"
"Thank you," said Beatrice, "I will. Why here we are at home; I must go
and put Effie to bed."
And here it may be stated that Geoffrey's advice was not altogether
thrown away. Beatrice did try looking at the question again, and if
Faith did not altogether come back to her at least Hope did, and "the
greatest of these, which is Charity," had never deserted her. Hope came
slowly back, not by argument probably, but rather by example. In the sea
of Doubt she saw another buoyed up, if it were but on broken pieces of
the ship. This encouraged her. Geoffrey believed, and she--believed in
Geoffrey. Indeed, is not this the secret of woman's philosophy--even,
to some extent, of that of such a woman as Beatrice? "Let the faith or
unfaith of This, That, or the other Rabbi answer for me," she says--it
is her last argument. She believes in This, or That, or some other
philosopher: that is her creed. And Geoffrey was the person in whom
Beatrice began to believe, all the more wholly because she had never
believed in any one before. Whatever else she was to lose, this at least
she won when she saved his life.
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