Presently his thoughts were brought back to his family by the sounds of Eleanor's return.He heard her key in the outer door;he heard her move about in the hall and then slip lightly up to bed.He did not go out to speak to her, and she did not note the light under his door.
He would talk to her later when this discovery of her own emotions no longer dominated her mind.He recalled her departing figure and how she had walked, touching and looking up to her young mate, and he a little leaning to her....
"God bless them and save them," he said....
He thought of her sisters.They had said but little to his clumsy explanations.He thought of the years and experience that they must needs pass through before they could think the fulness of his present thoughts, and so he tempered his disappointment.
They were a gallant group, he felt.He had to thank Ella and good fortune that so they were.There was Clementina with her odd quick combatant sharpness, a harder being than Eleanor, but nevertheless a finespirited and even more independent.There was Miriam, indefatigably kind.Phoebe too had a real passion of the intellect and Daphne an innate disposition to service.But it was strange how they had taken his proclamation of a conclusive breach with the church as though it was a command they must, at least outwardly, obey.He had expected them to be more deeply shocked; he had thought he would have to argue against objections and convert them to his views.Their acquiescence was strange.
They were content he should think all this great issue out and give his results to them.And his wife, well as he knew her, had surprised him.He thought of her words: "Whither thou goest--"He was dissatisfied with this unconditional agreement.Why could not his wife meet God as he had met God? Why must Miriam put the fantastic question--as though it was not for her to decide: "Are we still Christians?" And pursuing this thought, why couldn't Lady Sunderbund set up in religion for herself without going about the world seeking for a priest and prophet.Were women Undines who must get their souls from mortal men? And who was it tempted men to set themselves up as priests? It was the wife, the disciple, the lover, who was the last, the most fatal pitfall on the way to God.
He began to pray, still sitting as he prayed.
"Oh God!" he prayed."Thou who has shown thyself to me, let me never forget thee again.Save me from forgetfulness.And show thyself to those I love; show thyself to all mankind.Use me, OGod, use me; but keep my soul alive.Save me from the presumption of the trusted servant; save me from the vanity of authority....
"And let thy light shine upon all those who are so dear to me....Save them from me.Take their dear loyalty...."He paused.A flushed, childishly miserable face that stared indignantly through glittering tears, rose before his eyes.He forgot that he had been addressing God.
"How can I help you, you silly thing?" he said."I would give my own soul to know that God had given his peace to you.I could not do as you wished.And I have hurt you!...You hurt yourself....But all the time you would have hampered me and tempted me--and wasted yourself.It was impossible....And yet you are so fine!"He was struck by another aspect.
"Ella was happy--partly because Lady Sunderbund was hurt and left desolated....""Both of them are still living upon nothings.Living for nothings.A phantom way of living...."He stared blankly at the humming blue gas jets amidst the incandescent asbestos for a space.
"Make them understand," he pleaded, as though he spoke confidentially of some desirable and reasonable thing to a friend who sat beside him."You see it is so hard for them until they understand.It is easy enough when one understands.Easy--" He reflected for some moments--" It is as if they could not exist -- except in relationship to other definite people.I want them to exist--as now I exist--in relationship to God.Knowing God...."But now he was talking to himself again.
"So far as one can know God," he said presently.
For a while he remained frowning at the fire.Then he bent forward, turned out the gas, arose with the air of a man who relinquishes a difficult task."One is limited," he said."All one's ideas must fall within one's limitations.Faith is a sort of tour de force.A feat of the imagination.For such things as we are.Naturally--naturally....One perceives it clearly only in rare moments....That alters nothing...."
End
