"As you please, Mr. Hawkehurst," the stockbroker replied coldly. "I consider such a visit to the last degree unnecessary; but if Dr. Doddleson's coming can give you any satisfaction, by all means let him come. The expense involved in summoning him is of the smallest consideration to me. My position with regard to my wife's daughter is one of extreme responsibility, and I am ready to perform all the obligations of that position."
"You are very good: your conduct in relation to Charlotte and myself has been beyond all praise. It is quite possible that I am over-anxious; but there was a look in that dear face—no—I cannot forget that look; it struck terror to my heart. I will go at once to St. Leonards. I can tell Charlotte that I am obliged to telegraph to the printer about my copy. You will not object to that white lie?"
"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed. You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after dinner."
"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window, through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees, the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a harmonious chorus.
"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked, "and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything, to do anything.
"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me," in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel and a pagan—the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall, with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further commune with the God who has chastised him. His faith is the faith of the grateful leper, who, being healed, was eager to return and bless his divine benefactor. It is not the faith of Abraham or of Job, of Paul or of Stephen.
Valentine told his story about the printers and the copy for the Cheapside magazine, about which there had arisen some absurd mistake, only to be set right by a telegram.