Richard set Alice on the one chair by the little fire. The woman was coaxing it, trying to heat the water she had put in a saucepan. Alice stared at the fire but hardly seemed to see it. The woman tried to comfort her. Richard looked around the place. The man had returned to the bed that filled one corner. A mattress in another was crowded with children—there was not even a spot where she could lie down.

“I shall be back as quickly as I can,” he said, and left the cottage.

16. A Sister

— Sixteen —

A Sister

He hurried back over the bare, moon-white road. He had seen Miss Wylder come that morning and hoped to reach the house, which was not very far off, before she had gone to bed. He felt she alone in that house would give him the help he needed. If she had gone back home, he would try the gardener’s wife. But he needed a woman with wit as well as will. He would help himself from the larder if he could not do better—but there would be no brandy there.

Many thoughts passed swiftly through Richard’s mind as he walked and ran. He could hardly imagine how Alice had come, or how it happened that she should appear at Mortgrange. But with him, as with all truly unselfish natures, thought was action. She needed aid and attention, and he would get them for her whatever the risk. Time might or might not clear the mystery of her coming. It was enough for him that the girl was now in his care. He would help without questioning, and trust to the future for explanations.

“And this is the world,” he thought to himself, “that the priests would have us believe ruled by the providence of an all-powerful and all good being! My heart is sore for her. I think I would give my life for her! And there he sits, up there in his glory, and looks down unmoved upon her suffering. I will not believe in any such God!”

Of course he was more than right in refusing to believe in such a God! Were such a being possible, he would not be God. If there were such a being, and all powerful, he would be one not to be worshipped. But was Richard, therefore, to believe there was no God who might be different than his imaginings? May a God only be such as is not to be believed in? Is it not rather that, to be God, the being must be so good that a man is hardly able—must I say also, or willing—to believe in him? Perhaps, if he had been as anxious to do his duty all over, out and out, as he was where his feelings pointed to it, Richard might have had a “What if” or two to propose to himself.