settin' 'ere all alone by me-self day in an' day out, just thinkin' it
all over--an' arstin'--an' waitin'--p'raps light was gave me 'cos I was
in such a little place an' in the dark. But I ain't pore in spirit now.
Lor', no, yer can't be when yer've on'y got to believe. 'An' 'itherto
ye 'ave arst nothin' in my name; arst therefore that ye may receive an'
yer joy be made full.'"

"Am I sitting here listening to an old female reprobate's disquisition
on religion?" passed through Antony Dart's mind. "Why am I listening? I
am doing it because here is a creature who BELIEVES--knowing no
doctrine, knowing no church. She BELIEVES--she thinks she KNOWS her
Deity is by her side. She is not afraid. To her simpleness the awful
Unknown is the Known--and WITH her."

"Suppose it were true," he uttered aloud, in response to a sense of
inward tremor, "suppose--it--were--TRUE?" And he was not speaking
either to the woman or the girl, and his forehead was damp.

"Gawd!" said Glad, her chin almost on her knees, her eyes staring
fearsomely. "S'pose it was--an' us sittin' 'ere an' not knowin' it--an'
no one knowin' it--nor gettin' the good of it. Sime as if--" pondering
hard in search of simile, "sime as if no one 'ad never knowed about
'lectricity, an' there wasn't no 'lectric lights nor no 'lectric
nothin'. Onct nobody knowed, an' all the sime it was there--jest
waitin'."

Her fantastic laugh ended for her with a little choking, vaguely
hysteric sound.

"Blimme," she said. "Ain't it queer, us not knowin'--IF IT'S TRUE."