She looked out upon the dark-gray lines of the church tower,

square and straight in the centre of the view, cutting against

the deep blue transparent depths beyond, into which she gazed,

and felt that she might gaze for ever, seeing at every moment

some farther distance, and yet no sign of God! It seemed to her

at the moment, as if the earth was more utterly desolate than if

girt in by an iron dome, behind which there might be the

ineffaceable peace and glory of the Almighty: those never-ending

depths of space, in their still serenity, were more mocking to

her than any material bounds could be--shutting in the cries of

earth's sufferers, which now might ascend into that infinite

splendour of vastness and be lost--lost for ever, before they

reached His throne. In this mood her father came in unheard. The

moonlight was strong enough to let him see his daughter in her

unusual place and attitude. He came to her and touched her

shoulder before she was aware that he was there.

'Margaret, I heard you were up. I could not help coming in to ask

you to pray with me--to say the Lord's Prayer; that will do good

to both of us.' Mr. Hale and Margaret knelt by the window-seat--he looking up,

she bowed down in humble shame. God was there, close around them,

hearing her father's whispered words. Her father might be a

heretic; but had not she, in her despairing doubts not five

minutes before, shown herself a far more utter sceptic? She spoke

not a word, but stole to bed after her father had left her, like

a child ashamed of its fault. If the world was full of perplexing

problems she would trust, and only ask to see the one step

needful for the hour. Mr. Lennox--his visit, his proposal--the

remembrance of which had been so rudely pushed aside by the

subsequent events of the day--haunted her dreams that night. He

was climbing up some tree of fabulous height to reach the branch

whereon was slung her bonnet: he was falling, and she was

struggling to save him, but held back by some invisible powerful

hand. He was dead. And yet, with a shifting of the scene, she was

once more in the Harley Street drawing-room, talking to him as of

old, and still with a consciousness all the time that she had

seen him killed by that terrible fall.

Miserable, unresting night! Ill preparation for the coming day!

She awoke with a start, unrefreshed, and conscious of some

reality worse even than her feverish dreams. It all came back

upon her; not merely the sorrow, but the terrible discord in the

sorrow. Where, to what distance apart, had her father wandered,

led by doubts which were to her temptations of the Evil One? She

longed to ask, and yet would not have heard for all the world.




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