First happiness, then vengeance, then atoning suffering and self-abnegation, had been looked for as the life of his spirit's life. In that hour of awful sweetness they all fell off from him. God looked down into the man's heart; God was what, all unconsciously to itself, that heart had been seeking, and there was a great calm.
Sweetly the daughter of his affections had sung to him that evening about the Crucified; to the man of the world her hymn had been an idle tale; now all was changed. In the great stillness of God's calm upon his heart he was able to listen more truly.
Bowing his head, the stricken man wept as the Gospel-story in its simple beauty surged in upon his heart. He had often reasoned about it. Calmly and coolly he had torn to shreds the arguments which men weaker but better than himself had brought to bear upon its truth. In this transcendent moment reasoning was not—it could not be.
True, in the craving need of his own heart, in the sudden, awful revelation of his spirit's darkness, there he read its truth, and like a little child he wept before its unspeakable beauty and pathos.
L'Estrange could never have told how long the time was that he passed on his knees before the open window looking out upon the snow. It was like a dream, but when he rose the white dawn was beginning to rise over the mountains.
The spasms had left him; he scarcely dreaded them now, for the mental struggles that had rent his very being had merged into a great calm. But as he shut the window and tried to cross the room his knees trembled and he staggered strangely.
Weakness as of a little child seemed to have come upon him, and weariness too—a blessed weariness. He threw himself down upon the bed, and for the time forgot all his woes in sleep.