The rector, who reduced most wretchedness to terms of dollars and cents,
of impending bills and small deprivations found himself at a loss.
"I am sure you are wrong," he objected, rather feebly.
Delight eyed him with the scorn of nineteen for fifty.
"I wonder what you would do," she observed, "if mother just lay around
all day, and had her hair done, and got new clothes, and never thought
a thought of her own, and just used you as a sort of walking
bank-account?"
"My dear, I really can not--"
"I'll tell you what you'd do," she persisted. "You'd fall in love with
somebody else, probably. Or else you'd just naturally dry up and be made
a bishop."
He was extremely shocked at that, and a little hurt. It took her some
time to establish cheerful relations again, and a very humble apology.
But her words stuck in the rector's mind. He made a note for a sermon,
with the text: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband
also, and he praiseth her."
He went quietly into the great stone building and sat down. The organist
was practicing the Introit anthem, and half way up the church a woman
was sitting quietly.
The rector leaned back, and listened to the music. He often did that
when he had a sermon in his mind. It was peaceful and quiet. Hard to
believe, in that peace of great arches and swelling music, that across
the sea at that moment men were violating that fundamental law of the
church, "Thou shalt not kill."
The woman turned her head, and he saw that it was Audrey Valentine.
He watched her with kindly, speculative eyes. Self-reliant, frivolous
Audrey, sitting alone in the church she had so casually attended--surely
that was one of the gains of war. People all came to it ultimately. They
held on with both hands as long as they could, and then they found their
grasp growing feeble and futile, and they turned to the Great Strength.
The organist had ceased. Audrey was kneeling now. The rector, eyes on
the gleaming cross above the altar, repeated softly: "Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our
enemies; that we, being armed with Thy defense, may be preserved
evermore from all perils."
Audrey was coming down the aisle. She did not see him. She had, indeed,
the fixed eyes of one who still looks inward. She was very pale, but
there was a new look of strength in her face, as of one who has won a
victory.