‘Rénée,’ Madeleine called to her in tones which were full of love—of yearning love that longed to help her child. ‘Rénée, of what thinkest thou now in the evening silence? Of the difficult ways we have trodden? or of those we yet must tread? Shall our prayer to our Father this night begin with thankfulness? or with pleading for yet more of His help? Come here to me, Rénée, and let me hear thy voice.’
The girl turned and came to her side. The listless mood had lifted, and there was a sense of surpressed emotion in her gait, in her voice, and her very hands, as she stretched them out to Madeleine.
‘Is there ever an answer, mother?’ she said.
‘An answer?’
‘Aye, to these prayers of ours? And to all the sighs and burden of prayer that has gone up from the valleys these centuries past? Does He hear us at all, our God? or are the places of His dominion too wide for Him to have thought to spare for the narrow shelters where the Vaudois have tried to hide from the spoiler and oppressor? Look there, mother! see where the head of that mountain lifts itself into the skies; it is the same, always the same, silent and cold and cruel, though our forefathers were hunted across its ridges in the past years, and we are now creeping wearily towards its feet. It cares nothing. It smiles in the sun or it frowns in the tempest, and heeds not Savoyard, nor Frenchman, nor Vaudois! Mother, is it not like this Power that we implore?—this Power that is deaf to our cries—indifferent, though we His servants are dying here on His earth?’
There was no reply to this outpouring of long pent-up emotion. Madeleine drew the girl’s figure close to her side, and laid her forehead against the throbbing breast. A faint wind sighed amongst the pine boughs, and a far-off rustle and dull roll told of the passage of a distant avalanche. Rénée shivered.
‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,’ repeated Madeleine, the fervent words coming distinct and brave, although her lips were trembling.
