'My dear, hard-working old boy! Mrs. Arderne wonders why I accepted the offer you made me—why I valued it! She thinks I could have loved any one else just as well! Isn't it wonderful how dense the nicest people are sometimes? Ah, yes, even you, dear!'
At this point in her meditation Catherine's eyes saddened.
'You are dense on the greatest subject of all. Do you guess how much I pray God to make you see? If I were not so sure that you, being you, must grow wise before long, must shake off the contagion of the world's indifference, your want of faith would be enough to do away with all the happiness I have been boasting about. But you will soon learn, Brian dear; you will let my persuasion rouse you. God must love you so well that He will surely show the beauty of His love to you.'
Brian North had been brought up by a father who had taught him to feel scorn for that profession of religion which so many men make without ruling life by it—the empty show of faith in God without any attempt to serve Him. No mother had ever shown Brian the truth of Christianity—since his birth he had been motherless. The clever lad had always admired his father, and had willingly been led by him. In early life he had even been proud of doubting that which the majority of men believe.
Of late years, indeed, as his intellect had ripened, he had begun to perceive the folly of unbelief—had come to see that religion, pure and honest, is for every man the matter of supreme importance, and that faith, though dishonoured by some hypocrites, remains the chief glory in a glorious world. But, until Catherine Carmichael had talked to him of these subjects, he had tried to put them out of his thoughts, to imagine that he had not been specially 'called' to the leading of that Christian life which he owned was a noble one.
His hours were spent in business struggles; his times of leisure were few, and he always brought to them a brain wearied by money-earning, and, often, the despondency of baffled ambitions.
His Heavenly Father had now indeed 'called' to him by the voice of the woman of his love, and well might she hope for great things from his faith, when it was once thoroughly aroused.
To-night nearly all her thoughts were of Brian, of his needs. She could scarcely spare one reflection for the matter which Mrs. Arderne considered all-important—the possible reception which rich Uncle Ross might give her. When she remembered the two old men, it was to feel pleasantly sure of their affection, not to long for a share in the fortune of the elder.
Her heart was full of tenderness to-night, and it was partly because she was so earnestly sorry for Brian, who did not possess her secret of happiness, that she let him monopolize her thoughts to such a degree.
It was not his lack of money of which she was thinking when she prayed, 'O God, make my dear boy rich! He is so poor and needy, while I can never thank Thee enough for the gifts Thou hast lavished upon me. No one can be content without Thee, my God.'