During afternoon school, Mary’s neuralgia became so acute that she determined to go to the cottage for some painkiller, and having set her class a task, she put the eldest pupil-teacher in charged and slipped away.
A short-cut to the cottage was over a broken-down place in the schoolyard wall, through the cottage garden, and in by the kitchen door which stood open. Fingo whined as she passed, but she took no notice, being intent on the matter of relieving her pain. Gaining her room, she reached for the painkiller from a shelf and began to apply the medicament to her gums with the tip of her finger. At the same moment, she heard Sister Joanna going through the kitchen to the back door, and was on the point of getting up and making her presence known when the sound of Sister’s voice speaking to Fingo arrested her.
“What are you snivelling about, you dirty cur?”
Mary could hardly believe her ears. Not only the coarse words astonished her, but the indescribably vicious way in which they were spoken, the harsh voice so utterly unlike the genial tones she knew so well. The girl sat on her bed as though she had been glued there, and heard the rest of the sentence.
”—I’ve a good mind to settle your hash for you—only—” the threat remained unfinished. The speaker had evidently turned back into the kitchen and was moving about. Presently she went into the Oratory, and shut the door. Mary was meditating a stealthy flight, for without going into her own reasons she was suddenly averse to letting Sister Joanna know that she had heard the words addressed to Fingo, when the Oratory door was opened and Sister came back into the kitchen. She seemed to be busy at the drawer of the dresser, and next came the sound of a knife being sharpened on the doorstep. Afterwards there was a dead silence for two or three minutes. Then, in a curiously fierce whisper some words: “No—no—I mustn’t—I mustn’t—No! I must wait till to-morrow.”
A loud rap on the front door broke the sinister spell. Sister Joanna dropping something on the kitchen table left the kitchen, and Mary staying only long enough to hear a voice asking Sister to come at once to see Sarah Paton who was “taken bad,” crept out and made her escape by the back door. As she passed through the kitchen, she saw that the carving knife with a fresh edge to it lay upon the table.
When school was over at last, and the children gone, there was still much to be done, and it was dusk before Mary approached the house again, walking slowly, for she felt a strange reluctance to meet Sister Joanna. But the house was empty. Sister had not returned from her sick visit. Mary made the fire and put on the kettle for a cup of tea; then turned her attention to the matter of supper. Since Sarah Paton had first knocked on the door, no regular meal had been sat down to in the cottage; and after she had visited the larder, the bread-tin, and the egg-jar, Mary’s simple calculations told her that if she had eaten little during the two troubled days Sister Joanna had eaten absolutely nothing at all. Apparently another cup of herbal tea had been brewed and drunk, for the empty cup, giving out a faint peculiarly bitter odour, was on the table; herbal tea, however, is poor sustenance, and it behoved Mary to see about getting a good meal ready. The neck of mutton in the larder was two days’ old and no good to anyone but Fingo, but fortunately the butcher had left some stewing mutton that morning, and this Mary cut up and put into a saucepan with onions and a lump of butter, browned it over a fierce fire, added a cupful of cold water, and put it to simmer. Then she sat down to peel potatoes. She was going to make an Irish stew. As she sat there, her mind wrestled persistently with the problem of little Rosalie, and when she had finished the potatoes, she determined she would go into the Oratory and pray. She had often prayed for things, as the young do, with fervour and faith, and her prayers had sometimes been answered in a wonderful way. The thought of going to God, now, in the quiet house appealed to her. She stepped softly into the Oratory and kneeling down, not in her usual place but right before the altar, she prayed with all her heart that Rosalie might be found. When she had finished, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, so ardently and pleadingly like a child in trouble had she called upon God. Immediately her heart was lighter, her courage higher. It was as though she had passed a burden from her into other hands—very safe sure Hands.
As she rose, she felt a brittle, crunching sensation under her boot, and stooping picked out something from under the red and brown leaves of the rug, and a thrill of amazement ran suddenly through her. The chapel was by now so dark that she could only dimly see what it was she had found, but not for a moment did she mistake the familiar feel of a thing she had possessed all her life. It was her own little coral necklace! The necklace Rosalie was wearing when she disappeared!
No sound broke from the girl’s lips, but a cry went up from her heart at this strange answer to her prayer. She realised that if she had not gone to the altar step to pray, her foot would never have found the necklace. Bewildered, amazed, frightened as she was, she suddenly felt strong and secure,—God was at work.
As she opened the door that led back into the kitchen, lighted only by the flickering firelight, she collided heavily with someone, and her arm was gripped as by a hand of iron.