—and as strong as she could bear!”
Richard was silent a moment, then in pure self-defence answered—
“A man must neither take nor give the comfort of a lie!”
“Tell me honestly then,” said Barbara, “—for I do believe you are an honest man—tell me, are you sure there is no God? Have you gone all through the universe looking for him, and failed to find him? Is there no possible chance that there may be a God!”
“I do not believe there is.”
“But are you sure there is not? Do you know it, so that you have a right to say it?”
Richard hesitated.
“I cannot say,” he answered, “that I know it as I know a proposition in Euclid, or as I know that I must not do what is wrong.”