The moment, being supreme in its way, was not one to leave room for outward excitement, for flutter and trepidation. Anna rose now from her place with perfect calmness, and bent to take the little, laughing child by the hand, while she went to call the others together. Gregory had turned away slightly, and with his arms crossed over his breast was leaning hard against the rugged wall of the cliff, his head thrown back against it, his face set, his whole aspect as of some granite figure of heroic mould, carved there in relief. Anna heard a sound like a groan break from his lips, and turning back, with an irresistible impulse, laid her hand, light as a leaf, upon his arm.
From head to foot Gregory trembled then.
“Don’t,” he said sternly, under his breath.
“What is it?” asked Anna, confused at his sudden harshness.
“It is the end,” he said, with low distinctness and the emphasis of finality.
Then, only then, did Anna waken to perceive that what in that brief moment of joy she had taken for glory, was only shame and loss and undoing, unless smothered at the birth.
An inarticulate cry broke from her then, so poignant, although low, that the little child, pulling at her dress, began to cry piteously. She stooped to comfort him, gave him again the hand which she had laid on Gregory’s arm, then, turning, walked slowly away.
Gregory made no motion to detain her or to follow, but stood as she left him, braced against the rock. Anna gathered her little flock, and they hastened down the hill in a gay procession, with the waving branches of April bloom, and the merry voices of the children. Only Sister Benigna, as she walked among them, little Judith noticed, was white and still.
CHAPTER XXXV
Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung,