ll, I own that the hope of the hereafter is the one
point in which you have the better of it. Life must seem very easy if
you believe that all will be made up to you and all wrong set right
after you are dead. You see we have rather hard measure here, and don't
expect anything at all by and by. But all the same, I am always rather
ashamed of this instinct, or selfishness, or Scottish inheritance,
whichever it is!"

"Ashamed! Why should you be?"

"It is a sort of weakness, I think, which strong characters like my
father are without. You see he cares so much for every one, and thinks
so much of making the world a little less miserable in this generation,
but most of my love is for him and for my mother; and so when I think of
death--of their death--" she broke off abruptly.

"Yet do not call it selfishness," said Brian, with a slightly choked
feeling, for there had been a depth of pain in Erica's tone. "My father,
who has just that love of humanity of which you speak, has still the
most absolute belief in--yes, and longing for--immortality. It is no
selfishness in him."

"I am sure it is not," said Erica, warmly, "I shouldn't think he could
be selfish in any way. I am glad he spoke tonight; it does one good to
hear a speech like that, even if one doesn't agree with it. I wish
there were a few more clergymen like him, then perhaps the tolerance and
brotherliness he spoke of might become possible. But it must be a long
way off, or it would not seem such an unheard-of thing that I should
be talking like this to you. Why, it is the first time in my whole
life that I have spoken to a Christian except on the most every-day
subjects."

"Then I hope you won't let it be the last," said Brian.

"I should like to know Mr. Osmond better," said Erica, "for you know it
seems very extraordinary to me that a clever scientific man can speak
as he spoke tonight. I should like to know how you reconcile all the
contradictions, how you can believe what seems to me so unlikely, how
even if you do believe in a God you can think Him good while the world
is what it is. If there is a good God why doesn't He make us all know
Him, and end all the evil and cruelty?"

Brian did not reply for a moment. The familiar gas-lit street, the usual
number of passengers, the usual care-worn or vice-worn faces passing by,
damp pavements, muddy roads, fresh winter wind, all seemed so natural,
but to talk of the deepest things in heaven and earth was so un