“Thank you again heartily!” said Barbara. “I am sure of one thing—that you cannot have ground for not hoping! Is not hope all we have got?”

“But surely not a false hope?”

“A false hope cannot do so much harm as a false fear!”

“The false fear is just what I oppose. The Bible tells people—”

“There you are back to the book you don’t believe in! And because you don’t believe in the book that makes people afraid, you insist there can be no such thing as the gladness my heart cries out for! If you want to make people happy, why don’t you preach a good God instead of no God?”

“I will think about what you say,” replied Richard.

“Mind,” said Barbara, “I don’t pretend to know anything! I only say I have a right to hope. And for the Bible, I must have a better look at it! Have you read it all through now, Mr. Tuke—so that you are sure it says what you say it says?”

“I have not,” answered Richard, “but everybody knows what it says!”

“Well, I don’t! Nobody has taken the trouble to tell me, and I haven’t read it.—But I’ll just give you a little bit of my life to look at. I was with my father and mother for a while in Sydney, and there a terrible lie was told about me, and everybody believed it, and nobody would speak to me. Somehow people are always ready to believe lies—even people who would not tell lies! We had to leave Sydney because of it, and to this day everybody in Sydney believes me a wicked, ugly girl!—Now I know I am not! It was trying to help a poor creature that nobody would do anything for, that got the lie said of me. I thought my first business was to take care of my neighbour, and I did it, and that’s what came of it!”

“And you believe in a God that would let that come to you for doing what was good?” said Richard.