“If there were nought beyond, only!” she murmured; and her look and tone of dull misery sharpened into vivid pain. “If a man might die, and have done with it all! But to meet God! And ’tis no sweven, (dream) ne fallacy, this dread undeadliness (immortality)—it is real. O all ye blessed saints and martyrs in Heaven! how shall I meet God?”
“Is that holy Mary’s Son, Mother?”
“Ay.”
“Holy Mary will plead for us,” suggested the child. “She can alway peace her Son. But methought He was good to folks, Mother. Sister Christian was wont to say so.”
“To saints and good women like Sister Christian, may-be.”
“Art thou not good, Mother?”
The question was put in all innocence. But it struck the heart of the miserable mother like a poisoned arrow.
“Good!” she cried, again in that tone of intense pain. “I good? No, Maude!—I am bad, bad, bad! From the crown of mine head to the sole of my foot, there is nothing in me beside evil; such evil as thou, unwemmed (undefiled, innocent) dove as thou art, canst not even conceive! God is good to saints—not to sinners. Sister Christian—and thou, yet!—be amongst the saints. I am of the sinners.”
“But why art thou not a saint, Mother?” demanded the child, as innocently as before.
“I was on the road once,” said the woman, with a heavy sigh. “I was to have been an holy sister of Saint Clare. I knew no more of ill than thou whiteling in mine arms. If I had died then, when my soul was fair!”