Was there anything beyond? Was it really God who had taken her father from her in an instant, or was it a blind force that had killed him, striking in the dark? If that was the answer, what was there left?
The sensitive girl shivered. Perhaps no bodily danger could have sent that chill through her. It began in her head and crept quickly to her hands and then to her feet, for it was not a fear of death that came upon her, nor of anything outward. To lose life was nothing, if there was heaven beyond; pain, torture, martyrdom would be nothing if God the good was standing on the other side. All life was but one long opportunity for sinning, and to lose it while in grace was to be safe for ever; so much she had been taught and until now she had believed it. But what loss could be compared with losing God? There were unbelievers in the world, of course, but she could not understand how they could still live on, and laugh, and seek pleasure and feel it keenly. What had they to fill the void of their tremendous loss? Surely, not to believe was not to hope, to be for ever without hope was the punishment of the damned, and to live hopeless in the world was to suffer the pains of hell on earth.
She felt them now. 'The pains of hell gat hold upon me,' she moaned, heedless of the priest's recitation. Darkness rose like a flood-tide all round her and she shut her eyes to keep it out, for her will fought for hope, as her body would have struggled against drowning. It was no longer a mere question that assailed her, but imminent destruction itself.
It passed away this first time and she grew calm again. Not to believe was sin, and against all sin, prayer and steadfast will must be availing. The will, she had; she could remember many prayers, too, and say them earnestly, and was thankful for her memory which held orisons in readiness for every circumstance of daily duty or spiritual life. From her childhood she had found a gentle delight in the Church's liturgies and hymns, and now, as she prayed with the forms of language she had always loved, habit brought back belief to lighten her darkness. She still felt the bitter cold of the outer night that was very near her; but she kept it off now, and warmed her poor little soul in the fervour of her praying till she felt that she was coming again to life and hope.
She opened her eyes at last and saw that nothing was changed. The Knight of Malta slept on, as he was to sleep for ever; the priests knelt motionless before the black altar; their quiet, monotonous voices went on with the Penitential Psalms as priests had said them for at least fifteen centuries. Angela listened till she caught the words and then began to respond again, and once more her thoughts followed broken threads.
Surely, by all she had been taught, her father was in heaven already. It was not possible that any human being should obey every written and unwritten ordinance of his religion more strictly than he had done ever since she could remember him. He had been severe, almost to cruelty, but he had been quite as unyieldingly austere in dealing with himself. He had fasted rigidly, not only when fasts were ordered, but of his free will when others only abstained, he had never begun a day without hearing mass nor a week without confession and communion, he had retired into spiritual retreat in Lent, he had prayed early and late; in his dealings with men, he had not done to others what he would not have had them do to him, he had not said of his neighbour what he would not have said of himself, he had wronged no man; he had given much to charity and more to the 'imprisoned' head of the Church. He had so lived that no confessor could justly find fault with him, and he had never failed to pray for those in whom he discerned any shortcoming.
Who would condemn such a just person? Not God, surely. Therefore when his life had ended so suddenly that morning, his soul had been taken directly to heaven.
Such righteousness as his had venial sins to expiate, what hope was there left for men of ordinary earthly passions and failings?
It was a consolation to think of that, Angela told herself, now that the tide of darkness had ebbed back to the depth of terror whence it had risen; and when at last the long dream slowly dissolved before returning reality the lonely girl's eyes overflowed with natural tears at the thought that her father's motionless lips would never move again, even to reprove her, and that she was looking for the last time on all that earth still held of him who had given her life.