"You may guess what happened," he replied. "Some of our men saw it. It was terrible--wasn't it? But how could I wish my son to die a nobler death, even although that fiend shot him? Did he not die as a Christian, trying to bring succor to his enemy?"
There was a note of earnestness in his voice which I had never heard before.
"And you got this news days ago?" I said.
"Yes," he replied, "and I have been to see no one since it came until now. I haven't even been to see my old friend Treherne. At first, all the foundations of my life seemed to be broken up. I could not understand it. I thought I should never be able to bear it. Why should I, a man past my prime, with my work nearly over, be alive while my son, a lad of twenty-seven, should be killed?
"By and by, however, my mind became clearer; I began to understand. Not that I could put my thoughts into words; I cannot now. Presently I began to pray. I do not think I had really prayed for years. I had read the prayers at Church, I had done my work as a clergyman, but I had missed the great reality of it all. But then I prayed. This morning I felt I must come to see you. You remember what you asked me when I came here first?"
"Yes, I remember," I said; "but please do not trouble about that now. You have your own sorrow to think of."
"I am ashamed," he went on. "I, a clergyman, set apart to give help, comfort, to those who might come to me, and yet when you asked me one of the greatest of all questions, I had no answer to give. I was dumb."
I waited in silence. I longed to know what was in the man's mind, but I felt it would be sacrilege to ask him questions then. I could see that he had been passing through deep waters, that the billows had gone over his head. He was no longer the ecclesiastic, no longer the man he had believed himself, set apart simply because a bishop's hands had been laid upon his head. He had seen beneath the mere conventions of his faith, he had got to the heart of things, or, at least, he had tried to get there.
"I am ashamed," he went on, "that I had no answer to give you. Even yet I have none to give. I am still in the dark, and yet--yet...."
He seemed like a man who saw something from afar, one who was stretching out lame hands of faith.