"I will speak with the Rector before he comes upstairs," Mrs. Mandeville said, and left the room for that purpose.
The news had reached the Rector that Dr. Burton had been sent for early that morning, and he also surmised that the boy must be worse. But the servants had assured him that such was not the case before Mrs. Mandeville joined him in the library.
"What is this I hear about Carol, Emmeline? He is not worse, yet you sent for Dr. Burton before breakfast. I felt quite alarmed."
"We could not understand it, Raymond. I must confess to feeling afraid it was not true. Carol is quite well. Dr. Burton admits it. He says it is a miracle. Carol says it is Christian Science. Dear Raymond, I want to beg you before you see Carol not to say anything to shake his faith. It is so beautiful."
"His faith in what? In that heresy called Christian Science, which is neither Science nor Christian?"
"Oh, Raymond, I cannot help thinking you are mistaken in your judgment. I do not, as I told you before, quite understand what Christian Science is, but this I know, I have never met a character so Christ-like as Carol's. All day yesterday he lay in such pain from those terrible bruises, and the injury to his spine and head, that we could not move him in the effort to ease his position without increasing the pain. To-day it is all gone. What has taken it away? He says the Christ--Truth has come to him and healed him. If we believe Jesus' words: 'Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world'--why should it not be true? Cannot the spiritual Christ say as Jesus so often said, 'According to your faith be it unto you'?"
"Of course! But that is not Christian Science."
"Yes, Raymond, that is what Carol seems to have learned from Christian Science. Heaven to him is not a far-off locality, it is here--all around him, and God is ever-present Love. His one thought--his one desire seems to be to possess that Mind which was also in Christ Jesus. What can you say against such teaching?"
The Rector had evidently nothing to say. He remarked briefly, "If I may, I will go up and see the boy now. I am pressed for time."
"Yes, Raymond, he will be pleased to see you."