Fleda was not, as Mr. Carleton had feared she would
be, at all alienated from him by the discovery that
had given her so much pain. It wrought in another
way, rather to add a touch of tender and anxious interest
to the affection she had for him. It gave her
however much more pain than he thought. If he
had seen the secret tears that fell on his account
he would have been grieved; and if he had known of
the many petitions that little heart made for him—he
could hardly have loved her more than he did.
One evening Mr. Carleton had been a long while pacing
up and down the deck in front of little Fleda’s
nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to any
end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset,
the sky without a cloud except two or three little
dainty strips which set off its blue. The ocean
was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of
waves that seemed to have nothing to do but sparkle.
The sun’s rays were almost level now, and a
long path of glory across the sea led off towards his
sinking disk. Fleda sat watching and enjoying
it all in her happy fashion, which always made the
most of everything good, and was especially quick in
catching any form of natural beauty.
Mr. Carleton’s thoughts were elsewhere; too
busy to take note of things around him. Fleda
looked now and then as he passed at his gloomy brow,
wondering what he was thinking of, and wishing that
he could have the same reason to be happy that she
had. In one of his turns his eye met her gentle
glance; and vexed and bewildered as he was with study
there was something in that calm bright face that
impelled him irresistibly to ask the little child
to set the proud scholar right. Placing himself
beside her, he said,
“Elfie, how do you know there is a God?—what
reason have you for thinking so, out of the Bible?”
It was a strange look little Fleda gave him.
He felt it at the time, and he never forgot it.
Such a look of reproach, sorrow, and pity, he
afterwards thought, as an angel’s face might
have worn. The question did not seem to
occupy her a moment. After this answering look
she suddenly pointed to the sinking sun and said,
“Who made that, Mr. Carleton?”
Mr. Carleton’s eyes, following the direction
of hers, met the long bright rays whose still witness-bearing
was almost too powerful to be borne. The sun
was just dipping majestically into the sea, and its
calm self-assertion seemed to him at that instant
hardly stronger than its vindication of its Author.
A slight arrow may find the joint in the armour before
which many weightier shafts have fallen powerless.
Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever no more from that time.
Chapter XII
He borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman,
and swore he would pay
him again when he was able.—Merchant
of Venice.
One other incident alone in the course of the voyage
deserves to be mentioned; both because it served to
bring out the characters of several people, and because
it was not,—what is?—without
its lingering consequences.
