"Don't mind her, Nellie," said Josie, softly, speaking for the first time. "Connie laughs because if she didn't she would cry."
"I know that," said Nellie. "I don't mind her. Is there one of us who does not feel what a curse living is?"
Geisner's firm voice answered: "And is there one of us who does not know what a blessing living might be? Nellie, my girl, you are sad and sorrowful, as we all are at times, and do not feel yet God in all working itself out in unseen ways."
"God!" she answered, scornfully. "There is no God. How can there be?"
"I do not know. It is as one feels. I do not mean that petty god of creeds and religions, the feeble image that coarse hands have made from vague glimpses caught by those who were indeed inspired. I mean the total force, the imperishable breath, of the universe. And of that breath, my child, you and I and all things are part."
Stratton took his cigar from his mouth and quoted:
"'I am the breath of the lute, I am the mind of man, Gold's glitter, the light of the diamond and the sea-pearl's lustre wan. I am both good and evil, the deed and the deed's intent—Temptation, victim, sinner, crime, pardon and punishment.'"
"Yes," said Geisner; "that and more. Brahma and more than Brahma. What
Prince Buddha thought out too. What Jesus the Carpenter dimly recognised.
Not only Force, but Purpose, or what for lack of better terms we call
Purpose, in it all."
"And that Purpose; what is it?" Ned was surprised to hear his own voice uttering his thought.
"Who shall say? There are moments, a few moments, when one seems to feel what it is, moments when one stands face to face with the universal Life and realises wordlessly what it means." Geisner spoke with grave solemnity. The others, hardly breathing, understood how this man had thought these things out.