'I don't mean to say she's like Miss Letty,' said Ericson. 'She's an
angel!'
A long pause followed. Robert's thoughts went roaming in their
usual haunts.
'Do you think, Mr. Ericson,' he said, at length, taking up the old
question still floating unanswered in his mind, 'do you think if a
devil was to repent God would forgive him?'
Ericson turned and looked at him. Their eyes met. The youth
wondered at the boy. He had recognized in him a younger brother,
one who had begun to ask questions, calling them out into the deaf
and dumb abyss of the universe.
'If God was as good as I would like him to be, the devils themselves
would repent,' he said, turning away.
Then he turned again, and looking down upon Robert like a sorrowful
eagle from a crag over its harried nest, said,
'If I only knew that God was as good as--that woman, I should die
content.'
Robert heard words of blasphemy from the mouth of an angel, but his
respect for Ericson compelled a reply.
'What woman, Mr. Ericson?' he asked.
'I mean Miss Letty, of course.'
'But surely ye dinna think God's nae as guid as she is? Surely he's
as good as he can be. He is good, ye ken.'
'Oh, yes. They say so. And then they tell you something about him
that isn't good, and go on calling him good all the same. But
calling anybody good doesn't make him good, you know.'
'Then ye dinna believe 'at God is good, Mr. Ericson?' said Robert,
choking with a strange mingling of horror and hope.
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