d to me, Gracie, if I had lost
belief when your mother died? I have never lost belief. Pray God I never
shall!"

Gratian murmured:

"George would not wish me to pretend I believe--he would want me to be
honest. If I'm not honest, I shan't deserve that he should live. I don't
believe, and I can't pray."

"My darling, you're overtired."

"No, Dad." She raised her head from his shoulder and, clasping her
hands round her knees, looked straight before her. "We can only help
ourselves; and I can only bear it if I rebel."

Pierson sat with trembling lips, feeling that nothing he could say would
touch her just then. The sick man's face was hardly visible now in the
twilight, and Gratian went over to his bed. She stood looking down at
him a long time.

"Go and rest, Dad; the doctor's coming again at eleven. I'll call you if
I want anything. I shall lie down a little, beside him."

Pierson kissed her, and went out. To lie there beside him would be the
greatest comfort she could get. He went to the bare narrow little room
he had occupied ever since his wife died; and, taking off his boots,
walked up and down, with a feeling of almost crushing loneliness. Both
his daughters in such trouble, and he of no use to them! It was as
if Life were pushing him utterly aside! He felt confused, helpless,
bewildered. Surely if Gratian loved George, she had not left God's side,
whatever she might say. Then, conscious of the profound heresy of this
thought, he stood still at the open window.

Earthly love--heavenly love; was there any analogy between them?

From the Square Gardens the indifferent whisper of the leaves answered;
and a newsvendor at the far end, bawling his nightly tale of murder. 3

George Laird passed the crisis of his illness that night, and in the
morning was pronounced out of danger. He had a splendid constitution,
and--Scotsman on his father's side--a fighting character. He came back
to life very weak, but avid of recovery; and his first words were: "I've
been hanging over the edge, Gracie!"

A very high cliff, and his body half over, balancing; one inch, the
merest fraction of an inch more, and over he would have gone. Deuced rum
sensation! But not so horrible as it would have been in real life. With
the slip of that last inch he felt he would have passed at once into
oblivion, without the long horror of a fall. So this was what it was for
all the poor fellows he had seen slip in the past two years! Mercifully,