And she woke from her dream comforted and happier and lighter than she had ever been for months. But afterwards she thought about it very much.
“I wonder what that light was. I really wonder what it was. As soon as it shone on me I felt happy. I’ll go back into the forest again and find out.”
But she never went, neither did she dream of him again in any form.
“I want to go back again, I want to go,” she cried. “I want to find him and talk with him again, for I felt no pain when I awoke.”
CHAPTER XI
Then as the months passed by everything settled down into a more or less level state.
But in Deborah’s life two great gaps had been made—one the place left empty by her father, the other the place left empty by God.
Both had completely disappeared together, and she had no more power to recall the one than the other.
Not that any difference showed itself on the outside. She was still the same quiet, unobtrusive, uninteresting child, with the same bundle of infirmities and the same nervous dread of people and of things, which latter infirmity, however, only appeared now and then.
“It’s no good,” she would say at times after trying hard to pray. “I can’t do it. I haven’t the same interest in praying for myself. Besides, where’s the use?”