over the lack of such a God may any day blossom into hope of finding Him.  He was in practice at one with that portion of it who, accepting things at their worst, find alleviation for their sorrows in the strenuous effort to make the best of them; but he sought to content himself with the order of things which, blind and deaf and non-willing, he said had existed for evermore, most likely—­the thing was hardly worth discussing; blind, for we can not see that it sees; deaf, for we can not hear that it hears; and without will, for we see no strife, purpose, or change in its going!

There was no God, then, and people would be more comfortable to know it.  In any case, as there was none, they ought to know it.  As to his certainty of there being none, Faber felt no desire to find one, had met with no proof that there was one, and had reasons for supposing that there was none.  He had not searched very long or very wide, or with any eager desire to discover Him, if indeed there should be a God that hid Himself.  His genial nature delighted in sympathy, and he sought it even in that whose perfect operation, is the destruction of all sympathy.  Who does not know the pleasure of that moment of nascent communion, when argument or expostulation has begun to tell, conviction begins to dawn, and the first faint thrill of response is felt?  But the joy may be either of two very different kinds—­delight in victory and the personal success of persuasion, or the ecstasy of the shared vision of truth, in which contact souls come nearer to each other than any closest familiarity can effect.  Such a nearness can be brought about by no negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied.

Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or bringing about in Juliet Meredith.  He would fain get nearer to her.  Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into which had flowered invisible Nature’s bud of shapeless protoplasm.  He would have her trust him, believe him, love him.  If he succeeded, so much the greater would be the value and the pleasure of the conquest, that it had been gained in spite of all her prejudices of education and conscience.  And if in the process of finding truth a home in her bosom, he should cause her pain even to agony, would not the tenderness born of their lonely need for each other, be far more consoling than any mere aspiration after a visionary comforter?

Juliet had been, so far as her father was concerned in her education, religiously brought up.  No doubt Captain Meredith was more fervid than he was reasonable, but he was a true man, and in his regiment, on which he brought all his influence to bear, had been regarded with respect, even where not heartily loved.  But her mother was one of those weakest of women who can never forget the beauty they once possessed, or quite believe they have lost it, remaining, even after the very traces of it have vanished, as