“But He hasn't, and it's time He did. We'd creep, and peep, and see it all for once, as He can't in His churches. Daddy, oh! Daddy! I can't bear it any more; to think of them being killed on a night like this; killed and killed so that they never see it all again—never see it—never see it!” She sank down, and covered her face with her arms.
“I can't, I can't! Oh! take it all away, the cruelty! Why does it come—why the stars and the flowers, if God doesn't care any more than that?”
Horribly affected he stood bending over her, stroking her head. Then the habit of a hundred death-beds helped him. “Come, Nollie! This life is but a minute. We must all die.”
“But not they—not so young!” She clung to his knees, and looked up. “Daddy, I don't want you to go; promise me to come back!”
The childishness of those words brought back his balance.
“My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun's been too much for you.”
Noel got up, and put her hands on her father's shoulders. “Forgive me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my badness to come!”
Pierson smiled. “I shall always forgive you, Nollie; but there won't be—there mustn't be any badness to come. I pray God to keep you, and make you like your mother.”
“Mother never had a devil, like you and me.”
He was silent from surprise. How did this child know the devil of wild feeling he had fought against year after year; until with the many years he had felt it weakening within him! She whispered on: “I don't hate my devil.