“You can't set your evidences against my counter-evidences! You can't logically maintain that a few uneducated men are to have more weight than all the united experience of mankind.” Never would she so gladly have believed in the doctrine of immortality as now, yet with characteristic honesty and resoluteness she set herself into an attitude of rigid defense, lest through strong desire or mere bodily weariness she should drift into the acceptance of what might be, what indeed she considered to be error. But to her surprise, half to her disappointment, Brian did not even mention the evidences. She had braced herself up to withstand arguments drawn from the five hundred brothers, but the preparation was useless. “I believe in the resurrection,” said Brian, “because I cannot doubt Jesus Christ. He is the most perfectly lovable and trustable being I know, or can conceive of knowing. He said He should rise again, I believe that He did rise. He was perfectly truthful, therefore He could not mislead; He KNEW, therefore He could not be misled.” “We do not consider Him to be all that you assert,” said Erica. “Nor do His followers make one inclined to think that either He or His teaching were so perfect as you try to make out. You are not so hard-hearted as some of them--” She broke off, seeing a look of pain on her companion's face. “Oh, what am I saying!” she cried in a very different tone, “you who have done so much--you who were always good to us--I did not indeed mean to hurt you, it is your creed that I can't help hating, not you. You are our friend, you said so long ago.” “Always,” said Brian; “never doubt that.” “Then you must forgive me for having wounded you,” said Erica, her whole face softening. “You must remember how hard it all is, and that I am so very, very miserable.” He would have given his life to bring her comfort, but he was not a very great believer in words, and besides, he thought she had talked quite as long as she ought. “I think,” he said, “that, honestly acted out, the message intrusted to me ought to comfort your misery.” “I can't act it out,” she said. “You will begin to try,” was Brian's answer; and then, with a very full heart, he said goodbye and left his Undine sitting by the fire, with her head resting on her hands, and the words of her mother's message echoing in her ears. “It is only love that can keep from bitterness; love is stronger than the world's unkindness.”