THE FRUIT OF FAITH
Matters fell out much as Hilary Woodrow desired. He returned to
Dawlish in October, and soon afterwards Brendon brought his wife and
child to the sea.
His master and he took long walks together among the Haldon hills,
and Daniel learnt with enormous satisfaction that the other had of
late experienced great changes of spirit. The big man gloried in
this fact from a personal point of view, because it appeared to
justify his immense faith in prayer. He had petitioned Heaven for
Hilary Woodrow; and here dawned the answer. Daniel doubted not that
this was the beginning of a larger and deeper conversion. He urged
Woodrow to go farther.
"There's no standing still," he said. "There's no standing still for
you now--no more than the light stands still when the sun rises.
Brighter and brighter surely it must grow, till the full light of the
Gospel of the Son of God warms your heart. Man! what's deeper than
that, what shows all clearer than that--or throws a darker
shadow--the shadow of our sins?"
"What a preacher you are!"
"'Tis the good tidings of what you say. They make even my slow mind
move quick. 'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me'; 'tis that I'm
thinking."
"Ah, Dan, that's a very different matter."
"God'll show you 'tis the same."
Thus oftentimes they talked; then work called Brendon, and he went
home again. But his wife and child stopped for some weeks longer
beside the sea; because little Gregory gained benefit from the
change, and Sarah Jane was anxious to remain for his sake.
The old-time fires were now banked deep in Daniel's mind under the
changes and chances of his life. Jealous he was, since a large power
of jealousy pertained to his nature; but for Woodrow he had long
since failed to feel anything but the staunch devotion of a brother.
Apart from this emotion, awakened by the circumstance of the farmer's
personal goodness to him, another far deeper, begot of natural
instinct, told him that Hilary was harmless now. Whatever his
attitude towards Sarah Jane had been, the very openness of their
friendship and the close intimacy of their conversation under his own
eyes and before his own ears, had convinced the husband that no
shadow of danger existed in their relations. The past in truth was
dead enough, and Brendon, a man of clean mind, despite jealousy, made
the mistake of supposing that it had never been. He went further
and, looking backward, blamed himself for an unseemly attitude, and
confessed his sin to his Maker.
The past was dead, and neither Hilary nor Sarah Jane, as they walked
together at the edge of the winter sea, sought or thought upon its
grave. Far otherwise, she found that in the light of his new
opinions he could now bitterly mourn the past. On a grey day, when a
slight shore wind smoothed the water and the sea was almost of the
same colour as the gulls that floated upon it, the man and woman sat
under shelter of a red cliff, talked together, and watched Sarah
Jane's child gathering cowry shells upon the beach.
"How your husband rejoices in his God! Have you marked it, Sarah
Jane? Such a trust and such a great, live gratitude underlying his
scrupulous obedience."
"Well he may be grateful."
"I'm only a child in knowledge of the divine idea. He's got far
beyond that. And yet--sometimes--I wonder what would happen to his
religion--and to us--if he knew."
"I don't wonder. I know what would happen. He might be sorry
after--when 'twas too late--but while the storm was raging in his
heart, God's self wouldn't hold him."
"I understand."
"And I wouldn't blame him neither. Think--the solid earth giving way
under his feet. 'Twould be no less to him."
"It's very awful--considered in that manner. I hope you're wrong."
"The sea would be weak and the rocks would be soft compared to him."
"You've never felt he ought to know?"
She gasped and stared.
"My God! No, I haven't."
"Sometimes I have, Sarah Jane."
Her eyes rested on him in profound and horrified amazement.
"You can say that! Believing in God has brought you to that! Then I
wish you'd never come to it, Hilary Woodrow."
"I have almost felt that if I lived very much longer, I might tell
him."
"You won't live much longer afterwards, if you do. He's said to me
in naked words, that 'tis no sin to kill them as have done what we
have done. His Bible is behind him."
"Nevertheless, if you were dead, I should tell Brendon."
"I'm not dead, and I don't want to die. You--you to say this awful
thing to me! I feel as if I was going mad. I can't believe it. I
won't believe 'tis you talking. You--knowing all you know!"
Something akin to indignation trembled in her voice; and he marked it
and felt shame.
"The thought came to me in a dream," he declared. "Of course it's
unthinkable awake. But I wanted to hear how it would sound."
She was much moved.
"It sounds like a bell tolling," she said. "You grow to be such an
own-self man now--along of finding God, I suppose. You think to tell
Brendon would ease your soul, no doubt. But what about his? You've
come to reckon that you did wrong--that I did wrong--but can't you
see what might be rest to your mind is hell for his? Don't you know
him well enough to know what it would mean to him? I can see the
things that would happen--like a row of awful----there, you've made
my brain whirl; you've throwed me into a maze of terror for that man."
The other noticed that not a thought of fear for herself influenced
Sarah Jane. Neither did she concern her mind with him after his
confession. Her husband filled her heart.
Hilary pacified her and quite agreed with her; he laughed at her
fervour and declared that his God and her husband's were as different
as love from hate; that his God was hers, not Daniel's. She made no
answer; but the reflection that even from the fantasies of a dream he
could pluck such an idea and utter it in her ears, transformed her
feeling towards him from that hour for ever. The shock of this
experience aged the spirit within her. She returned home at the
appointed time; and was glad to be home. But her mental life had
changed.