"Was such your idea also, my child?" her father asked.
"Of course; and if I have not spoken of it before, my dear father, it was only because I was waiting for you to mention it first."
It seemed a reproach! Was God using this blind instrument to show him more forcibly where his duty lay?
"I know, father," continued Grace, "what that means for you in the circumstances you newly stand in. It means that you will not be allowed to be guardian to your son, that you will be denied access to him, that he will be brought up a Protestant before your eyes, and that practically you will be as homeless as the outcast you would have made yourself from this village and this church. But remember, whatever happens, Grace is always with you—will always be, whether she believes or not, happy or wretched, poor or rich, until it shall be your own pleasure to drive her from your side. Although thy God may not be my God, yet thy people shall be my people, and we will stand or fall together!"
"My brave child!" was all the father could answer through his tears.
"But, father dearest," she resumed in a quick, decided voice, "if George is to be brought up as you wish, the first thing to secure is his being rightly baptized; and you can do that this very next day. I shall be allowed to see George, and thus my mother's trust will be in my hands yet."
"O my girl! it is hard, you cannot tell how hard."
"I have lost what you have won, father. Think you the loss of faith a lesser evil than the changing of it?"
"Poor child! poor child! God grant you may see it one day."
"God grant I may," she answered frankly, "if it be the truth."