A Gamble with Life Part 20

Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever Lord of death, And Love can never lose its own!

She closed the book again and waited for him to speak.

"It is a beautiful thought," he said, without opening his eyes. "If one could only be sure it is true."

"Be sure that what is true?" she asked, in a tone of surprise.

"That Life is ever Lord of death. That Love can never lose its own."

"Why do you think there can be any doubt about it?"

He opened his eyes again and looked at her, and his heart smote him. It would be a cruel thing to disturb her serene and simple faith with his own doubts. Almost for the first time in his life he felt the utter futility of the agnostic's creed. It had nothing to offer but a catalogue of negations. To the parched and thirsty lips it placed an empty cup, and before tired and longing eyes it held up a blank canvas.

He had grown out of his religious creed as he had grown out of his pinafores. His heart and his intellect alike had revolted against the narrow orthodoxy of his grandfather. He had been driven farther into the barren desert of negations by the pitiful parody of religion exhibited by ecclesiastical organisations, and to complete the work Felix Muller had inoculated him with the views of German materialists. He fancied, like many another man who had followed in the same track, that he had got to the bed-rock at last, that after much delving he had found the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Yet it was truth that brought no hope, no comfort, no inspiration. He was not eager to proclaim it to others. Men would be just as well off if they never reached this _ultima Thule_--perhaps, better off. To persuade men that there was no G.o.d, nor heaven, nor immortality, that this life was all and the grave the end, was not the kind of thing to inspire men to great deeds or heroic achievements.

His intellect might mock at the simple faith of the sweet-eyed maiden.

He might honestly believe that she was living in a fool's paradise. But if it was a paradise and there was nothing beyond it, why disturb her?

If death ended everything, let her enjoy her paradise as long as possible. If it was the only paradise she would ever have, it would be sheer cruelty to drive her out of it.

If he destroyed her faith, what had he to give her to fill its place?

There was nothing in a string of negations to satisfy the hunger of a human soul. Granted that her faith was folly, that her religion was pure superst.i.tion, there was no denying that it was a very beautiful superst.i.tion, that it invested life with a grandeur that nothing else could give to it.

And, after all, was he so sure that he had found the ultimate truth? He had inscribed on his little banner _Ne plus ultra_, but had he any right to dogmatise more than others? There might be a farther "beyond" which faith could pierce. There might be truth which flesh and sense could never apprehend. There might be spirit as well as matter.

"I should like you to read me more from the same book," he said, at length.

"Oh! I will do that with pleasure," she said, eagerly. "I knew you would like my dear old Quaker poet."

"He has the gift of expression," he answered, cautiously.

Then she began to read "The Eternal Goodness," slowly and reverently.

He closed his eyes again, and listened with wrapt attention. The beautiful faith of the poet seemed to strike a new chord in his being.

Moreover, the religion in which he had been reared, and from which he had broken away, seemed a n.o.bler and a Diviner thing than it had ever appeared to him before. Stripped of its human glosses and paraphrases, released from the rusty fetters of dogma, stated in simple language, it awoke a dormant emotion in his nature that had never been touched until now.

"Would you mind leaving the book with me when you go?" he questioned, when she had finished.

"Of course I will leave it," she answered.

"I am afraid I shall not see so much when I read it for myself," he went on. "There is so much in the right emphasis being given."

"Do you mean me to take that as a compliment?" she questioned, playfully.

"Not as an empty compliment," he answered, gravely. "You read beautifully."

She did not reply to that, but her eyes glowed with pleasure.

During the next week or ten days he lived in a kind of fairyland. Every now and then he had an unpleasant feeling that he would wake up sooner or later with a start to discover that the gold was only tinsel, that the rippling streams were dry, and the green and shady meadows a hot and arid desert.

Every day or two Madeline came to see him--came quite naturally and without ceremony. She did not hide from herself the fact that she liked to come. She frankly admitted that she liked the invalid. She told herself that she would be an ungrateful little wretch if she didn't. He had saved her life, and saved it at terrible risk to himself and terrible suffering, and it would be selfish, indeed, on her part if she did not try to cheer and brighten the long days that he was enduring, and enduring so patiently on her account.

Moreover, Rufus Sterne was no ordinary man. He belonged to a type she had not met before. As yet she did not know how to describe him. He was more or less of a mystery to her, and that in itself kindled and sustained her interest. Most of the young men she had met she "saw through" in ten minutes, and in half-an-hour had weighed them up, cla.s.sified and labelled them.

But Rufus Sterne baffled her. He was altogether too complex for her simple and easy method of a.n.a.lysis, too ma.s.sive for her six-inch rule.

At times he seemed to her a huge bundle of contradictions. His face could be as stern as the granite cliffs, his smile as sweet and winning as spring sunshine. At times he was as silent and mysterious as the sphinx, at other times br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with mirth and merriment. His pa.s.sion for truth and right filled her with admiration, his apparent indifference to all religion struck her with dismay. He was a man of the people in theory, in practice he lived alone, remote and friendless.

It seemed to her sometimes a wonderful condescension on his part that he deigned to notice her at all. Like most of her s.e.x, she did not in her heart think much of girls. She would defend them readily enough if they were attacked, and if driven into a corner would acclaim their superiority over men; but in reality she thought little of them. In the main they were small and niggling, and not particularly magnanimous.

Neither did she place herself an inch higher than the average girl. She was as conscious of her own limitations as anybody.

Hence, that this strong, self-reliant man, who was fighting the world single-handed, and toiling to complete some great invention, should make her his friend, tell her that her friendship was very sweet to him, was a compliment greater than had ever been paid to her before.

She had never placed Rufus Sterne for a moment in the same category with Gervase Tregony. Gervase was on her own level. He was not to her a mysterious and unexplored country. She knew him thoroughly, knew what he was capable of; had sounded all his depths and tabulated all his qualifications.

Hence, Gervase never over-awed her; never made her feel small or insignificant. On the whole, she thought she liked him all the better for that. Gervase might not be profound--that was hardly to be expected in a soldier; he might not be morally sensitive--that also was incompatible with the profession. But he was a good sort, so she believed. A bit rough and over-mastering, but generous at heart. Not vexed by social or political problems, but fond of life, and intent on having a good time of it if he had the opportunity.

She had never doubted for a moment that she and Gervase would get on excellently together. Indeed, they appeared to have been designed for each other, and yet she had hesitated to accept his proposal, and every day her hesitation grew more and more p.r.o.nounced.

The fascination of Rufus Sterne's personality intensified as the days pa.s.sed away. Her admiration for his character increased. There was nothing small or petty or niggling about him. She did not compare him with Gervase Tregony, and yet unconsciously she found herself contrasting the two men--contrasting them to Gervase's disadvantage.

And yet in her heart she was very loyal to the man who had proposed to her--the man who had captivated her girlish imagination by his splendid uniform and masterful ways.

Her feeling towards Rufus was of a different order. At first it was merely a sense of grat.i.tude; later on grat.i.tude became suffused with sympathy; but as the days pa.s.sed away, other ingredients were added, the most marked being admiration. His strength, his patience, his reticence, all called forth her approval, till in time he became something of a hero in her eyes.

And all this time Rufus yielded himself more and more to the witchery of her presence, and felt in some respects a better man in consequence.

There were compensations, no doubt. Her very presence created an atmosphere that softened and humanised him. His hard, defiant cynicism melted before her smile like snow in spring sunshine. Their conversations touched and unlocked springs of emotion that had been sealed for years; the books and poems she read to him broadened his horizon and led him to re-open questions that he imagined were closed.

Her smile, her voice, her look, set all his nerves to music, and made life a more beautiful thing than ever it had seemed before.

But he knew all the time that there would come an awakening sooner or later. They were like two happy children sauntering through green and pleasant glades, screened from the storm and recking naught of the desert beyond.

For himself he avoided looking into the future. He would enjoy the sunshine and the flowers as long as possible. In the long intervals between her visits he recalled their conversations, and re-read the pieces to which her voice had given so much meaning and melody.

Moreover, he turned the pages of the books she had lent him and committed to memory some of the pa.s.sages she had marked. They were sweet to him because she loved them.

So all unconsciously he strayed back from the hard desert of negations in which he had wandered so long. Because he loved this sweet flower, he loved all flowers for her sake. Indeed, love became the medium through which he looked at all things; far distances became near, and new and wider horizons loomed beyond.

Whatever pain might come to him later on, the memory of these days would remain an inspiration to him. To have loved so truly was surely in itself an enn.o.bling thing. Nothing would ever take out of his life these golden threads that had been woven into its texture. The song might cease, the voice of the singer be hushed, but the echo of the song would remain in his heart to the very last.

So he enjoyed those bright, peaceful days to the full, and tried not to antic.i.p.ate the future. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he said to himself. But the day of awakening was nearer than he thought.

CHAPTER XIII

THE AWAKENING

Rufus had not seen Madeline for three whole days, and had begun to wonder what had happened. On the fourth day, however, she came during the forenoon.