'In ignorant haste, eager to atone, I was loath to believe what the cross at your neck told, with its three crosses inscribed, and your sole name "Christian," and on the reverse a date. Like a rebuff to me then it was, not realising that I was to work out an atonement more full and complete. I have tried. O Christian, it will not be in vain!
'All these years your conscience has been in my keeping; you have freely rendered to me account of thoughts and deeds, good and ill; you have shared no secret, no promise apart from me. To-day you tell me that your conduct, your conscience, you will have in your own sole charge.
'My boy, you do no wrong; this is no reproach, though I cannot but grieve and fear. But know you must now, that in you I present to God my great contrition; in you I dare look for His favourable grace made manifest; a human soul seeks in you to see on earth salvation.'
Christian shrank before the passionate claim. His sense of raw, faulty youth was a painful shame, confronted by the bared remorse of this austere woman, whom his heart held as mother and saint. 'O God, help us,' he said, and his eyes were full of tears.
'Ay, Christian,' she said, 'so I prayed last night.'
'Mother,' he said, awed, 'what did you know? how did you know?'
'Nothing, nothing, only great fear for you, and that sprung of a dream. Often the wind and the waves have crept into my sleep and stolen you from me. Last night I dreamed you lay dead, and not alone; by you lay my little one, a small, white, naked shape crouched dead at your side. I woke in great fear for you; it would not pass, though the night was still; it grew rather, for it was a fear of worse than death for you. Yes, I prayed.'
Through his brain swept a vision, moonlighted, of the fair witch's haunt, and her nude shape dominant as she condemned him. The omniscience of God had been faint sustenance then compared with this feeble finite shadow of the same that shot thrilling through the spirit of the boy. So are we made.
Outside a heavy step sounded, and a voice hailed Christian. 'Here, boy, lend a hand.'
He swung out into the clear world. There Giles, empty-handed, made for the rear linhay, and faced round with a puckered brow.