It lasted for several minutes, that paroxysm of weeping. It was the pent misery of hours finding vent at last. All she had suffered, all the humiliation, the bitterness of desecrated love, the utter despair of her soul, was in those tears. They shook her being to the depths. They seemed to tear her heart asunder.
At last in broken whispers she began to speak. Still with those scalding tears falling between her words, she imparted the whole miserable story; she bared her fallen pride. There was no other person in the world to whom she could thus have revealed that inner agony, that lacerating shame. But Mrs. Lorimer, the despised, the downtrodden, was as an angel from heaven that day. A new strength was hers, born of her friend's utter need. She held her up, she sustained, her, through that the darkest hour of her life, with a courage and a steadfastness of which no one had ever deemed her capable.
When Avery whispered at length, "I can never, never go back to him!" her answer was prompt.
"My dear, you must. It will be hard, God knows. But He will give you strength. Oh Avery, don't act for yourself, dear! Let Him show the way!"
"If He will!" sobbed Avery, with her burning face hidden against her friend's heart.
"He will, dearest, He will," Mrs. Lorimer asserted with conviction. "He is much nearer to us in trouble than most of us ever realize. Only let Him take the helm; He will steer you through the storm."
"I feel too wicked," whispered Avery, "too—overwhelmed with evil."
"My dear, feelings are nothing," said the Vicar's wife, with a decision that would have shocked the Reverend Stephen unspeakably. "We can't help our feelings, but we can put ourselves in the way of receiving help. Oh, don't you think He often lets us miss our footing just because He wants us to lean on Him?"
"I don't know," Avery said hopelessly. "But I think it will kill me to go back. Even if—if I pretended to forgive him—I couldn't possibly endure to—to go on as if nothing had happened. Eric—my first husband—will always stand between us now."
"Dear, are you sure that what you heard was not an exaggeration?" Mrs.
Lorimer asked gently.