y outside the
fencing-philosophy of the French-trained swordsman. At the age of
fifteen the boy was too good for the man who had been the best that
Aldershot had known, who had run a _salle d'armes_ for years, and who
was much sought by ambitious members of the Sword Club.

The Sword, from the day of that newly vivid dream, became to the boy
what his Symbol is to the religious fanatic, and he was content to sit
and stare at it, musing, for hours.

The sad-eyed, sentimental lady encouraged him and spoke of Knights,
Chivalry, Honour, _Noblesse Oblige_, and Ideals such as the nineteenth
century knew not and the world will never know again.

"Be a real and true Knight, sonny darling," she would say, "and live
to _help_. Help women--God knows they need it. And try to be able to
say at the end of your life, 'I have never made a woman weep'. Yes--be
a Knight and have 'Live pure, Speak true, Right wrong' on your shield.
Be a Round Table Knight and ride through the world bravely. Your dear
Father was a great swordsman. You may have the sword down and kiss it,
the first thing every morning--and you must salute it every night as
you go up to bed. You shall wear a sword some day."

(Could the poor lady but have foreseen!)

She also gave him over-copiously and over-early of her simple,
fervent, vague Theology, and much Old and New Testament History, with
the highest and noblest intentions--and succeeded in implanting a deep
distrust and dislike of "God" in his acutely intelligent mind.

To a prattling baby, _Mother_ should be God enough--God and all the
angels and paradise in one ... (but he had never known a mother and
Nurse Beaton had ever been more faithfully conscientious in deed than
tenderly loving in manner).

She filled his soul with questionings and his mouth with questions
which she could not answer, and which he answered for himself. The
questions sometimes appalled her.

If God so loved the world, why did He let the Devil loose in it?

If God could do _anything_, why didn't He lay the Devil out with one
hand?

If He always rewarded the Good and punished the Bad, why was Dearest
so unhappy, and drunken Poacher Iggulsby so very gay and prosperously
naughty?

He knew too that his dead Father had not been "good," for he heard
servant-talk, and terrible old "Grandfather" always forgot that
"Little Pitchers have Long Ears".

If God always answered devout and faith-inspired prayer, why did He
not

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