"It may not. But I'm warned."
Jacob expressed no great regret, for the things that now entered his mind he could not, or would not, utter.
Mr. Huxam pursued his own grey thought.
"Sometimes it happens that these people who are overthrown by religion, by the dark will of their Creator, have got to be put away from their friends altogether; because too much religion, like too much learning, topples over the brain."
"Perhaps it's only conscience pricking her."
"In a lesser one it might be that; but to hear such a woman as her wondering in the small hours whether, after all, she is redeemed, that's not conscience—it's a breakdown of the machinery. 'Could I lose my own soul by saving Margery's?' she asked me once, and such a question of course means a screw loose."
Bullstone did not answer and Barlow presently feared that he might have said too much. He sighed deeply.
"Keep this from every human ear," he begged. "I may be wrong. There may be a high religious meaning in all this that will come to light. We must trust where only we can trust."
"You'll find where that is, if you live long enough and suffer long enough," was all the other answered.
A cheerful spirit marked the little celebration at Owley and, for the first time, Jacob held his granddaughter in his arms. He had brought a gift—a trinket of silver with a moonstone set in it—that he had purchased before their marriage for Margery.