About noon she was better. She called Margaret and said to her:
“Margaret, dear, I should like to tell you one thing that annoys me very much.”
“What is it, dear Lady Emily?”
“That man haunts me. I cannot bear the thought of him; and yet I cannot get rid of him. I am sure he is a bad man. Are you certain he is not here?”
“Yes, indeed, my lady. He has not been here since the day before yesterday.”
“And yet when you leave me for an instant, I always feel as if he were sitting in the very seat where you were the moment before, or just coming to the door and about to open it. That is why I cannot bear you to leave me.”
Margaret might have confessed to some slighter sensations of the same kind; but they did not oppress her as they did Lady Emily.
“God is nearer to you than any thought or feeling of yours, Lady Emily. Do not be afraid. If all the evil things in the universe were around us, they could not come inside the ring that he makes about us. He always keeps a place for himself and his child, into which no other being can enter.”
“Oh! how you must love God, Margaret!”
“Indeed I do love him, my lady. If ever anything looks beautiful or lovely to me, then I know at once that God is that.”