第71章 Storm (3)

Erica did not stir; she was like one crushed.Sad and harassed as her life had been, it yet seemed to her that she had never known such indescribably bitter pain.The outside world looked bright and sunshiny; she could see the waves breaking on the shore, while beyond, sailing out into the wide expanse was a brown-sailed fishing boat.Every now and then her vision was interrupted by a tall, dark figure pacing to and fro; every now and then the sunlight glinted on snow-white hair, and then a fresh stab of pain awoke in her heart.

The brown-sailed fishing boat dwindled into a tiny dark spot on the horizon, the sea tossed and foamed and sparked in the sunshine.

Erica turned away; she could not bear to look at it, for just now it seemed to her merely the type of the terrible separation which had arisen between herself and her father.She felt as if she were being borne away in the little fishing boat, while he was left on the land, and the distance between them slowly widened and widened.

All through that grievous conversation she had held in her hand a little bit of mignonette.She had held it unconsciously; it was withered and drooping, its sweetness seemed to her now sickly and hateful.She identified it with her pain, and years after the smell of mignonette was intolerable to her.She would have thrown it away, but remembered that her father had given it her.And then, with the recollection of her birthday gift, came the realization of all the long years of unbroken and perfect love, so rudely interrupted today.Was it always to be like this? Must they drift further and further apart?

Her heart was almost breaking; she had endured to the very uttermost, when at length comfort came.The sword had only come to bring the higher peace.No terrible sea of division could part those whom love could bind together.The peace of God stole once more into her heart.

"How loud soe'er the world may roar, We know love will be conqueror."Meanwhile Raeburn paced to and fro in grievous pain The fact that his pain could scarcely perhaps have been comprehended by the generality of people did not make it less real or less hard to bear.A really honest atheist, who is convinced that Christianity is false and misleading, suffers as much at the sight of what he considers a mischievous belief as a Christian would suffer while watching a service in some heathen temple.Rather his pain would be greater, for his belief in the gradual progress of his creed is shadowy and dim compared with the Christian's conviction that the "Saviour of all men" exists.

Once, some years before, a very able man, one of his most devoted followers, had "fallen back" into Christianity.That had been a bitter disappointment; but that his own child whom he loved more than anything in the world, should have forsaken him and gone over to the enemy, was a grief well-nigh intolerable.It was a grief he had never for one moment contemplated.

Could anything be more improbable than that Erica, carefully trained as she had been, should relapse so strangely? Her whole life had been spent among atheists; there was not a single objection to Christianity which had not been placed before her.

She had read much, thought much; she had worked indefatigably to aid the cause.Again and again she had braved personal insult and wounding injustice as an atheist.She had voluntarily gone into exile to help her father in his difficulties.Through the shameful injustice of a Christian, she had missed the last years of her mother's life, and had been absent from her death bed.She had borne on behalf of her father's cause a thousand irritating privations, a thousand harassing cares; she had been hard-working, and loyal, and devoted; and now all at once she had turned completely round and placed herself in the opposing ranks!

Raeburn had all his life been fighting against desperate odds, and in the conflict he had lost well-nigh everything.He had lost his home long ago, he had lost his father's good will, he had lost the whole of his inheritance; he had lost health, and strength, and reputation, and money; he had lost all the lesser comforts of life;and now he said to himself that he was to lose his dearest treasure of all, his child.

Bitter, hopeless, life-long division had arisen between them.For twenty-three years he had loved her as truly as ever father loved child, and this was his reward! A miserable sense of isolation arose in his heart.Erica had been so much to him how could he live without her? The muscles of his face quivered with emotion;he clinched his hands almost fiercely.

Then he tortured himself by letting his thoughts wander back to the past.That very day years ago, when he had first learned what fatherhood meant; the pride of watching his little girl as the years rolled on; the terrible anxiety of one long and dangerous illness she had passed through how well he remembered the time!

They were very poor, could afford no expensive luxuries; he had shared the nursing with his wife.One night he remembered toiling away with his pen while the sick child was actually on his knee; he always fancied that the pamphlet he had then been at work on was more bitterly sarcastic than anything he had ever written.Then on once more into years of desperately hard work and disappointingly small results, imbittered by persecution, crippled by penalties and never-ending litigation; but always there had been the little child waiting for him at home, who by her baby-like freedom from care could make him smile when he was overwhelmed with anxiety.How could he ever have endured the bitter obloquy, the slanderous attacks, the countless indignities which had met him on all sides, if there had not been one little child who adored him, who followed him about like a shadow, who loved him and trusted him utterly?