“I hev tole ye that afore,” she added sternly.
He was still silent. So sacred was that disregarded petition of his that, despite the publicity of its preferment, its free unrestrained fervors, he could hardly discuss it, even with her.
“Ye hain’t hed no advices from the Lord,” she argued. “Ye hev been prayin’ fur the power constant, ever since ye got religion, an’ the Lord don’t take no notice o’ ye.”
A shadow was on his face, pain in his eyes. Any one more merciful than the proud woman who loved him, and who would fain conserve his pride, might have pitied the sudden revulsion from the enthusiastic pleasure in the sacred themes of the sermon so late upon his lip and firing his eye—which she accounted merely the triumphs of Absalom Tynes—to this abasement and sorrow and prescient despair.
“I kin wait on his will,” he said humbly.
“Waal, ye better wait in silence,” Euphemia declared, near to the brink of tears,—angry and wounded and scornful tears.
“‘Ask an’ ye shall receive, seek an’ ye shall find,’” he quoted pertinently, with that upbraiding look in his eyes which hurt her for his sake, and which she resented for her own.
“How long! how long!” she cried impetuously. “Will ye spen’ yer life askin’ fur what’s denied ye, seekin’ fur what’s hidden from ye? The Lord’s got nuthin’ fur ye, Owen, an’ by this time ye oughter hev sensed that.”
“Then I kin pray fur the grace ter take denial from his hands like a rich gift,” he declared, his face kindling with an illumined, uplifted look.
“Oh, yer prayin’ an’ prayin’! I’m plumb wore out with it!” she cried, stopping still in the road; then realizing the advance of the others she walked on hastily, and with the affectation of a careless gesture she took off her bonnet and swung it debonairly by the string, lest any emotional crisis be inferred from her abrupt halt. “Owen Haines,” she said, with sudden inspiration, “ye air deceived by Satan. Ye ain’t wantin’ the power ter preach the gospel ter advance the kingdom. Ye want the power ter prance ez prideful ez a peacock in the pul-pit, like Absalom Tynes an’ them other men what air cuttin’ sech a dash afore the yearth ez keeps ’em from keerin’ much how the nangels in heaven air weepin’ over ’em.”