Oh, what a contrast it was!--this evening and that. Now she was utterly still in her rapt thankfulness; then she had lain on the floor, her heart crying aloud to God in its agony. What could she do to show her gratitude to Him, who had turned the darkness into this radiant light? She could do nothing. Nothing, save strive to let her whole life be spent as a thank-offering. Karl noted her excessive stillness, her blinding tears; and he probably guessed her thoughts.
While he was talking with Mr. Sumnor after the service, Lucy went in to the vicarage. Margaret, lying in the dusk, for the room was only lighted by its bit of fire, could not see who had entered.
"Is it you, Martha?" she said, thinking it was her sister. "You are back early."
"It is I--Lucy," said Lady Andinnian. "Oh, Margaret, I was obliged to come to you just for a minute. Karl is outside, and we have been to church. I have something to tell."
Margaret Sumnor put out both her hands in token of welcome. Instead of taking them, Lucy knelt by the reclining board, and brought her face close to her friend's, and spoke in a hushed whisper.
"Margaret, I want to thank you, and I don't know how. I have been thinking how impossible it will be for me ever to thank God: and it seems to be nearly as impossible ever to thank you. Do you remember what you once said to me, Margaret, about bearing and waiting? Well, but for you, I don't think I could have borne or waited, even in the poor way I have; and--and--"
She broke down: sobs of emotion checked her utterance.
"Be calm, my dear," said Margaret. "You have come to tell me that the trouble is over."
"Yes: God has ended it. And, Margaret, I never need have had a shade of it: I was on a wrong track all the while. I--I was led to think ill of my husband; I treated him worse than any one will ever know or would believe: while he was good and loyal to the core in all ways, and in the most bitter trouble the world can inflict. Oh, Margaret, had I been vindictive instead of patient--I might have caused the most dire injury and tribulation, and what would have been my condition now, my dreadful remorse through life? When the thought comes over me, I shiver as I did in that old ague fever."
A fit of shivering took her actually. Miss Sumnor saw how the matter had laid hold upon her.