"Er—excuse me. Is any one ill? I fancied I heard cries—"
"Thank you. I am not ill. I am crying to God. Thank you all the same. Good-morning."
The healing power of the Church of England as by law established stops short at saner souls than mine. He skedaddled with Pilate gesture down the garden path. He had flushed when I used the word God.
Thus in prayer and madness and reading of the Word I panned out the weeks till Christmas. Once or twice I sought to recover the ancient Rapture of the Lord's Presence. But at the approaching moment a voice always intervened: The Great Happiness is coming back to you, but in some other way. He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is Love. No man hath seen God at any time. But when perfect love for another human soul shall be perfected in you, then God, more rapturously than at Jordan, will enter your soul, and dwell within you for ever.
What other way? It could only be Christmas.
Christmas came, announced by the calendar but by no other outward sign, unless it was that Sister Briggs left before instead of after dinner. The silence was stranger, more complete than ever. Through all the afternoon and evening I read, to prevent myself hoping. As I turned over pages of print, staring uncomprehendingly, one question absorbed all my being: I did not consciously think of it, for it was myself, all of myself, and the brain cannot think of the soul: Can love then bridge the grave?
Suddenly, late in the afternoon, as dusk was turning to darkness, an insane notion stormed my brain, which woke at once to feverish activity.
I had only Aunt Martha's word for it. Her information came certainly from Uncle Simeon, Uncle Simeon was a liar, a cur, a cruel scoundrel. He had invented that Robbie was dead, had lied to Aunt Martha, knowing that she would convey the lie to me, knowing how it would afflict me. Robbie was alive, alive! Why had it not struck me before? My heart fainted with hope. I prayed God that he would make me unconscious till midnight, for I did not know how I could live through those waiting hours.
Live somehow I did. There was even time for Doubt to raise his unwearying head. He was dead after all: what reason had Uncle Simeon had to lie, who could never have really divined what Robbie was to me? And if he were dead, Oh Christ, was it possible he could come to me?
After supper I went upstairs to bed. There was a bright moon. I pulled the curtains wide from the window that the room might be filled with moonlight as the Torribridge room eleven years before.