He held out his hand to her abruptly; there was even a glimmer of approval in his look. “Miss Thorold, you have convinced me,” he said. “I have misjudged you, and I will make amends.”
It was not an apology. There was not a shadow of regret in his words, scarcely even of kindness, yet, oddly, they sent a rush of feeling to her heart that swept away her self-control. She stood speechless, fighting her emotion.
“Enough!” said the Bishop, turning aside. “I must go to prepare for the service. Perhaps you would like to walk in the garden and find refreshment there. I will ask you later to resume your secretarial duties.”
He was gone. She heard the door shut definitely behind him, and the garden with its old-world peace seemed to call her. Storm-tossed and weary, she went out into the warm sunlight, thanking God with her tears.
CHAPTER VII
FAIR PLAY
The deep tones of the Cathedral organ thrilled across the quiet garden. There came the chanting of boys’ voices, and then a silence. She wandered on through the enchanted stillness, past the cloister arch, and so by winding paths down to the haunted water whither her Fate had led her on that summer night that seemed so long ago.
Her tears had ceased. She walked like a nun, her hands folded before her. The pain in her heart was wonderfully stilled. She was not thinking of herself any more, but of Tetherstones, and the grim secret that had so suddenly been bared to her gaze. She saw it all now—or nearly all—that skeleton which they kept so closely locked away, and she marvelled at her blindness. To have lived among them, and to have seen so little!
The gentle white-haired mother with her patient silence—the chattering girls darkly hinting yet never revealing—the sombre prematurely-aged man who ruled them all, grinding the stones for bread, bitterly trampling all his ambitions underfoot, refusing to eat of the tree of life lest he should fail in that to which he had set his hand! And little Ruth—little Ruth—who had lived and died among them in her innocence—the child whom none had wanted but all had loved,—the child whose passing had wrung those terrible tears from the man who had never seemed to care!
Yes, she held the key to it all—that agony of despair, that extremity of suffering. The Bishop’s question: “You are sure it was an accident?” The old man’s halting enquiries—his relief at her reply—and then later his wandering words that had awakened such horror within her! His three-fold vow! What had he meant by that? And the place of sacrifice—the place of sacrifice! Again she seemed to hear the mumbled words. And her mind, leaping from point to point, caught detail after detail in a stronger light.
Now the picture of that terrible night stood out vividly before her. That shot in the moonlight, and her own conviction of tragedy! The coming of little Ruth to her deliverance—the banging of the door! Only Grandpa! The child’s words rushed back upon her. Only Grandpa! He had come in after those shots, had gone to the kitchen. How she remembered his weary, dragging gait! And she had fled—and she had fled! Again little Ruth’s words came back to her: “Oh, please come!” Ah, why had she not stayed with Ruth that night?