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Osmond gave up his brief midday rest, snatched a hasty lunch at a
thirdrate restaurant, finished his parish visits sooner than
usual, and reached the little house in Guilford Terrace in time to
share the worst part of her waiting. He found her hard at work as
usual, her table strewn with papers and books of reference.
Raeburn had purposely left her some work to do for him which he
knew would fully occupy her; but the mere fact that she knew he had
done it on purpose to engross her mind with other matters entirely
prevented her from giving it her full attention. She had never
felt more thankful to see Charles Osmond than at that moment.
When your whole heart and mind are in Hyde Park, how are you to
drag them back to what some vindictive old early Father said about
the eternity of punishment? she exclaimed, with a smile, which
very thinly disguised her consuming anxiety.
They sat down near the open window, Erica taking possession of that
side which commanded the view of the entrance of the culdesac.
Charles Osmond did not speak for a minute or two, but sat watching
her, trying to realize to himself what such anxiety as hers must
be. She was evidently determined to keep outwardly calm, not to
let her fears gain undue power over her; but she could not conceal
the nervous trembling which beset her at every sound of wheels in
the quiet square, nor did she know that in her brave eyes there
lurked the most visible manifestation possible of haggard, anxious
waiting. She sat with her watch in her hand, the little watch that
Eric Haeberlein had given her when she was almost a child, and
which, even in the days of their greatest poverty, her father had
never allowed her to part with. What strange hours it had often
measured for her. Agelong hours of grief, weary days of illness
and pain, times of eager expectation, times of sickening anxiety,
times of mental conflict, of baffling questions and perplexities.
How the hands seemed to creep on this afternoon, at times almost to
stand still.
Now, I suppose if you were in my case you would pray, said Erica,
raising her eyes to Charles Osmond. It must be a relief, but yet,
when you come to analyze it, it is most illogical a fearful waste
of time. If there is a God who works by fixed laws, and who sees
the whole maze of every one's life before hand, then the particular
time and manner of my father's death must be already appointed, and
no prayer of mine that he may come safely through this afternoon's
danger can be of the least avail. Besides, if a God could be

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