It was an unusual idea for that time, and would scarcely have been asked but by an exceptionally tender-hearted parent. Agnes shook her head.
"O my darling, my darling! My little white dove!"
"My Lord," said Agnes tremulously, "it will not be for long."
"I know it. And then—I shall have nothing left to live for."
Agnes Marston was one of those shy, undemonstrative, yet deeply-feeling natures, to whom talking of any thing they feel deeply is all but impossible. The fervent souls who wear their hearts upon their sleeves never comprehend a nature like this. They always think them cold, impassive, unfeeling. Yet such have shown themselves capable of martyr death: and they beyond all others can live the martyr life.[#] The most suffering life, and the most saintly, is the life that has no outlet except towards God.
[#] I would fain take this opportunity of protesting against a very common misapprehension (as it appears to me) of a passage of Scripture, by which hearts have been made sad which I believe God would not have made sad. How often the fervent nature condemns the shy and silent with "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." If the latter cannot speak, it is assumed, it is because it cannot feel, or is only half-hearted; if love be in your heart, it must come out of your lips: Christ says so! But does Christ say so? Let the context be carefully examined, and it will be found that Christ says, not that whatever is felt in the heart will come out of the mouth—but that whatever does come out of the mouth must first have originated in the heart. I venture to submit that this passage does not deal with the counter-proposition at all: and that between the two there is as much difference as between saying all one thinks, and meaning all one says.
As she stood there by the river, listening to the soft lapping of the water against the bank, Agnes felt as though she could have given any thing to comfort that desolate man. Yet what could she say that might comfort him? To quote God's Word, for a woman, and especially in English, would put herself in jeopardy: but she did not mind that, if it would do him any good. Agnes did not realise that the Duke had been educated by a Lollard stepmother, herself the daughter of a martyr of Jesus Christ.
"'Youre liif is hidde with Crist in God.'" She made the quotation very tremblingly. Amazed indeed she was at the style of its reception. The Duke's hand fell softly on her head as if in blessing, and—most astonishing of all—the quotation went on.
"'For whanne Crist schal apere youre liif, thanne also ye schuln apere with him in glorie... Where is not male and female, ... larlarus and scita, bonde man and fre man; but alle thingis and in alle thingis Crist.' I thank you, heartily, my good maid. Aye, and methinks it runneth next,—'As the Lord forgaf to you, so also ye.' It is well. I count that shall last us both for this little while. 'Alle thingis and in alle thingis, Crist.'"
Agnes was silent. She had taken a text: if her hearer would preach the sermon to himself, it was far better than any comment on her part.