I think, a dull and broken submissiveness, the submissiveness of the creature that is ready to admit anything, if only he can be spared another blow.  What He requires, so my spirit tells me, is an eager co-operation, a brave approval, a generous belief in His goodness and His justice; and this I cannot give, and it is He that has made me unable to give it.  The wound may heal, the dull pain may die away, I may forget, the child may become a golden memory—­but I cannot again believe that this is the surrender God desires.  What I think He must desire, is that I should love the child, miss him as bitterly as ever, feel my day darkened by his loss, and yet turn to Him gratefully and bravely in perfect love and trust.  It may be that I may be drawn closer to those whom I love, but the loss must still remain irreparable, because I might have learned to love my dear ones better through Alec’s presence, and not through his absence.  It is His will, I do not doubt it; but I cannot see the goodness or the justice of the act, and I will not pretend to myself that I acquiesce.

September 25, 1889.

Yesterday was a warm, delicious, soft day, full of a gentle languor, the air balmy and sweet, the sunshine like the purest gold; we sate out all the morning under the cliff, in the warm dry sand.  To the right and left of us lay the blue bay, the waves breaking with short, crisp sparkles on the shore.  We saw headland after headland sinking into the haze; a few fishing-boats moved slowly about, and far down on the horizon we watched the smoke of a great ocean-steamer.  We talked, Maud and I, for the first time, I think, without reserve, without bitterness, almost without grief, of Alec.  What sustains her is the certainty that he is as he was, somewhere, far off, as brave and loving as ever, waiting for us, but waiting with a perfect understanding and knowledge of why we are separated.  She dreams of him thus, looking down upon her, and seeming, in her dream, to wonder what there can be to grieve about.  I suppose that a mother has a sense of oneness with a child that a father cannot have.  It is a deep and marvellous faith, an intuition that transcends all reason, a radiant certainty.  I cannot attain to it.  But in the warmth and light of her belief, I grew to feel that at least there was some explanation of it all.  Not by chance is the dear gift sent us, not by chance do we learn to love it, not by chance is it rent from us.  Lying thus, talking softly, in so gracious a world, a world that satisfied every craving of the senses, I came to realise that the Father must wish us well, and that if the shadow fell upon our path, it was not to make us cold and bitter-hearted.  Infinite Love! it came near to me in that hour, and clasped me to a sorrowful, tender, beating Heart.  I read Maud, at her request, “Evelyn Hope,” and the strong and patient love, that dwells so serenely and softly upon the incidents of death, yet without the least touch of morbidity and gloom, treating death itself as a quiet slumber of the soul, taught me for a moment how to be brave.