By degrees the enterprise was patronized more freely. New pupils dropped in, and were usually so well satisfied that they did not drop out again. Grace gave all the credit to Anice, but Anice knew better than to accept it. She had been his “novelty” she said; time only would prove whether her usefulness was equal to her power of attraction.
She had been teaching in the school about three weeks, when a servant came to her one night as she sat reading, with the information that a young woman wished to see her.
“A fine-looking young woman, Miss,” added the girl. “I put her into your own room, as you give orders.”
The room was a quiet place, away from the sounds of the house, which had gradually come to be regarded as Miss Barholm's. It was not a large room but it was a pretty one, with wide windows and a good view, and as Anice liked it, her possessions drifted into it until they filled it,—her books, her pictures,—and as she spent a good deal of her time there, it was invariably spoken of as her room, and she had given orders to the servants that her village visitors should be taken to it when they came.
Carrying her book in her hand, she went upstairs. She had been very much interested in what she was reading, and had hardly time to change the channel of her thought. But when she opened the door, she was brought back to earth at once.
Against the end wall was suspended a picture of Christ in the last agony, and beneath it was written, “It is finished.” Before it, as Anice opened the door, stood Joan Lowrie, with Liz's sleeping child on her bosom. She had come upon the picture suddenly, and it had seized on some deep, reluctant emotion. She had heard some vague history of the Man; but it was different to find herself in this silent room, confronting the upturned face, the crown, the cross, the anguish and the mystery. She turned toward Anice, forgetting all else but her emotion. She even looked at her for a few seconds in questioning silence, as if waiting for an answer to words she had not spoken.
When she found her voice, it was of the picture she spoke, not of the real object of her visit.
“Tha knows,” she said, “I dunnot, though I've heerd on it afore. What is it as is finished? I dunnot quite see. What is it?”
“It means,” said Anice, “that God's Son has finished his work.”
Joan did not speak.