CHAPTER X.
O lover of my life, O soldier saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death.
"I thought I'd ha' to die without this," said Barnabas. "Now—I am content."
He was sitting on the bench under the narrow barred window, which was high above their heads. The winter sun was setting through a lifting haze of fog; it threw a faint red gleam on the stone wall, and touched the heads of the man and woman who were making love in the condemned cell. Is there any place, short of the grave, where men have never made love?
"Hush!" said Meg. "We have met life, not death, to-day."
The last occupant of this place had been hanged, the next poor wretch would be waiting execution. The thought struck coldly on her.
"Oh, Barnabas! I have never feared death before," she cried; "for I did not understand what life means." And the preacher, looking at her, knew she spoke truth. This vivifying passion had sent a stronger tide through her veins. Happiness, new-born, was in her face, and the fresh wonder at that everlasting miracle which changes our water into wine.
"All the world seems new!" cried Margaret. "But other people have to die. And some of them never know what this means; and some, knowing, leave it all behind. Barnabas, to-morrow you will be free, and I shall be by your side, and all the happiness that is ours shall make us strong to help. I will help as I never did before!—Oh, I am so sorry for them."
"Ay, sweetheart; ye may well be that," he said.