[CHAPTER IX.]
ARTHUR ARRIVES AT MIDDLETHORPE.
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for.
Margaret Grey was sitting in her garden. It was a warm day. A faint haze, born of the vapor, paled the deep blue of the sky; not a breath of wind stirred the languid foliage of the trees; the flowers were bathed in light and color; through a gap in the trees came the glimmer of the sea, and faintly on the still air rose the murmur of lulling waves—scarcely waves, perhaps only movement, stir, the manifestation of ocean's ceaseless life. It was a day to rejoice in—a day when the pulses quicken and the heart is glad with unconscious, unreasoning gladness; when lovers look into one another's eyes and creep more closely together; when children laugh and sing, and even the dumb creatures seem to rejoice in being.
In her face was no sense of gladness. She sat under the trees, a book in her hand, a shawl wrapt closely round her shoulders.
Every particle of color had left her face, even her lips were pale. The golden coronal of hair with which Nature had endowed her seemed to throw a ghastly shade over her face. It looked unnatural, like the glory of youth when its life and gladness have gone by. Only her eyes retained their beauty, for through their mournful wistfulness, their sometimes wild eagerness, the beautiful soul still shone, and in the week of hope, of beauty, of life itself, that soul was learning, slowly and painfully, it is true, but learning still, the lesson that, consciously or unconsciously, all must learn,—submission to the Supreme Will first and above all; not the mild sentimental "Thy will be done" of which hymnists and sermon-coiners discourse so glibly, nor even that "grace of patience" which her solicitor had recommended her to seek as a panacea for all her ills, but a something far above and beyond these—a something that, perhaps, only those who have suffered keenly can ever know—the laying down of self-will altogether, the recognition, through sorrows and contradictions manifold, of a Divine Love
"Shaping the ends of life."
A book was in Margaret's hand, but she did not often look at it, at least not for long. There seemed to be a disturbing cause at work that prevented her from fixing her attention on anything but the absorbing anxiety which held her.
It was toward the afternoon of the long day, and she had been sitting there since early morning waiting and watching. From time to time she would take out her watch and consult it, and once she pressed her hand to her side, murmuring, "Patience, patience! My God, shall I ever learn it?"