Even so felt Minnie Bodkin when she had put her secret thought into words. The speaking of the words could not hasten their fulfilment. But yet it seemed to her as if, in saying them, she had signed some bond—had formally renounced even the solace of a passing fancy that might flit, fairy-bright, into the dimness of her life; had given up the object of her silent passion by a covenant that was none the less stringent because its utterance was simple and commonplace. She was silent, breathing quickly, and lying back against the cushions after the short speech that had cost her so much.
Powell remained quite still for a few seconds. Then suddenly removing the screening hand, the almost intolerable lustre of his eyes broke upon the startled woman opposite to him, as he said, with a strange smile, "She is safe. She is happy for Time and Eternity. She has been ransomed with a price."
"I knew that you would allow no selfish feeling to sway you," returned Minnie, after an instant's pause. "I was right in feeling sure that you would generously consider her happiness before your own."
But yet she was not satisfied with the result of her well-meant attempt to free Powell's mind from the anxiety concerning Rhoda, which she believed to have been preying on it. There was something strangely unexpected in his manner of receiving it. Presently Powell looked at her again with a sad, sweet smile. The wild blaze had gone out of his eyes. They were soft and steady as they rested on her now.
"You are a just and benevolent woman," he said. "You have been faithful. You came hither with the charitable wish to comfort me. I am not ungrateful. But the old trouble has long been dead. I did wrestle with a mighty temptation on her account. My heart burnt very hot within me; the fleshy heart, full of deceit and desperately wicked. But that human passion fell away like a garment, shrivelled and consumed by the great fire of the wrath of God, that put it out as the sun puts out the flame of a taper at noonday. Neither," he went on, speaking rather to himself than to Minnie, "am I concerned for that young soul. No; it is safe. It has been ransomed. I have had answer to prayer, and heard voices that brought me sure tidings in the dimness of the early morning; but these things are hard to be understood. Sometimes, even yet, the old, foolish yearning of the heart seems to awake and stir blindly within me. When you named that name—no lips had uttered it to my ears for many months—there seemed to run a swift echo of it through all the secret places of my soul! But I heard as though one dead should hear the beat of a familiar footfall above his grave."
The dusk of evening, the low thrilling tones of the preacher's voice, the terrible pallor of his face, with its great glittering eyes shining in the feeble rays of the candle, contributed, not less than the strangeness of his words, to oppress Minnie with a sensation of nervous dread. She was not afraid of David Powell, nor of anything that she could see or touch. But vague terrors seemed to be floating in the air.
She started as her eye was caught by a deep, mysterious shadow on the wall. The fire had burnt low, and shed only a dull red glow upon the hearth. The ticking of the old clock appeared to grow louder with every beat, and to utter some ominous warning in an unknown tongue.
All at once a sound of voices and footsteps in the passage broke the spell. The fire cast only commonplace and comprehensible shadows. The clock ticked with its ordinary indifferent tone. The preacher's pale face ceased to float in a mystical light against the dark background of the curtainless window. The everyday world entered in at the kitchen door in the shape of Mr. Diamond and Rhoda Maxfield.
Of the four persons thus unexpectedly assembled, Minnie was the first to speak.
"What, Rhoda!" she cried, in a quiet voice, which revealed much less surprise than she felt. "What brought you here at this hour?"