“I went out to Brookfield,” he said. And then, without giving himself time to draw back from his determination, he continued: “The fact is, Florence, I didn’t want to trouble you about it lately, and so I didn’t say anything about it, but–er–the fact is, I have become extremely interested in the doings of that Man whom people are talking so much about, and I went to Brookfield to see Him.”
“Oh, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Gilderman.
“Yes. I dare say you think it is foolish. I think it was foolish myself now; but I was led into it all. Day before yesterday I was down at Brookfield with the De Witts, you know. Well, while I was there I was curious to see Him. I saw Him do something; I could not get away from it, and I kept thinking about it all the time.”
“Was that what made you so strange and absent?”
“Yes.”
“What was it you saw?”
Then he told her about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. She listened in silence. After he was done she lay still and silent for a moment or two. “Oh, Henry,” she said, “how perfectly horrid! Isn’t it dreadful! I don’t see how you could bear to see it. I don’t see why He’s allowed to do such things. You don’t really think He did bring a dead man back to life, do you?”
Gilderman was silent for a moment or two. “No,” he said, “of course I couldn’t believe such a thing as that. But I can’t understand it at all. There were things about it I can’t fathom at all. It was very terrible. I don’t see how it could have been a trick.”
“But you don’t believe any man could bring another man back to life after he had been dead four days, do you?”
Gilderman did not reply. He did not know what to reply. “No,” said he, helplessly, “I don’t.”