“It gratifies me to hear you say that.” The vicar spoke in a measured tone. And then suddenly, as he looked at the calm face of the sufferer, he grew hopeful. “Mrs. Smith,” he said, with the directness upon which he prided himself, “I have come to speak to you about your boy.”
“About John?” The widow, the name on her lips, lowered her voice to a rapt, hushed whisper.
The vicar drew his chair a little closer to the invalid. “I am very, very sorry to cause you any sort of trouble, but I want to ask you to use your influence with him; I want to ask you to give him something of your own state of mind.”
The widow looked at the vicar in surprise. “But,” she said softly, “it is my boy John who has made me as I am.”
The vicar was a little disconcerted. “Surely,” he said, “it is God who has made you what you are.”
“Yes, but it is through my boy John that He has wrought upon me.”
“Indeed! Tell me how that came to be.”
The widow shook her head and smiled to herself. “Don’t ask me to do that,” she said. “It is a long and wonderful story.”
But the vicar insisted.
“No, no, I can’t tell you. I don’t think anyone would believe me. And the time has not yet come for the story to be told.”