came on the last to conviction. It seemed that being with Bernal had
opened her eyes to Allan's worth. She had narrowly, flippantly misjudged
a good man--good in all essentials. She was contrite for her unwifely
lack of abnegation. She began to see herself and Allan with Bernal's
eyes: she was less than she had thought--he was more. Bernal had proved
these things to her all unconsciously. Now her heart was flooded with
gratitude for his simple, ready, heartfelt praise of his brother--of his
unfailing good-temper, his loyalty, his gifts, his modesty so often
distressed by outspoken admiration of his personal graces. She listened
and applauded with a heart that renewed itself in all good resolves of
devotion. Even when Bernal talked of himself, he made her feel that she
had been unjust to Allan.

Little by little she drew many things from him--the story of his
journeyings and of his still more intricate mental wanderings. And it
thrilled her to think he had come back with a message--even though he
already doubted himself. Sometimes he would be jocular about it and
again hot with a passion to express himself.

"Nance," he said on another night, "when you have a real faith in God a
dead man is a miracle not less than a living--and a live man dying is
quite as wondrous as a dead man living. Do you know, I was staggered one
day by discovering that the earth didn't give way when I stepped on it?
The primitive man knowing little of physics doesn't know that a child's
hand could move the earth through space--but for a certain mysterious
resistance. That's God. I felt him all that day, at every step, pushing
the little globe back under me--counteracting me--resisting me--ever so
gently. Those are times when you feel you must tell it, Nance--when the
God-consciousness comes."