Aura, accustomed to look at Nature with clear eyes, and utterly untouched by conventional conclusions, felt a wellspring of sympathy rise up in her heart. Such a pretty baby, too, as it had been! More than once she had paused in passing to watch it and wish that she too had so delightful a plaything, thinking that with so abiding an interest in them, the hills and woods, the streams and flowers of her secluded valley would suffice for her life.
And now it was dead!
Her eyes, blurred with tears, made a misty halo round the cottage, tucked out of man's way in a little hollow among the hills. A desolate-looking little cottage, gardenless, fenceless, a mere human habitation set down beside a spouting spring, which day and night, night and day, splashed on in high-pitched, feeble, querulous iteration.
As she came up to it a black shadow showed on the doorstep, and, through the mist of her unshed tears, she recognised it as the figure of a man. It was, indeed, the Reverend Morris Pugh coming away from consolation. He paused at the sight of her, as any man well might, and over his keen Celtic face swept a wave of enthusiastic approval. His hat was off, his smile shone out brilliantly.
"Excuse me," he said, "I am the minister, and this is kind indeed; those beautiful lilies, they will surely comfort the poor mother, and teach her to trust in the mercy of Him who considers the flowers of the fields--it--it is a Christian act." There were almost tears in his voice.
Aura looked at him and smiled.
"But I am not a Christian. I brought them for the baby," she said simply.
Morris Pugh's eyes narrowed. "I am sorry; and they can do no good to the child. God has taken him. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. Gwen has to learn her lesson, poor child."
"You mean,"--Aura's face had grown a little pale,--"that the child's death is--is a punishment?"
"It is done in love--the Lord loveth whom He chasteneth," he replied gently.