Rowena hid her face in her hands, and then she looked up, her blue-grey eyes misty with tears.
"We'll work together," she said, taking her husband's hands in hers. "I feel, as I have told you before, that my time amongst Mrs. Burke's friends showed me their need, as I should never have seen it otherwise; and one can't help loving them all. I can't. I long to draw them into the golden sunlight of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. We'll use our home for that purpose, Hugh. You have made me very happy."
Only a few weeks afterwards Rowena was made happier still.
She had a long letter from Di Dunstan.
"DEAREST ROWENA,—"
"You shall be the first to receive my news. For I owe my happiness to you entirely. And looking back I bless the day when you first came into my life. I think of it now—Vi and I were curious to see you; Mrs. Burke had told us that she had seen a charming girl who 'viewed life with half-hidden laughter in her eyes.' I remember how we roared over that description of you, and then you came to lunch, and your friendly confiding mischievous eyes—how well I remember them!—they rested on me as if you liked me from the first minute you set eyes on me. And you weren't a bit shocked by our talk and slang. Well, reminiscences are rather fetching, aren't they? Now for my news: Hector Ross has actually proposed to me, and I have accepted him. Now honour bright, did you think that he was taken by your humble servant when we were at Kestowknockan? I thought if he was smitten by anyone it was by the young widow. But after you left, he and I got very pally. And somehow he has your faculty for expecting the best out of one, and knowing how to extract it, too. Not that I have any best, but one day when I said that horses satisfied every part of my soul and body he took me up in his quick way:"
"'Don't pretend your soul is as small as that, for I know it isn't.' Another day he asked me if I'd come with him to see a keeper who was very ill. 'But I'm not a sick-bed visitor,' I said. 'I run away from sickness always.'"
"'You aren't going to run away from it now,' he answered, 'for you've a warm heart and a woman's pity. I've seen you nurse a sick dog in my stable, and a man is worth more than a dog. You'll come along with me now, and we'll try between us if we can't give the old fellow a word of cheer, before he gets into the Dark Valley.' I was terrified, but off I went with him, and he told me how he'd been left guarding an empty trench one night with two dying men close to him, and how he'd repeated to them like a parrot, a speech he'd heard from a chaplain the day before. Can I tell you about that shepherd's hut? I'll try. Picture a dark little smoke-filled, smoke-dried hole and a low trestle bed by a peat fire, and a dog lying by it, and then an old blue-grey bony face looking up at us through the folds of a ragged plaid. Quite alone he was. A neighbour came across to him two or three times a day. And then, when I was just going to turn tail and run, what did the Whipper-in do but say in his clear, cheerful voice—'This lady has come to see you, McFarlane, and she'll read you a verse or two to comfort you.' With that he stuffed a little Testament into my hand which he produced out of his coat pocket. 'That's what the Padres always do,' he said."
"Imagine me, Rowena. I nearly went into hysterics, and then I thought to myself that I always was considered good at acting any part, and I would do the same now. And I opened the Testament and read the first words I came across. They actually seemed to interest him, but I was in such a state of bewilderment that I can't remember now what they were, and the old chap looked up in my face and thanked me quite gratefully, as if I'd given him a tenner! And then the Whipper-in sat down and talked to him like a father. He made me gasp—the things he said. He told me afterwards he had seen many a life flicker out in France, when there was nobody near to have a word with them, and then he said quite humbly, like a boy, 'And if I can't tell them all the orthodox doctrines of our Creed, I can just tell them to catch hold of the Hand that was pierced for them, and that wants to hold them safely.' I tell you, Rowena, he almost made me choke—the way he said it."
"Well, we were good friends till I came away, and I thought I had seen the last of him. And then a week ago he turned up in town and I happened to run across him in the open street. I was staying with the Clarkes—one of the girls was being married. He asked me with beaming eyes whether I would help him choose a few carpets for his house. Said he had meant to come down and see me at Vi's—for that was the only address I'd given him—and he told me his little aunt was ill of bronchitis, and she had only rugs on a polished floor in her bedroom and he wanted to carpet her room from corner to corner and with carpet 'three inches thick.' It was no good laughing at him. He was in dead earnest, and we went off together, and he ordered me about as if I were a two-year-old, and stood me lunch at the 'Carlton.' And then we chose his carpets, and the shopman, of course, alluded to me as his 'lady.' When we came out, we walked in the Park, and he said he wanted me as his 'lady' for life! I was quite bowled over. I am no young girl, and, as you know, I've had my disillusion, but there's something about him I can't resist. You feel he has been everywhere and done everything and knows the world as the majority of us don't know it, and yet he has come back as simple and fresh and believing as any boy. The War taught him, he says, some of the best lessons in life, and he is going to pass on his lessons to me. And I tested myself, Rowena, when he had gone. I said to myself, 'If he lost all his money to-morrow, and his horses, would you be happy married to him?' And I told myself that I would follow him round the world with only a crust between us! So I have no qualms or misgivings. Of course, Vi is enchanted. She's seen him and likes him and the wedding is coming off next June."
"So now my heart thumps madly when I realize that I shall be a close neighbour of yours. Only thirty or forty miles between us, isn't it? And his dear little aunt can stay with us, unless she would rather go back to her doll's house. The Whipper-in thinks she would like that best. Do you think I shall make him a good wife, Rowena? He is determined to make me a good woman. And I've come to the conclusion that the truly good people in this world must of necessity be the happiest, for they have the assurance and hope of a perfect life beyond the grave, and a very comforting one in this."
"So, so—well, you raked my soul fore and aft when you talked to me, so in simple words I tell you that I've taken hold of the Pierced Hand, and believe It will hold me safe through all Eternity."
"My love for always, my dear Shepherdess,"
"One of your grateful flock,"
"Di."
Rowena read this to her husband.
"I know she would not mind. It will show you that she is not so hard as we have thought her."
"I will never think anyone hard again," said General Macdonald gravely, when his wife had finished reading.
And then his eyes rested on her with peculiar satisfaction and trust.
"At least," he added, "I shall never think anyone too shallow, too frivolous, too worldly-minded, to be influenced for good by you, Rowena. I humbly hope I may catch some of your love and tolerance for your fellow-creatures as we journey on together."