“If he kills you, Will, he must then fight me.” And Brune’s face grew red and hot, and his eyes flashed angry fire.
“That is as it should be; only keep your anger at interest until you have lads to take your place. We mustn’t leave Ambar-Side without an Anneys to heir it. I fancy your wrath won’t get cold while it is waiting.”
“It will get hotter and hotter.”
“And whatever happens, don’t you be saving of kind words to Aspatria. The little lass has suffered more than a bit; and she is that like mother! I couldn’t bide, even if I was in my grave, to think of her wanting kindness.”
The next morning Will went away. Brune would not talk to Aspatria about the journey. This course was a mistake; it would have done her good to talk continually of it. As it was, she was left to chew over and over the cud of her mournful anticipations. She had no womanly friend near her. Mrs. Frostham had drawn back a little when people began to talk of 75 “poor Miss Anneys.” She had daughters, and she did not feel that her friendship for the dead included the living, when the living were unfortunate and had questionable things said about them.
And the last bitter drop in Aspatria’s cup full of sorrow was the hardness of her heart toward Heaven. She could not care about God; she thought God did not care for her. She had tried to make herself pray, even by going to her mother’s grave, but she felt no spark of that hidden fire which is the only acceptable prayer. There was a Christ cut out of ivory, nailed to a large ebony cross, in her room. It had been taken from the grave of an old abbot in Aspatria Church, and had been in her mother’s family three hundred years. It was a Christ that had been in the grave and had come back to earth. Her mother’s eyes had closed forever while fixed upon it, and to Aspatria it had always been an object of supreme reverence and love. She was shocked to find herself unmoved by its white pathos. Even at her best 76 hours she could only stand with clasped hands and streaming eyes before it, and with sad imploration cry,—
“I cannot pray! I cannot pray! Forgive me, Christ!”