CHAPTER XXVII.
ROCK OF AGES.
MEANWHILE, Kate sat in the cave. She was all alone. In front of her raged the angry sea. She watched it at first from the entrance to the cave. Step by step, slowly but surely, she saw Death, the grim foe, advancing to meet her. Kate had been close to death a little earlier in the same year, but then she had been unconscious. If Death had really claimed her as his prey, she would have gone away into the other world knowing nothing of that last journey. In ignorance and oblivion she would have passed the boundary, and when she found herself in the Life beyond this life, she would recall no memory of the road by which she had come. To meet death by severe illness would have been in the ordinary course of nature, but the death which now awaited her was different. She was well again, and strong; she had recovered from her accident; all her feelings were alive and keen; she was young, too, and had nothing, in the ordinary sense, to do with death; it was very awful to Kate to see it coming up to her in this manner.
The very vividness of her imagination only added to the horrors which she now endured. She was about to part from life, and life at this moment became exceedingly precious to her. The thought of the real suffering which she had endured a few hours back, sitting in the entrance of this very same cave, now seemed trivial and of no account whatever. She had been a very angry and passionate and rebellious girl. She had thought her pride and independence honorable and righteous, something to hug to her heart, to cling to, whatever happened; now it seemed but a paltry sort of rag, not worth a moments thought nor a moment's pain. For the sake of it, however, she was about really to lose her life. Because she could not accept a great kindness, because she would rather turn her back on all her true friends than hear certain silly words applied to her, she was to die.
"I was mad," thought Kate to herself. "I see the thing in its right light now. My proud heart could not brook the thing. Oh, grandfather! you used to tell me many times that I must conquer the pride which has been my undoing. I was proud of my very openness and humility; I was proud of telling the girls what I really was, but this last indignity I could not, I would not, submit to. I would not rule my spirit in this matter!
"'Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.'
"I would not rule my spirit, and now God has taken me at my word. I came out here to have a fight with my own proud heart. I know that God was whispering to me all the time not to be angry and impatient, not to throw away the chances he was giving me. He wanted me to cultivate my talents, and he showed me this way, which was hard to take, and bitter; but it was his way, and he wanted me to take it. Oh, I was mad! I refused—I gave the devil the victory, and God was angry, and now he is punishing me. God has taken me at my word. I shall never eat the bread of charity. No one will ever call me a charity girl now. God is taking away the life which I would not use as he wanted me to use it. Oh, I never thought I should fear death! How beautiful grandfather looked when he died! but he was ready, and I am not. I am young. How full of life I feel! how my heart bounds! how keen and strong my brain has got once again! but in a few minutes, perhaps an hour, it will all be over; my brain will have no more thoughts; my heart will be quiet. I shall be dead—drowned!
"I wonder how people feel when they are drowning. I have read accounts of drowning people, and they say that, just before they go, they see all the old life, that it passes before them as a sort of vision. I wonder if grandfather knows that I shall be with him to-day. Perhaps I am not good enough to see him. I am so sorry to die. O God, is it possible that you can forgive me even yet, and let me use my life now in your way, and not my own way? Oh, I don't want to die!"