The family must not be disgraced. But she must not let the servants know what she was doing. They must not find that anything was amiss with the master. Surely the Lord would hear and all might yet be well in spite of the awful young woman that had arrived, apparently to remain.

So she scuttled away to Miss Lavinia’s sunny south bedroom and locked the door.

Downstairs, Patterson Greeves gave his guest a chair and began to pour out curses against God.

Bannard listened a moment, head up, a startled, searching, almost pitying look in his eyes, then he rose with an air of decision.

“Look here, Greeves, you can’t expect me to sit quietly and listen while you abuse my best Friend! I can’t do it!” And he turned sharply toward the door.

Patterson Greeves stared at his guest with surprise and a growing sanity and apology in his eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” he said brusquely. “I suppose God must be that to you or you wouldn’t be in the business you are. I hadn’t realized that there was anybody with an education left on earth that still felt that way, but you look like an honest man. Sit down and tell me how on earth you reconcile this hell we live in with a loving and kindly Supreme Being.”

“You don’t look as if you are in the mood for a discussion on theology to do you any good now,” answered the younger man quietly. “I would rather wait until another time for a talk like that. Is there anything I can do for you, friend, or would you rather I got out of your way just now?”

“No, stay if you don’t mind my ravings. I have an idea you’d be a pretty good friend to have and I’ve been hard hit. The fact is, I suppose I’ve been a good deal of a fool! I married again. A woman who was utterly selfish and unprincipled. We’ve been divorced for years. Now suddenly our daughter is thrust back upon me, a decree of the court I’d utterly forgotten! She arrived without warning, and she’s the most impossible specimen of young womanhood I’ve ever come across! If a loving God could ever—! What are you smiling about, man? It’s no joke I’m telling you!”

“I was thinking how much you remind me of a man I have been reading about in the Bible. Jehoram is his name. Ever make his acquaintance?”

“Not especially,” answered Greeves coldly, with evident annoyance at the digression. “He was one of those old Israelite-ish kings, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, a king, but he blamed God for the results of his own actions.”

“Mm! Yes. I see! But how am I to blame for having a daughter like that? Didn’t God make her what she is? Why couldn’t she have been the right kind of a girl? How was I to blame for that?”

“You married a woman whom you described as utterly selfish and unprincipled, didn’t you? You left the child in her keeping during these first formative years. What else could you expect but that she would be brought up in a way displeasing to yourself?”

The scientist took three impatient turns up and down the room before he attempted to answer.

“Man! How could I know? Such a thing wasn’t in my thoughts! I insist it was a dastardly thing to wreak vengeance on me in this way. No, you can’t convince me. This thing came from your God—if there is such a being. I’ve been watching and waiting through the years for a turn in my luck to prove that the God I’d been taught loved me had any thought toward me. But this is too much. Why should I wait any longer? I know! God, if there is a God, is a God of hate rather than love.”

“Jehoram’s exact words,” said the minister. “This evil is of the Lord. What should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

“Exactly!” said Greeves. “Don’t you see? Jehoram was a wise man. I respect him.”

“But he found he was mistaken, you know. Wait till ‘tomorrow about this time’ and perhaps you, too, will find it out. God’s purposes always work out—”

Patterson Greeves wheeled around and looked sharply at his visitor.