"Thank you," she said, and with a visible effort pulled herself together, and rose and stood a moment, swaying, as it an inward indecision blew her this way and that. With that a great thunder-clap close by shook heaven and earth and drowned small human voices, and the two in the dark office faced each other waiting Nature's good time. As the rolling echoes died away, "I think I had better wait to see the rector," she said, and held out her hand. "Thank you for your kindness—and patience. I am—I am—in a good deal of trouble—" and her voice shook, in spite of her effort. Suddenly—"I'm going to tell you," she said. "I'm going to ask you to help me, if you will be so good. You are here for the rector, aren't you?"
"I am here for the rector," McBirney answered gravely. "I wish to do all I can for—any one."
She drew a long sigh of comfort. "That's good—that's what I want," she considered aloud, and sat down once more. And the man lifted a chair to the window where the breeze reached him. Rain was falling now in sheets and the steely light played on his dark face and sombre dress and the sharp white note of his collar. Through the constant rush and patter of the rain the girl's voice went on—a low voice with a note of pleasure and laughter in it which muted with the tragedy of what she said.
"I'm thinking of killing myself," she began, and the eyes of the man widened, but he did not speak. "But I'm afraid of what comes after. They tell you that it's everlasting torment—but I don't believe it. Parsons mostly tell you that. The fear has kept me from doing it. So when I heard the rector in church two weeks ago, I felt as if he'd be honest—and as if he might know—as much as any one can know. He seemed real to me, and clever—I thought it would help if I could talk to him—and I thought maybe I could trust him to tell me honestly—in confidence, you know—if he really and truly thought it was wrong for a person to kill herself. I can't see why." She glanced at the attentive, quiet figure at the window. "Do you think so?" she asked. He looked at her, but did not speak. She went on. "Why is it wrong? They say God gives life and only God should take it away. Why? It's given—we don't ask for it, and no conditions come with it. Why should one, if it gets unendurable, keep an unasked, unwanted gift? If somebody put a ball of bright metal into your hands and it was pretty at first and nice to play with, and then turned red-hot, and hurt, wouldn't it be silly to go on holding it? I don't know much about God, anyway," she went on a bit forlornly; not irreverently, but as if pain had burned off the shell of conventions and reserves of every day, and actual facts lay bare. "I don't feel as if He were especially real—and the case I'm in is awfully real. I don't know if He would mind my killing myself—and if He would, wouldn't He understand I just have to? If He's really good? But then, if He was angry, might He punish me forever, afterward?" She drew her shoulders together with a frightened, childish movement. "I'm afraid of forever," she said.
The rain beat in noisily against the parish house wall; the wet vines flung about wildly; a floating end blew in at the window and the young man lifted it carefully and put it outside again. Then, "Can you tell me why you want to kill yourself?" he asked, and his manner, free from criticism or disapproval, seemed to quiet her.
"Yes. I want to tell you. I came here to tell the rector." The grave eyes of the man, eyes whose clearness and youth seemed to be such an age-old youth and clearness as one sees in the eyes of the sibyls in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel—eyes empty of a thought of self, impersonal, serene with the serenity of a large atmosphere—the unflinching eyes of the man gazed at the girl as she talked.
She talked rapidly, eagerly, as if each word lifted pressure. "It's this way—I'm ill—hopelessly ill. Yes—it's absolutely so. I've got to die. Two doctors said so. But I'll live—maybe five years—possibly ten. I'm twenty-three now—and I may live ten years. But if I do that—if I live five years even—most of it will be as a helpless invalid—I'll have to get stiff, you know." There was a rather dreadful levity in the way she put it. "Stiffer and stiffer—till I harden into one position, sitting or lying down, immovable. I'll have to go on living that way—years, you see. I'll have to choose which way. Isn't it hideous? And I'll go on living that way, you see. Me. You don't know, of course, but it seems particularly hideous, because I'm not a bit an immovable sort. I ride and play tennis and dance, all those things, more than most people. I care about them—a lot." One could see it in the vivid pose of the figure. "And, you know, it's really too much to expect. I won't stiffen gently into a live corpse. No!" The sliding, clear voice was low, but the "no" meant itself.
From the quiet figure by the window came no response; the girl could see the man's face only indistinctly in the dim, storm-washed light; receding thunder growled now and again and the noise of the rain came in soft, fierce waves; at times, lightning flashed a weird clearness over the details of the room and left them vaguer.
"Why don't you say something?" the girl threw at him. "What do you think? Say it."
"Are you going to tell me the rest?" the man asked quietly.