"So it does," admitted Auna.
She took this great information to bed with her, and after many sleepless hours could endure it no longer but crept to her father. Jacob lay awake, for he suffered deep misery over his wife's illness, while still far from any guess that extreme danger had developed. He had discounted the conversation with Dr. Briggs, perceiving that the medical man desired to hurt him, and he supposed that with time Margery would grow stronger again, as she had after previous periods of weakness. It was not yet a year since he had driven her away from him, and he could not believe that she had sunk beyond hope of rising again to health within so short a time. But troubled he was, for the ultimate reconciliation seemed no nearer. Christmas approached and he considered if at that date he might endeavour to break down the opposition. His thoughts again turned to Jane and Jeremy, then to Barlow Huxam himself. They had taken no notice of him at the wedding, but he had caught Mr. Huxam's eye and, though the postmaster looked away instantly, there had been no active enmity in his countenance. Jacob thus dawdled on the brink of sleep, unhappy enough, careworn enough, clinging to such shadowy hopes as rolled from time to time uppermost in the welter of thought.
Then came Auna and he lighted his candle, tucked her into bed and listened to her.
Once started the girl could not stop until she had told everything.
"Peter's lied and I'd sooner lie with Peter than keep my word with grandmother, and if the devil can make one person talk, why shouldn't he make another? And mother didn't sound in the least like the devil, and grandmother did," wept Auna pursuing her own reflections, but throwing no immediate light upon the reason for her nocturnal visit.
Jacob calmed her down and so learned, little by little, what his daughter desired him to know. It was impressed upon him that Margery was actually at the point of death, that she had endeavoured to come to him and failed, because Mrs. Huxam had prevented it; and that she had now been taken away by her mother—but whither Peter was not told.
Leaving this cruel load of knowledge with her parent, and surprised in her heart to find confession had so greatly calmed her spirit, Auna went back to bed and soon slept peacefully; while Jacob rose and dressed and prayed for the first glimmer of the day that would launch him upon his quest. Enormous joy and profoundest grief clashed within him. A great hope dawned with the morning: that he and Margery might yet come together and that her body's salvation lay with him.
No bird had broken silence and only the sleepless river purred under a clear, white heaven as he rode out. Above him the morning star shone, like a nail of gold on a field of ivory, and lifting his heart to the hills round about him, Jacob found his mood calm, patient, inexorably determined. He had never thought to wield such a weapon as Auna had now put into his hands; but no adverse power could stand against it, for it came direct from Margery herself. She had striven to reach him and failed. Now it was his turn.