“My darling, my darling!” he whispered. “I didn’t know how happy I could be till I woke this morning. And it’s all real and true. I was almost afraid till I saw you that it was a dream or a wish of mine.”
He raised himself and bent over her, and their lips met in a long kiss of passion purified by tenderness.
He stood there for a moment, till the son and heir awoke and began to howl, bringing the nurse into the room, who incontinently dismissed Tom.
He went back to his room and drew up the blind, letting a yellow splash of sunlight on to the floor. In the bushes below the window a thrush sang out of the fulness of his heart the wonderful repeated song which he always knew, and which no one else will ever learn. Through the soft air swept the first swallows of the new summer, flying high over the shrubs and trees in the garden. Tom looked out for some minutes, sniffing in the clear morning air, when from the village began the church bell for early communion. A sudden impulse, an irresistible need to thank some one for his happiness, as strong and urgent as his need the night before of commending May to some protection stronger than man, made him dress quickly and walk down to the church.
It was almost empty. Ted and his father were at the altar, and a few parishioners were kneeling in the body of the church. The Ante-communion Service was nearly over, and Mr. Markham was reading the Prayer for the Church Militant as Tom entered. He went to the pew where he had knelt the night before, and soon the blessed command fell on his ears—
“Draw near with faith, and take this holy sacrament to your comfort.”
What did it mean? How could he draw near with faith? What was faith? And the grave, solemn voice from the altar answered him, that faith was to know that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Was this, then, the answer to his strange unformulated desire to thank some one for his happiness? Did it all come from this, from the quiet, still church, from the memory of that sacrifice which sanctified love and all that is beautiful?
He had wanted to vow a hecatomb of oxen the night before; he had longed to be able to promise something to any power which would give him what he had seen in May’s room that morning, and instead of that he himself was bidden to the feast, and with the others he went up and knelt at the table of Christ.
Tom waited outside the church for Ted and his father, in order to give them news of May, and then turned homewards again. The desire to seek aid which had prompted him to come to the church the night before had given place to the desire to give thanks. He had come one step nearer to the unknown God; he approached Him, not as a power, but as a benefactor. The words of the great thanksgiving had thrilled him through and through. “We praise Thee, we bless Thee.”