At last, however, one November day, he found Fernando sitting up in bed, and Lance, perched on the table, talking so earnestly as not to perceive his entrance, until Fernando broke upon his words: 'There! it's no use!'
'Yes, it is,' cried Lance, jumping down. 'O Fee, I am glad you are come; I want you to tell him the rights of it.'
'Tell him that it is all the devil's doing, and the men he has got on his side; and that it was the very thing our Saviour came for to set us free, only everybody won't,' said Lance clinging to his brother's hand, and looking up in his face.
'That's about right, Lance,' said Felix; 'but I don't quite know what you are talking about.'
'Just this,' said Fernando. 'Lance goes on about God being merciful and good and powerful--Almighty, as he says; but whatever women may tell a little chap like that, nobody can think so that has seen the things I have, down in the West, with my own eyes.'
'Felix!' cried Lance, 'say it. You know and believe just as I do, as everybody good does, men and all.'
'Yes, indeed!' said Felix with all his heart.
'Then tell me how it can be,' said Fernando.
Felix stood startled and perplexed, feeling the awful magnitude and importance of the question, but also feeling his own incompetence to deal with it; and likewise that Wilmet was keeping the tea waiting for him. He much wished to say, 'Keep it for Mr. Audley,' but he feared to choke the dawning of faith, and he likewise feared the appearance of hesitation.
'Nobody can really explain it,' he said, 'but that's no wonder. One cannot explain a thunderstorm, but one knows that it is.'
'Yes; that's another word. But you can't get any further. God made electricity, or whatever it is, and when you talk about explaining it, you only get to something that _is_. You know it _is_, and you can't get any further,' he repeated.
'Well, that's true; though science goes beyond you in America.'
'But no searching finds out _all_ about God!' said Felix reverently. 'All we know is that He is so infinitely great and wise, that of course we cannot understand why all He does is right, any more than a private soldier understands his general's orders.'
'And _you--you_,' said Fernando, 'are content to say you don't understand.'