"Is that just to your wife?" I answered him quietly.
"No! It is not just to my wife," he replied. "I would give all I possess to have her faith. She is almost heart-broken,—and yet-yet-I who ought to sustain her would be crazed with grief if I had not her to lean upon. And she-she leans on I know not what. Oh! if I did but know."
"She leans on Him who not in vain Experienced every human pain," I answered softly.
"He was such a noble boy," continued Mr. Gear speaking half to himself, and half to me. "He was so pure, so truthful, so chivalrous, so considerate of his mother's happiness and of mine. And he was beginning to teach me, teach me that I did not know all. I was afraid of my own philosophy for him. I wanted him to have his mother's faith, though I never told him so. I never perplexed him with my own doubtings. I solved what I could of his, I was coming to believe little by little that there was a clearer, better light than that I walked in. I was hoping that he might find it and walk in it. I even dreamed, sometimes, to myself, that he would yet learn how to show it to me. And now he is gone, and the glimmer of light is gone, and the last hope for me is gone with him."
"He is gone," I said softly, "to walk in that clearer, better light, and beckons you to follow."
Mr. Gear made no answer, hardly seemed to note the interruption.
"And this is the bitterness of the blow to me," he continued, still speaking half to me, half to himself. "I thought I believed in immortality. I thought I believed in God. These two beliefs at least were left me. And now nothing is left. My wife says 'he is not dead but sleepeth.' But I cannot see it. To me he is gone, for ever gone. If on the other side of that veil which hides him from me, that mystic something which we call his spirit still lingers, I do not see it. I had a dream of that better land once and called it faith. But this cruel blow has wakened me, and the dream has passed in the very hour when I need it most. And nothing is left me; not even that poor vision."
"Not even God?" said I softly.
"Not even God," he answered with terrible deliberation. "For a bad God is worse than no God at all. And how can I believe that God is good? He looks down on our happy home. He looks on our dear boy, its life and joy. He knows how our life is wrapped up in him. He sees how little by little Willie is leading me up into a higher, happier, holier life. And then He strikes him down, and leaves my wife heart-broken, and me in darkness, bereft by one blow of my child and of my faith."
Then he pointed to the dead boy who lay on the lounge before us. "How can I reconcile this with the love of God?" he cried. "How can you, Mr. Laicus?"