en he glanced once more at the
silent, majestic figure with the rigid face, who, though an atheist, was
yet a man and a father.

"Sir," he said, with the ring of real and deep feeling in his voice,
"sir, believe me, if I had known what bringing this subpoena meant, I
would sooner have lost my situation!"

Raeburn's face relaxed; he spoke a few courteous, dignified words,
accepting with a sort of unspoken gratitude the man's regret, and in
a few moments dismissing him. But even in these few moments the clerk,
though by no means an impressionable man, had felt the spell, the
strange power of fascination which Raeburn invariably exercised upon
those he talked with that inexplicable influence which made cautious,
hard-headed mechanics ready to die for him, ready to risk anything in
his cause.

The instant the man was gone, Raeburn sat down at Erica's writing
table and began to answer his letters. His correspondents got very curt
answers that day. Erica could tell by the sound of his pan how sharp
were the down strokes, how short the rapidly written sentences.

"Can I help you?" she asked, drawing nearer to him.

He hastily selected two or three letters not bearing on his
anti-religious work, gave her directions, then plunged his pen in the
ink once more, and went on writing at lightning speed. When at length
the most necessary ones were done, he pushed back his chair, and getting
up began to pace rapidly to and fro. Presently he paused and leaned
against the mantel piece, his face half shaded by his hand.

Erica stole up to him silently.

"Sometimes, Eric," he said abruptly, "I feel the need of the word
'DEVIL!' My vocabulary has nothing strong enough for that man."

She was too heartsick to speak; she drew closer to him with a mute
caress.

"Eric!" he said, holding her hands between his, and looking down at her
with an indescribably eager expression in his eyes, "Eric, surely NOW
you see that this persecuting religion, this religion which has
been persecuting innumerable people for hundreds of years, is false,
worthless, rotten to the core. Child! Child! Surely you can't believe in
a God whose followers try to promote His glory by sheer brutality like
this?"

It was the first time he had spoken to her on this subject since their
interview at Codrington. They had resolved never to touch upon it again;
but a sort of consciousness that some good must come to him through
this new bitterness, a hope that it must an