17
Recalling the song as she sat back in the alcove of her bed motionless, keeping the brightness of her room at its first intensity, Miriam remembered that it had brought her a moment when the flower-filled drawing-room had seemed to be lit, from within herself, a sudden light that had kept her very still and made the bowls of roses blaze with deepening colours. In her mind she had seen garden beyond garden of roses, sunlit, brighter and brighter and had made a rapturous prayer. She remembered the words ... God.... I’m not afraid of you. Look at the gardens ... and something had smiled through the lit gardens exultantly, and Mrs. Kronen’s voice had raged through the room like a storm, “Ai-me-moi!...” and Mr. Corrie’s eyes were strange and hard with shadows.... He knew, in some strange way men knew there were gardens everywhere, not always visible. Women did not seem to know....
The letter on her tray was a sort of response to her prayer.