"Not to-night, dear," Mona said quietly, stroking the thick brown hair. "When you are a little stronger, you shall tell me the whole story. To-night you must lie quite still and rest. I will take care of you."
It was a strange experience to sit there through the long hours, listening to the regular breathing of the young mother, the steady tick of the clock, and the occasional fall of a cinder from the grate. It seemed so incredible that this girl—this butterfly—had passed already, all frivolous and unprepared, through that tract of country which, to each fresh traveller, is only less new and mysterious than the river of death. A few months before, Mona had felt so old and wise, compared to that ignorant child; and now a great gulf of experience and of sorrow lay between them, and the child was on the farther side.
More and more heavily the burden of the sorrows of her sex pressed on Mona's heart as the night went on; more and more she longed to carry all suffering women in her arms; more and more she felt her unworthiness for the life-work she had chosen, till at last, half unconsciously, she fell on her knees and her thoughts took the form of a prayer.
CHAPTER XLII.
QUESTIONINGS.
When Mona first began her medical career, she was actuated partly by intense love of study and scientific work, partly by a firm and enthusiastic conviction that, while the fitness of women for certain spheres of usefulness is an open question, medical work is the natural right and duty of the sex, apart from all shifting standards and conventional views. Her repeated failure "took the starch out of her," as she expressed it, but I do not think that she ever for more than a moment seriously thought of giving up the work, when she laid it aside for a time; and her promise to Mr Reynolds was made, less out of gratitude to him than from a stern sense of duty. But now the cold hard lines of duty were broken through by the growing developing force of a living inspiration. We need many fresh initiations into a life-work that is really to move mankind, and Mona underwent one that night at Barntoun Wood, hundreds of miles away from the scene of her studies, with the silvered pines for a temple, the lonely house for a holy place, and a shrine of sin and sorrow. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these—" Who shall tell beforehand what events will form the epochs, or the turning-points, in the life of any one of us? Verily the wind bloweth where it listeth.
The night was over, and the morning sun was once more kindling all the ice-crystals into sparkles of light, when Mrs Arnot arrived—kind and motherly, but of course inexpressibly shocked. Mona conjured her not to have any conversation about the past that might agitate the patient; and then set out for home, promising to return before night. The ready tears welled up in Maggie's eyes as she watched her benefactress go; and then she turned her face to the wall and pretended to sleep. If she could only be with Miss Maclean always, how easy it would be to be good; and perhaps in time she would even begin to forget—about him.
Since her illness Rachel had been very affectionate to her cousin, and Mona was quite unprepared for the torrent of indignation that assailed her when she entered the sitting-room. She had found Maggie ill at the Wood alone, she said, and almost in a moment Rachel guessed what had happened.
For some time Mona tried to discuss the question calmly, but the cutting, merciless words wounded her more than she could bear; so she rose and took her gloves from the table.
"That will do, cousin," she said coldly; "but for the accident of circumstances it might have been you or I."