He answered absently. He was thinking that if she was looking for him, then she had not understood and their relation still rested on the old innocent footing. Whatever explanation of his conduct and leave-taking the day before she had devised, it had not been in his disfavour. In all probability, she had referred it, as she had referred everything else, to his affair with Amy. His conscience smote him at the thought of her indestructible trust in him.
"If this is your last Sunday," resumed the parson in a voice rather plaintive, "then this is our last Sunday night together. And that was my last sermon. Well, it's not a bad one to take with you. By the time you get back, you'll thank me more for it than you did this morning—if you heed it."
There was another silence before he continued, musingly:
"What an expression a sermon will sometimes bring out on a man's face! While I was preaching, I saw many a thing that no man knew I saw. It was as though I were crossing actual wilderness-es; I met the wild beasts of different souls, I crept up on the lurking savages of the passions. I believe some of those men would have liked to confess to me. I wish they had."
He forbore to speak of John's black look, though it was of this that he was most grievously thinking and would have led the way to have explained. But no answer came."
There was one face with no hidden guilt in it, no shame. I read into the depths of that clear mind. It said: 'I have conquered my wilderness.' I have never known another such woman as Mrs. Falconer. She never speaks of herself; but when I am with her, I feel that the struggles of my life have been nothing."
"Yes," he continued, out of kindness trying to take no notice of his companion's silence, "she holds in quietness her land of the spirit; but there are battle-fields in her nature that fill me with awe by their silence. I'd dread to be the person to cause her any further trouble in this world."
The schoolmaster started up, went into the cabin, and quickly came out again. The parson, absorbed in his reflections, had not noticed:
"You've thought I've not sympathized with you in your affair with Amy. It's true. But if you'd ever loved this woman and failed, I could have sympathized."
"Why don't you raise the money to build a better church by getting up a lottery?" asked John, breaking in harshly upon the parson's gentleness.