n the house to pay that paltry bill!--not to mention
the cream-jug which is, and the teapot which we thought was silver,
because Lady Sykes gave it us. Why didn't you tell me what was troubling
you, father dear?"

"I can't bear--I never _could_ bear to owe money. I asked the man for
his bill some time ago. I could have paid it then, though it wouldn't
have left me a pound. The moment I looked at it, I felt as if the Lord
had forsaken me. It is easy for you to bear; you are not the one
accountable. I am. And if the pawnbroker or the silver-smith does stand
between me and absolute dishonesty, yet to find myself in such a
miserable condition, with next to nothing between us and the workhouse,
may well make me doubt whether I have been a true servant of the Lord,
for surely such shall never be ashamed! During these last days the enemy
has even dared to tempt me with the question, whether after all, these
unbelievers may not be right, and the God that ruleth in the earth a
mere projection of what the conscience and heart bribe the imagination
to construct for them!"

"I wouldn't think that before I was driven to it, father," said Dorothy,
scarcely knowing what she said, for his doubt shot a poisoned arrow of
despair into the very heart of her heart.

He, never doubting the security of his child's faith, had no slightest
suspicion into what a sore spot his words had carried torture. He did
not know that the genius of doubt--shall I call him angel or demon?--had
knocked at her door, had called through her window; that words dropped
by Faber, indicating that science was against all idea of a God, and the
confidence of their tone, had conjured up in her bosom hollow fears,
faint dismays, and stinging questions. Ready to trust, and incapable of
arrogance, it was hard for her to imagine how a man like Mr. Faber,
upright and kind and self-denying, could say such things if he did not
_know_ them true. The very word _science_ appeared to carry an awful
authority. She did not understand that it was only because science had
never come closer to Him than the mere sight of the fringe of the
outermost folds of the tabernacle of His presence, that her worshipers
dared assert there was no God. She did not perceive that nothing ever
science could find, could possibly be the God of men; that science is
only the human reflex of truth, and that truth itself can not be
measured by what of it is reflected from the mirror of the
understanding.