She then made her a bed on the floor with a quantity of wood shavings, and some shawls she had brought, and when she had lain down upon it, kneeled beside her, and covering her face with her hands, tried to pray. But it seemed as if all the misery of humanity was laid upon her, and God would not speak: not a sound would come from her throat, till she burst into tears and sobs. It struck a strange chord in the soul of the wife to hear the maiden weeping over her. But it was no private trouble, it was the great need common to all men that opened the fountain of her tears. It was hunger after the light that slays the darkness, after a comfort to confront every woe, a life to lift above death, an antidote to all wrong. It was one of the groanings of the spirit that can not be uttered in words articulate, or even formed into thoughts defined. But Juliet was filled only with the thought of herself and her husband, and the tears of her friend but bedewed the leaves of her bitterness, did not reach the dry roots of her misery.
Dorothy's spirit revived when she found herself once more alone in the park on her way home the second time. She must be of better courage, she said to herself. Struggling in the Slough of Despond, she had come upon one worse mired than she, for whose sake she must search yet more vigorously after the hidden stepping-stones—the peaks whose bases are the center of the world.
"God help me!" she said ever and anon as she went, and every time she said it, she quickened her pace and ran.
It was just breakfast-time when she reached the house. Her father was coming down the stair.
"Would you mind, father," she said as they sat, "if I were to make a room at the Old House a little comfortable?"
"I mind nothing you please to do, Dorothy," he answered. "But you must not become a recluse. In your search for God, you must not forsake your neighbor."
"If only I could find my neighbor!" she returned, with a rather sad smile. "I shall never be able even to look for him, I think, till I have found One nearer first."
"You have surely found your neighbor when you have found his wounds, and your hand is on the oil-flask," said her father, who knew her indefatigable in her ministrations.
"I don't feel it so," she answered. "When I am doing things for people, my arms seem to be miles long."
As soon as her father left the table, she got her basket again, filled it from the larder and store-room, laid a book or two on the top, and telling Lisbeth she was going to the Old House for the rest of the day, set out on her third journey thither. To her delight she found Juliet fast asleep. She sat down, rather tired, and began to reflect. Her great fear was that Juliet would fall ill, and then what was to be done? How was she to take the responsibility of nursing her? But she remembered how the Lord had said she was to take no thought for the morrow; and therewith she began to understand the word. She saw that one can not do any thing in to-morrow, and that all care which can not be put into the work of to-day, is taken out of it. One thing seemed clear—that, so long as it was Juliet's desire to remain concealed from her husband, she had no right to act against that desire. Whether Juliet was right or wrong, a sense of security was for the present absolutely necessary to quiet her mind. It seemed therefore, the first thing she had to do was to make that concealed room habitable for her. It was dreadful to think of her being there alone at night, but her trouble was too great to leave much room for fear—and anyhow there was no choice. So while Juliet slept, she set about cleaning it, and hard work she found it. Great also was the labor afterward, when, piece by piece, at night or in the early morning, she carried thither every thing necessary to make abode in it clean and warm and soft.