Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/97

When the human mind suffers from a harassment of doubt it instinctively endeavours to relieve the pressure by thrusting its torment upon another. Geoffrey had no doubts as to the correctness of his position, and the argument in which he had just engaged seemed to him as elemental as might be the discussion of a flat earth. But with Eve it was otherwise, and consequently when she found Mr. Fletcher waiting for her on the verandah, she very shortly began to affect his serenity in a manner similar to that in which her own had been disturbed.

‘Do you never have doubts?’ she asked apropos of some dogmatic utterance of his.

‘Doubts are of Satan,’ replied Mr. Fletcher; ‘put them behind you.’

Eve caught at something fresh. ‘Is Satan a personage,’ she asked, ‘or merely an abstraction?’

‘Can you ask that question with the Bible before you?’

‘But does the Bible always mean what it says? Must we believe it all implicitly, no matter how incredible it may appear?’