Alma looked and shuddered. A white wave broke the surface of the water, and dashed against the cliff.
“But why?”
“Nobody seems to know quite. They say it was something outside the usual causes—not starvation, for instance, or love or weariness of life.”
“Nobody knows? And yet he threw himself into the sea? Then it must have been a call from on high. He realized the presence of God, and followed it, into darkness and death.”
“Alma, whatever are you talking about!”
“I hardly know myself. The words came into my mouth without a thought. And I feel myself thinking strange things that never entered my head before.” And she laughed, a little nervous laugh. “It is as if the spirit were upon me, and I had to speak so.”
At this Ketill suddenly felt called upon to play the priest. Though, as a matter of fact, he was rather impressed by her words.
“Alma, that is blasphemy, you know.”
“Not at all.” She looked up in surprise. “I simply feel as if the Spirit of God were moving on the face of the waters, and as if I were a piece of dead clay, waiting to be created as a human being.”