ill, looking out into the summer night, just as years before
she had stood when making up her mind to exile and sacrifice. Then the
wintery heavens had been blacker and the stars brighter, now both sky
and stars were dimmer because more light. Over the roofs of the Guilford
Square houses she could see Charles' Wain and the Pole-star, but only
faintly.

"God!" she cried, "I have no reason to think that Thou art except that
there is such fearful need of Thee. I can see no single proof in the
world that Thou art here. But if what Christ said was true, then Thou
must care that I should know Thee, for I must be Thy child. Oh, God, if
Thou art oh, Father, if Thou art help us to know Thee! Show us what is
true!"

She waited and waited, hoping for some sort of answer, some thought,
some conviction. But she found, as many have found before her, that "the
heavens were as brass."

"Of course it was no use!" she exclaimed, impatiently, yet with a
blankness of disappointment which in itself proved the reality of her
expectations.

Just then she heard Tom's voice at the foot of the stairs calling; it
seemed like the seal to her impatient "of course." There was no Unseen,
no Eternal of course not! But there was a busy every-day life to be
lived.

"All right," she returned impatiently, to Tom's repeated calls; "don't
make such a noise or else you'll disturb father."

"He is wide awake," said Tom, "and talking to the professor. Just look
here, I couldn't help fetching you down did you ever see such a speech
in your life? A regular brick he must be!"

He held an evening paper in his hand. Erica remembered that the
debate was to be on a question affecting all free-thinkers. During the
discussion of this, some one had introduced a reference to the Hyde
Park meeting and to Mr. Raeburn, and had been careful not to lose the
opportunity of making a spiteful and misleading remark about the apostle
of atheism. Tom hurried her through this, however, to the speech that
followed it.

"Wait a minute," she said. "Who is Mr. Farrant? I never heard of him
before."

"Member for Greyshot, elected last spring, don't you remember? One of
the by-elections. Licked the Tories all to fits. This is his maiden
speech, and that makes it all the more plucky of him to take up the
cudgels in our defense. Here! Let me read it to you."

With the force of one who is fired with a new and hearty admiration, he
read the report. The speech was undoubtedly a f