"There is no armor but God," she said, in a clear voice. "'We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.'"
He bent and kissed her hand. She withdrew it and laid it on his head, smoothing the thick, dark hair.
"You carry one Gano burden that I pity you for: you think too much about life."
"Ah, and it doesn't bear being thought about?"
"But Val will help you there," she went on, ignoring the question. "All she asks is the wages of going on." She reached out a hand to the girl, who came and stood by her cousin. "Val hasn't the letter, but she has the spirit. Remember, you two, when you come in the modern way to pick flaws in the Faith, that if I wore stout armor, as you say, it was not of this world's forging. Remember, that I told you I could not have lived the half—no, nor the quarter part of my long life, if I had not been 'persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.'" She closed her eyes. "Now go and leave me, you two. I am tired."
Treading softly, Ethan went out of the room. Val watched beside her till the night-nurse came.
The next morning Mrs. Gano sent for the clergyman (through Emmie, saying nothing to the others), and took the Communion.
"It's a habit of mine," she told Ethan afterwards. "I always commune several times a year."
"Only at Easter and Christmas," Val told him privately, afterwards. "But she is angry if we seem to notice anything unusual."