XXVI
A VERY FEW WORDS
It had been in the air all Saturday, but few believed the rumour until ten minutes to eleven next morning. At that hour and at that minute Long Stow was electrified by the measured ringing of a single bell—a bell hoarse with five years' rest and rust—a bell no ear had heard since the night of the fire.
Gwynneth was afield upon the upland, far beyond the church, a pitiful waverer between desire and indecision. Now she must go; and now she must not think of it. It was unnecessary, gratuitous, provocative, ostentatious, unmaidenly, immodest—and yet—both her duty and her desire. So the string of adjectives might be applied to her; they were no deterrent to a nature which hesitated often, but seldom was afraid. Gwynneth treated more respectfully the poignant query of her own consciousness: was she absolutely certain that she did not at all desire to show off like the saddler? She was not.
She did desire to show off, if it was showing off to honour openly the man whom she admired and wished others to admire. She gloried in the man's achievement, and possibly also in her own appreciation of it and him. That was her real point of contact with the saddler. But for Fuller there was the excuse of unconsciousness, and for Gwynneth there was not. So she read herself that Sunday morning, under an August sky without a fleck and a sun that drew the resin from those very pine-trees upon which the outcast had so often gazed. It was thereabouts that Gwynneth lingered, of self-analysis all compact. Then the hoarse bell began—came calling up to her from the clump of chestnuts and of elms—calling like a friend in pain . . .
Gwynneth reached church by way of the strip of glebe behind it and the gate into this from the lane, thus escaping the throng already gathered at the other gate. She saw nothing but the rude benches as she entered in; the last of these was too near for her; she shrank to the far end of it, close against the wall, and the bell stopped as she sank upon her knees. The beating of her heart seemed to take its place. Then there came a light yet measured step. It passed very near, with a subdued and subtle rustle, that might yet have meant one other woman. But Gwynneth knew better, though she never looked.
"I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."
Already the girl could not see; all her being was involved in an effort to suppress a sob. It was suppressed. There were no tears in the voice that so moved Gwynneth. How serene it was, though sad! It began to soothe her, as she remembered that it had done when she was quite a little girl. She was a little girl again: these five years fled . . . But oh, why had he chosen that sentence of the scriptures? Gwynneth looked at her book (for now she could see) and found that some of the others would have been worse.
At last she could raise her eyes; and there was Fuller in the very front; and not another soul.
But Gwynneth cared for nothing any more except the gentle voice that it was her pride to follow in the general confession, kneeling indeed, yet kneeling bolt upright in her proud allegiance.
A strange picture, the rude benches, the ragged walls; the east window still a chasm, the hot sun streaming through it down the aisle; and over all the blue cruciform of sky, broken only by the nodding plumes of the taller elms. And a congregation yet more strange—only Gwynneth and the saddler. But this did not continue. Gwynneth heard movements in the porch behind her, and presently a stumble on the part of one driven in by the press; but no voices; not a whisper; and ere-long he who had been forced in, tired of standing, came on tiptoe and occupied the end of Gwynneth's bench.