Fight against it as he would, he could not stifle this new consciousness which had arisen within him. What had led him, he angrily wondered, to choose that particular place to wait in? What had made that child walk past? What had induced her to sing those particular words? Did that vague First Cause, in whom after a fashion he believed, take any heed of trifles such as those? He would never believe that. Only women or children could hold such a creed: only those who led sheltered, innocent, ignorant lives. But a man—a man who had just learned what the world really was, who saw that the weakest went to the wall, and might triumphed over right—a man who had once believed in the beauty of life and had been bitterly disillusioned—could never believe in a God who ordered all things for good. It was a chance, a mere unlucky chance, yet the child’s words had made it impossible for him to die in peace. As a matter of fact the sunset sky and fading light had suggested to the little one’s untroubled mind the familiar evening hymn with its graphic description of scenery, its beautiful word-painting, its wide human sympathies; and that great mystery of life which links us together, whether we know it or not, gave to the child the power to counteract the influence of Blanche Morgan’s faithlessness, and to appeal to one to whom the sight of that same sunset had suggested only thoughts of despair. A wild confusion of memories seemed to rush through his mind, and blended with them always were the welcome words and the quiet little chant. He was back at home again talking with the old pastor who had prepared him for confirmation; he was a mere boy once more, unhesitatingly accepting all that he was taught; he was standing in the great crowded Bergen church and declaring his belief in Christ, and his entire willingness to give up everything wrong; he was climbing a mountain with Blanche and arguing with her that life—mere existence—was beautiful and desirable. Looking back afterward on the frightful struggle, it seemed to him that for ages he had tossed to and fro in that horrible hesitation. In reality all must have been over within a quarter of an hour. There rose before him the recollection of his father as he had last seen him standing on the deck of the steamer, and he remembered the tone of his voice as he had said: “I look to you, Frithiof, to carry out the aims in which I myself have failed, to live the life that I could wish to have lived.”