She went downstairs then, with some dread of all the questions and all the explanations before her, but with her mind made up. She had passed a crisis during the night. She and despair had met at close quarters; and such a conflict makes its indelible mark. No one can "go down into hell" and be just the same afterwards. Either he must have found God "there also,"—a finding which deepens and strengthens;—or have succumbed utterly, which, I suppose, retards that discovery to which in the end we humbly believe "all souls come".
The preacher's wife felt anything but victorious that morning; but she would never run away from consequences again.
She met her father-in-law on the stairs. He had been "more than a bit scared," he said, when he had found that they knew nothing about her at the parson's.
"Did you go all that long way?" cried Meg. "I am very sorry!"
"You went all that long way too, eh? Was your father better?" he asked.
"I might not see him," said Meg. And Mr. Thorpe refrained from further questions, but put his big hand on her head, with a fatherly kindness that was grateful to her.
"Well, well; it's a hard world!" said he. "But I am glad to see ye safe; as glad as if ye were my own daughter."
And Meg never guessed how indignant he was with her "own father" at that moment.
Tom was bustling in and out of the kitchen, and Meg sat down on the long bench that was always pushed up to the table for meals, and began playing with the salt, which had been left out.
She wished that Molly had been Mr. Thorpe's property!