One night she stopped sharply in the middle of her prayer.
"Your soul, my dear, is not praying with me. The Lord tells me that at this moment your mind is on fleshly things. Look at the eyes of 'ee! You're hankering after earthly glory, after high station in this worldly life."
Then, after a moment's pause, shrewdly: "Has any one ever proposed to 'ee to give 'ee another station in life?"
"No. What do you mean, Grandmother? Who?"
"Nothing. Maybe no one." And she resumed her prayer.
I was more careful in pretending to listen, but ceased to listen at all. I was trying—with the conscientious, artificially lashed-up desperation of the egotistical soul that sees for a moment its own nakedness—to visualize what the Stranger's misery and hunger must be like if by some wild chance ("It is so," God shouted in my heart) he loved me, not as I loved him, but as I loved Robbie. Ah no, it could not be. There is never a love like our own.
" ... Send her Thy love. For Jee-sus' sake. Aymen."