"'Truth!' That tissue of lies and Devil's deceits! Oh, the power of the old Enemy! I would never have believed it possible of our boy, the son of our prayers, our Paul. But no son of mine——"
"Father, father, don't! For my sake, stop. He won't go—he can't go. You will be able to talk to him. He knows the Word of God too well to be led so awfully astray. Don't get angry, dearest, don't, I beg you. It—it'll pass, this trial. It breaks my heart to see you look like that."
"My heart is broken already, I think, Clara. 'His one true Church!' If anyone had told me that Paul, Paul——"
"Father, let's pray. God will help us. He won't allow the Devil to take our boy. Let's pray, and trust Him, dearest. He's never failed us yet. Do you remember when Paul was so ill——"
And once more, this time together, father and mother cried upon their God.
(2)
That night, too, as if the odd development of life wished to make a secret jest of it, Edith Thornton made her great resolve. She put on her coat and hat, made an excuse about some Christmas shopping, and went out into the foggy air. The shop-fronts were gay and tempting, but she had no eyes for them to-night. Edward Street was full of hurrying foot passengers, intent on their own business, but cheerful with the good-will of the season when they blundered into each other or dropped their parcels. She steered through them scarcely aware that they were there. Her own eyes, if any had looked into them, would have revealed a tension of spirit and a high purpose which accounted for all that. Deep down in her, unreasoning and unreasonably, she knew that she was about no light adventure. Yet it was all so absurdly simple and commonplace.
In Wellington Road the stripped trees dripped gloomily in the dark. Little sharp pats of falling moisture were distinctly audible on the carpet of dead leaves that strewed the long old-fashioned gardens on either side. This street, but little used, was almost deserted, and the lamps gleamed at rare intervals. Edith lived, as it were, from lamp-post to lamp-post. She bade her unwilling feet reach that next one, and that next, and that next; and so she passed.
Within St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church lights shone gaily. The building, of no great size, laid no claim to architectural glory and harboured no air of mystery or double-dealing. But Edith's heart beat fiercely as she went up the path. In the porch, she stared at the untidy notice-board stuck with black-edged funeral cards requesting prayers for the dead, at the poster of a New Year whist drive, and at the stoup of holy water. This Christ's Church! But even as she looked, her simple mind swiftly adjusted values. Paul's letters, and her own secret reading, had taught her to do so. She understood how one might, for example, come to believe in prayers for the dead, and how, if so, there would be nothing against printed reminders, and how, if so, such reminders would naturally be placed in the church and might, equally naturally, get a little dirty. Holy water too; well, it was in the Old Testament, more or less, and its saving logic adumbrated in the New. But the whist drive was a stickler. Would the Apostles have tolerated cards? ... But she would go through with her visit of enquiry now.
She pushed open the door and looked in. Then, with a quick little gesture, entered, and let it swing to behind her. And there she stood, looking curiously round the place, with that unreasoning fear taking ever more steadily possession of her heart.