'It will not be your fault, dear, if she does; that is one comfort.'
A chance shot may hit the quarry truer than the best aim, and Gwen turned quickly towards him with a little cry.
'Dan! you will prevent it, won't you? You are so clever, and, really, it is for my sake as well as for his. For my sake you will, won't you?'
'I do everything for your sake--you know that,' he answered simply.
Gwen stared at him as if she had seen a ghost. Perhaps she did; the ghost of a dead boy who had said those very words to her in that very room not a month ago.
'Gwen! what is it?' came Dan's voice sharply, anxiously. 'What is the matter?--tell me.'
Yes! The past was repeating itself. He had begged her to tell him also, and in her selfishness, her fear, she had yielded, and put a needless pain into his life at its close. She would not yield again; in denial lay her duty.
'Nothing is the matter,' she echoed, 'save this--that you say we can do nothing. I do not believe it. God will never let these lies prevail--He will never let my poor lad's memory suffer--never, never!'
If her mind could have been taken to pieces and strictly analysed as she gave utterance to this burst of real feeling, it would have afforded fruitful study to a whole college of psychologists. Yet the mental condition described as 'sitting in a clothes-basket and lifting yourself up by the handles' is quite common to humanity of both sexes, though women are as a rule the greater adepts in the art. Mrs. Boynton was really a firm believer in a Providence which was bound by many promises to help the virtuous, and George, therefore, had a claim to its assistance. The fact that Providence might possibly have appointed her as its instrument was a totally different affair, and did not interfere with the confused good faith and good feeling which made her voice thrill as she went on fervently, in answer to Dan's doubtful yet admiring face.
'Oh, you mayn't think so--you perhaps don't believe as I do, Dan, in a Providence "which shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may"--you don't----'