Part 38 (1/2)
Yet none save those who have pa.s.sed through it can conceive the utter desolation and darkness of soul, during what may be called the interregnum. The old has been destroyed, the new has not yet taken shape. The ark has been sunk and the mountain peaks have not yet begun to appear above the flood. The frightened soul flits. .h.i.ther and thither across the waste of waters, seeking some place on which to rest its feet, and finding none; and unlike Noah's dove there is no ark to which it can return. It must remain poised on wing till the floods have a.s.suaged and the foundations of things have been discovered.
In the last resort every man writes his own creed. No man, even mentally, can remain in a state of suspended animation for very long. A philosophy of negations is as abhorrent to the sensitive soul as a vacuum is to Nature. After destruction there is bound to be construction. Like beavers we are ever building, and when one dam has been swept away by the flood, we straightway set to work to build another.
Rufus was trying to evolve some kind of cosmos out of chaos when he met Madeline on the downs. She came upon him suddenly and unexpectedly and his heart leaped like a startled hare. How beautiful she was. How lissom and graceful and strong.
”This is an unexpected pleasure,” she said, in her bright, frank, ingenuous way. ”I am glad we have met.”
”Yes?” he replied, not knowing what else to say.
”I have heard something about you recently and I would like to know if it is true.”
”What have you heard?” he questioned, with a puzzled look on his face.
”That you are an infidel.”
”Who told you that?”
”That is a matter of no consequence since it is common gossip.”
For a moment he was silent, and turned his eyes seaward as if to watch the sun go down. ”Are you pressed for time?” he asked without turning his eyes.
”No, I am quite free for the next hour,” she answered, with a smile, though she wondered what the Tregonys would think if they knew.
”I owe a good deal to you,” he began, slowly and thoughtfully.
”No, not to me, surely. I am the debtor,” she interrupted.
”Yes, to you,” he went on in the same slow, even way. ”And if you care to know--that is, if you are interested--why then it will be a pleasure to talk to you--as it always has been----”
Then he paused and again turned his eyes toward the sea. She glanced at him shyly but did not reply.
”It is easy to call people names,” he said, at length, without looking at her. ”I do not complain, however. I have believed the things I could not help believing. Can we any of us do more than that?”
”I do not quite understand?” she answered, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
”I mean that the things we believe, or do not believe, are matters over which we have no absolute control. You believe what you believe because you cannot help it. You have not been coerced into believing it. The evidence is all-sufficient for you though it might not be for me. On the same ground I believe what I believe--because--because I cannot help myself. Do you follow me? Faith after all is belief upon evidence, and if the evidence is insufficient----”
”But what if people reject the evidence without weighing it, stubbornly turn their backs upon the light?” she interrupted.
”Then they are not honest,” he said, quickly; ”but I hope you do not accuse me of dishonesty?”
”I accuse you of nothing,” she answered. ”I have only told you what people are saying.”
”And you are sorry?” and he turned, and looked her frankly in the face.
”I am very sorry,” she replied, with a faint suspicion of colour on her cheeks.
”It is generous of you to be interested in me at all,” he said, after a pause. ”And if I were to tell you how much I value that interest you might not believe me.”
She darted a startled glance at him, but she did not catch his eyes for he was looking seaward again, and for a moment or two there was silence.