Honestly dreading to allow her poetic faculty due play, she kept her imagination rigidly within the narrowest bounds.She was thus honestly handicapped in the race; the honesty was, however, a little mistaken and one-sided, for not the most vivid imagination could be considered as a set-off to the great, the incalculable counter-influence of her whole education and surroundings.How she got through that black struggle was sometimes a mystery to her.At last, one evening, when the load had grown intolerable, she shut herself into her own room, and, forgetful of all her logical arguments, spoke to the unknown God.Her hopelessness, her desperation, drove her as a last resource to cry to the possibly Existent.
She stood by the open window of her little room, with her arms on the window sill, looking out into the summer night, just as years before she had stood when making up her mind to exile and sacrifice.Then the wintery heavens had been blacker and the stars brighter, now both sky and stars were dimmer because more light.
Over the roofs of the Guilford Square houses she could see Charles'
Wain and the Pole-star, but only faintly.
"God!" she cried, "I have no reason to think that Thou art except that there is such fearful need of Thee.I can see no single proof in the world that Thou art here.But if what Christ said was true, then Thou must care that I should know Thee, for I must be Thy child.Oh, God, if Thou art oh, Father, if Thou art help us to know Thee! Show us what is true!"She waited and waited, hoping for some sort of answer, some thought, some conviction.But she found, as many have found before her, that "the heavens were as brass.""Of course it was no use!" she exclaimed, impatiently, yet with a blankness of disappointment which in itself proved the reality of her expectations.
Just then she heard Tom's voice at the foot of the stairs calling;;it seemed like the seal to her impatient "of course." There was no Unseen, no Eternal of course not! But there was a busy every-day life to be lived.
"All right," she returned impatiently, to Tom's repeated calls;"don't make such a noise or else you'll disturb father.""He is wide awake," said Tom, "and talking to the professor.Just look here, I couldn't help fetching you down did you ever see such a speech in your life? A regular brick he must be!"He held an evening paper in his hand.Erica remembered that the debate was to be on a question affecting all free-thinkers.During the discussion of this, some one had introduced a reference to the Hyde Park meeting and to Mr.Raeburn, and had been careful not to lose the opportunity of making a spiteful and misleading remark about the apostle of atheism.Tom hurried her through this, however, to the speech that followed it.
"Wait a minute," she said."Who is Mr.Farrant? I never heard of him before.""Member for Greyshot, elected last spring, don't you remember? One of the by-elections.Licked the Tories all to fits.This is his maiden speech, and that makes it all the more plucky of him to take up the cudgels in our defense.Here! Let me read it to you."With the force of one who is fired with a new and hearty admiration, he read the report.The speech was undoubtedly a fine one; it was a grand protest against intolerance, a plea for justice.The speaker had not hesitated for an instant to raise his voice in behalf of a very unpopular cause, and his generous words, even when read through the medium of an indifferent newspaper report, awoke a strange thrill in Erica's heart.The utter disregard of self, the nobility of the whole speech struck her immensely.The man who had dared to stand up for the first time in Parliament and speak thus, must be one in a thousand.Presently came the most daring and disinterested touch of all.
