If I were to say I believed in him, and then
didn't trust him, I could understand it. But when it's only that
I'm not sure about what I never saw, or had enough of proof to
satisfy me of, how can he be vexed at that? You seem to me to do
him great wrong, Mary. Would you now banish me for ever, if I
should, when my brain is wrapped in the clouds of death, forget you
along with everything else for a moment?'
'No, no, no. Don't talk like that, Eric, dear. There may be
reasons, you know.'
'I know what they say well enough. But I expect Him, if there is a
Him, to be better even than you, my beautiful--and I don't know a
fault in you, but that you believe in a God you can't trust. If I
believed in a God, wouldn't I trust him just? And I do hope in him.
We'll see, my darling. When we meet again I think you'll say I was
right.'
Robert stood like one turned into marble. Deep called unto deep in
his soul. The waves and the billows went over him.
Mary St. John answered not a word. I think she must have been
conscience-stricken. Surely the Son of Man saw nearly as much faith
in Ericson as in her. Only she clung to the word as a bond that the
Lord had given her: she would rather have his bond.
Ericson had another fit of coughing. Robert heard the rustling of
ministration. But in a moment the dying man again took up the word.
He seemed almost as anxious about Mary's faith as she was about
his.
'There's Robert,' he said: 'I do believe that boy would die for me,
and I never did anything to deserve it.
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