"Yes," replied Donovan."Believing in a universal Father, I am naturally that.Upon any other system, what do you make of the good which exists in so many of those who deny all in which you believe? Where does the good go to? I stood beside the death bed of that noble man this morning.At the very last I saw most touching proofs of his strong sense of justice, his honesty, his desire to promote the good of others, his devotion to his child.
Can you believe that all that goodness, which of necessity comes from God, is to go down into what you call everlasting punishment?
Don't mistake me.Thank God there is a punishment which no one would wish to forego, such punishment, such drawing forth of the native good, such careful help in the rooting out of what is evil as all good fathers give to their children."They were interrupted by the opening of the door.Mr.Fane-Smith started and almost trembled when, on turning round, he saw Erica.
She was pale, but preternaturally calm looking, however, they all felt, as if in her father's death, she had received her own death blow.
"I thought I heard you," she said in that strangely "gravened"voice which is sometimes one of the consequences of great and sudden trouble."Has Donovan taken you into the next room? Will you come?"For his life Mr.Fane-Smith could not have refused anything which she asked him; there was something in her manner that made the tears rush to his eyes though he was not, as a rule, easily moved.
He followed her obediently though with a sort of reluctance; but when he was once there he was glad.Ever since the previous day he had not been able to rid himself of that stern, hard look with which Raeburn had so terribly rebuked him; it had persistently haunted him.There was nothing stern in this dead face.It was still and passionless, bearing the look of repose which, spite of a harassed life, it had always borne in moments of leisure.He hardly looked as though he were dead.Erica could almost have fancied that he was but resting after the toils of a hard day, having fallen asleep for a few minutes, as she had often seen him in his arm chair on a Sunday evening.
Mr.Fane-Smith did not say a word, his eyes wandered from the calm face to the still hands which clasped some sprigs of his native heather, the heather which Donovan's children had sent only the day before, but just in time to win one of his last smiles.Donovan and Erica spoke together in low tones, but something in the sound of that "gravened" voice arrested Mr.Fane-Smith's attention.He had not heard what had passed before, and there was nothing special in the words that fell now upon his ear; it was rather that his own soul was in a state of receptivity, and so through the first channel that came to hand he was able to receive a new truth.
"I am only his child; God is his Father."And there, by the lifeless body of Luke Raeburn, one, who during his life had judged him with the very hardest judgment, learned for the first time what Fatherhood means.
