We Two [136]
Mr. Fane-Smith was startled. He so seldom thought of Luke Raeburn as a fellow-being at all that perhaps it had never occurred to him that the love of parent to child, and child to parent, is quite independent of creed.
"But, my dear," he said, "you have been baptized."
"I have."
"You promised to renounce the devil and all his works."
"I did."
"Then how can you hesitate to renounce everything connected with your former life?"
"Do you mean to imply that my father is the devil or one of his works?"
Mr. Fane-Smith was silent. Erica continued:
"God's Fatherhood does not depend on our knowledge of it, or acceptance of it, it is a fact a truth! How then can any one dare to say that such a man as my farther is a work of the devil? I thought the sin of sins was to attribute to the devil what belongs to God!"
"You are in a very peculiar position," said Mr. Fane-Smith, uneasily. "And I have no doubt it is difficult for you to see things as they really are. But I, who can look at the matter dispassionately, can see that your remaining in your old home would be most dangerous, and not only that, but most painful! To live in a house where you hear all that you most reverence evil spoken of; why, the pain would be unspeakable!"
"I know that," said Erica, in a low voice, "I have found that I admit that it is and always will be harder to bear than any one can conceive who has not tried. But to shirk pain is not to follow Christ. As to danger, if you will forgive my saying so, I should find a luxurious life in a place like Greyshot infinitely more trying."
"Then could you not take up nursing? Or go into some sisterhood? Nothing extreme, you know, but just a working sisterhood."
Erica smiled, and shook her head.
"Why should I try to make another vocation when God has already given me one?"
"But, my dear, consider the benefit to your own soul."
"A very secondary consideration!" exclaimed Erica, impetuously.
"I should have thought," continued Mr. Fane-Smith, "that under such strange circumstances you would have seen how necessary it was to forsake all. Think of St. Matthew, for instance; he rose up at once, forsook all, and followed Him."
"Yes," said Erica. "And what was the very first thing he was impelled to do by way of 'following?' Why, to make a great feast and have in all his old friends, all the despised publicans."
"My dear Erica," said Mr. Fane-Smith, feeling his theological arguments worsted, "we must discuss this matter on practical grounds. In plain words, your father is a very bad man, and you ought to have nothing more to do with him."
Erica's lips turned white with anger; but she answered, calmly:
"That is a very great accusation. How do you know it is true?"
"I know it well enough," said Mr. Fane-Smith. "Why, every one in England knows it."
"If you accept mere hearsay evidence, you may believe anything of any one. Have you ever read any of my father's books?"
"No."
"Or heard him lecture?"
"No, indeed; I would not hear him on any account."
"Have you ever spoken with any of his intimate friends?"
"Mr. Raeburn's acquaintances are not likely to mix with any one I should know."
"Then," cried Erica, "how can you know anything whatever about him? And how how DARE you say to me, his child, that he is a wicked man?"
"It is a matter of common notoriety."
"No," said Erica, "there you are wrong. It is notorious that my father teaches conscientiously teaches much that we regard as error, but people who openly accuse him of evil living find to their cost in the law courts that they have foully libeled him."
She flushed even now at the thought of some of the hateful and wicked accusations of the past. Then, after a moment's pause, she continued more warmly:
"It is you people in society who get hold of some misquoted story, some ridiculous libel long ago crushed at the cost of the libeler it is you who do untold mischief! Only last summer I remember seeing in a paper the truest sentence that was ever written of my father, and