She considered this.
"I could greatly wish you were right," she said, exhibiting a mild and almost pensive mood which was foreign to her. "I've had my suspicions once and again. It's dangerous, even for a woman of my age to sit with her hands in her lap, and know that if she rings a bell, another will come to wait upon her."
"You've been ill and had to be waited upon; besides we figured it all out: we knew that our new life would embrace rest and time for our innocent happiness."
"We must be sleepless in well-doing, however, or else we may go down."
"Our life seems to be emptied out, I grant that," he answered, "There's not so much to it as there was, and light things—like gardening and reading books and so on—can't fill the gap."
"No," she said. "Where there's a hole in your life, the first person ready and willing to fill it is the devil. You talk about 'innocent happiness,' and yet all experience goes to show that happiness is doubtfully innocent at best. I've never felt too sure that God put the longing for happiness in us. Security's better than happiness. In fact there's no happiness, rightly so called, without it. And that thought is making me suffer a good deal. And physic's no use against fear."
Mr. Huxam scratched his head.
"I don't much like what you're saying," he replied. "If I thought the villa residence was coming between us and the work of the Holy Ghost——"
He regarded the prospect blankly and Judith made no effort to dull its gloomy proportions.
"Come and drink tea," he said. "We know where to trust, and it's no good getting our tails down at our age. We've faced life and its many bitters up till now, and it would be a fantastical come-along-of-it if we failed under the reward of well-doing. Who sent this house, tell me that?"