We stood together for some minutes. She was shivering so, that I told her to go home, but she shook her head, and passed slowly, without speaking, under the church porch.
I went up into the gallery. It was the Sunday after Christmas, and the day had been so short that the light was already waning before the service began. This afternoon, too, a snow-storm was coming, and the heavy clouds made it duskier than usual. There were two faint lights glimmering over the reading-desk. When the last heavy footstep had sounded along the aisle, and there was silence through the church, it was almost out of darkness that the vicar's voice came, reading in a quiet even tone the opening words of the service: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.'
Broken hearts! It was good that God did not despise them, since there must be so many in the world.
My father was anxious to be told all that David Moore had said. He asked me many questions, and listened to every word I could remember with an interest that would have puzzled me, but that my thoughts were so full of Cuthbert, that it seemed natural every one should be as much taken up about him as we were.
'Then Moore didn't say whether he was killed directly, or how long he lived after he got his wound?'
'No, Moore was hurt himself; he did not hear until long after.'
'How long?'
'Two or three months, I think, he said, when he got back to his regiment.'
'Well.'