He had the wonderful gift of prose. He understood, as hardly any of us understand, how to treat words (on certain occasions of using them) as if they were almost notes in some musical composition. His letter was beautiful.
She read it page by page, with a heart that had begun to beat with quickened interest, until she came to a passage which jarred and hurt. James had made an end of his most impassioned and intimate passages, and was making his keen satiric comment upon general affairs—quite as he had done in his letters before his actual avowal.
"I saw my father to-day in St. James, and we went to his club and lunched together. I respect him more and more, for his consistency, every time I meet him. And I wonder more and more at his childishness at the same time. It seems he had just left your brother. As you are in the thick of all the mumbo-jumbo, perhaps you will have heard of the business that seems to be agitating my poor dear sire into a fever. It seems that, a day or two ago, an opposition hero who has consecrated his life to the Protestant cause—none other than the notorious Hamlyn himself—purloined a consecrated wafer from some church and has been exhibiting it at public meetings to show that it is just as it ever was—a pinch of flour and no more. My father has made himself utterly miserable over the proceedings of this merry-andrew. As you know, I take but little interest in the squabbles of the creeds, but the spectacle of a sane and able man caught up in the centre of these phantasies makes me pause and makes my contempt sweeten into pity."
As Lucy read the letter, she thought of the scene on the night when Carr had brought the news. She thought of her own quick pain as she heard it, of how her brother was struck down as with a sword. And especially there came to her the vision of the two priests, King and Stephens, praying all night long before the Host.
She pushed the letter away from her, nor did she read it again. It seemed alien, out of tune with her life.
She went into the church to pray.
When she came away, her resolution was nearly taken.
Bernard came home about three in the afternoon. His manner was quiet. He was sad, but he seemed relieved also.
Lucy was walking in the garden with him, soon after his return, when Stephens and Dr. Hibbert came down from the house and walked quickly up to them.
"Vicar," the doctor said, "Miss Pritchett is dying."