So when Deborah went to bed she thought she’d try to frame a prayer on that.
“Please, God, thank you for letting us really know he’s dead,” she said; but the next minute she was on her feet. It was no good, no good at all.
The God Almighty whom she had loved and praised and tried so hard to please from her earliest years seemed to have developed into a harsh and cruel tyrant.
“Father was so good and kind and patient,” she cried, “and he had to put up with such a lot that no one ever knew of. Oh, God, tell me why you’ve done it, tell me why.”
But God never answered, for God’s ways are not man’s ways, neither are His thoughts our thoughts.
Yet though all Deborah’s feelings revolted against God she dared not own to it—not even in her deepest heart.
“I’m very wicked,” she said earnestly. “It’s all for my good that father’s gone.”
Then something within her rose burning hot and strong. “I don’t care if it is for my good. I hate the thought of it being for my good. Why should he have to suffer for my good? I’m not worth it. If that’s the case it makes it all the worse to bear. Besides, it isn’t for my good. I feel all black and ugly and uncertain and half stunned.”
They brought her father’s body home and placed him in a better coffin, and then he was taken away to the churchyard in the North, to lie under the shadow of the great grand church, in the same grave with his wife.
It was terribly strange when they brought him back into the house. Maggie and Deborah were in bed, and Maggie was asleep.