But the sick girl started up, crying, "Oh, not as a father! Not that! My father shut his door upon me. My child's father cast him off. If it could only have been 'as a mother'—"
"Rosalie, it is! For, as if that was not enough, the dear Lord says: 'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.'"
"Does it say that?... Is it true?... 'As one—whom—his mother comforteth!' Oh, my mother would have comforted me! She would have taken me—sinful though I was—to her arms! She would have—"
She closed her eyes and lay still. Then they saw her lips move.
"'As one—whom—his mother—comforteth.'"
Mrs. Pennybacker motioned them silently to go.
They reached the lower hall before either spoke.
Then Margaret said, not raising her eyes to his, "Richard, if God can so forgive, may not we?"
He was silent so long that she looked up at him in wonder. His face was gray.
She opened her lips to ask him if he were ill, but at that moment something in his look palsied the words. Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. Her breath was shut off. An instant, horrible enlightenment had fallen upon her. Then,