“There was a time,” saith Blanche, in that dreadful whisper, which seemed me hoarser than ever, “He would—have saved me—then. But I would not. Now—too late. Thanks! Go—good-bye.”
And then Mother called me.
I think that hoarse whisper will ring in mine ears, and those awful eyes will haunt me, till the day I die. And this might have been my portion!
No word of all this said I to Mother. As Aunt Joyce saith, she picks up everything with her heart, and Father hath alway bidden us maids to spare her such trouble as we may—which same he ever doth himself. But I found my Lady Stafford in the little chamber, and I threw me down on the floor at her feet, and gave my tears leave to have their way. My Lady always seemeth to conceive any in trouble, and she worketh not at you to comfort you afore you be ready to be comforted. She only stroked mine head once or twice, as though to show me that she felt for me: until I pushed back my tears, and could look up and tell her what it were that troubled me.
“What ought I to have said, my Lady?” quoth I.
“No words of thine, Milisent,” she made answer. “That valley of the shadow is below the sound of any comfort of men. The words that will reach down there are the words of God. And not always they.”
“But—O my Lady, think you the poor soul can be right—that it is too late for her?”
“There is only One that can answer thee that question,” she saith. “Let us cry mightily unto Him. So long as there is life, there may be hope. There be on whom even in this world the Lord seems to have shut His door. But I think they be commonly hardened sinners, that have resisted His good Spirit through years of sinning. There is no unforgivable sin save that hard unbelief which will not be forgiven. Dear Milisent, let us remember His word, that if two of us shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done. And He willeth not the death of a sinner.”
We made that compact: and ever sithence mine heart hath been, as it were, crying out to God for poor Blanche. I cannot tell if it be foolish to feel thus or no, but it doth seem as though I were verily guilty touching her; as though the saving of me had been the loss of her. O Lord God, have mercy upon her!
Selwick Hall, February ye xxii.