‘Happy!’ It did not sound like an answer, but only like an echo of the other voice, and another pause followed. ‘It was God’s will I sought and nothing else,’ she said at last. ‘Was it me to think of marrying or giving in marriage? It was my meat and my drink to do His will. Oh, Isabel Diarmid! it’s your man and your bairn you think of—but no me. What I was thinking on was a world lying in darkness—a’ bonnie and bright outside—like that—and a’ miserable and perishing within—and He promised He would mend it a’. Go forth and preach, He said, and I’ll come again and the holy angels, and bring in a new Heaven and a new earth. And there was the word in my ain mouth for a testimony. What was I that I should speak in power if it hadna been Him that did it?—and now all my hope is gone. The Lord Himself has broken His word. What do I care if the earth should tumble to pieces this moment! The minister is but dead, Isabel, and you’ll find him in Heaven; but I’m disappointed in my God,’ cried Ailie, suddenly hiding her face in her hands; ‘and Him I’ll never find again, neither in Heaven nor earth.’
This tragical outcry was so bitter and full of anguish, that Isabel stopped short in the protestations that rose to her lips. And yet the very thought of thus reproaching God made her tremble, as if it must bring down fire from Heaven. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ she faltered, ‘it is not for me to teach you; but oh, I dare not stand and hear you judging God!’
A low moan came from Ailie’s breast. She shook her head sadly. Her great eyes turned to Isabel’s for a moment with the anguish of a dumb creature in pain. She was far beyond tears. ‘There’s nae power nor voice in me now,’ she said, ‘to teach or to speak. He’s taken His gifts away, as well as the hope. I canna burst out and cry, “Oh, why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” It’s all gone—all gone! spirit, and power, and life, and hope!’
Isabel was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to reply. ‘Oh, Ailie, have you no child?’ she cried, at last finding no other words that would come.
She had but asked the question, when the door opened, and Mr. John came suddenly in. When he saw Isabel he paused, and the same softened look which had come over his face in the steamer at the sight of her again gleamed over it.
‘You have come to see her?’ he said, and looked from the young widow in her deep mourning to his marble-white wife in her snowy cold dress with the strangest look of comparison. It seemed to the man as if the fate that might have been his and that which was really his thus stood together in visible contact. Isabel had grown more and more like her sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there, looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who was John Diarmid’s wife.
‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious look—‘sadly changed. It is because she will look at things only in one way. We were mistaken, I think. The world itself is changed, though so few can see it. It is not by converting a single soul here and there, but by moving nations that God’s work is to be done. Ailie, I am going away.’
‘Going: where to?’ she said, with a momentary glance into his face; ‘to take the sword like them that shall perish by the sword? That’s no His command. I’m a poor creature—a miserable creature—He’s cast me off, and broken His word to me; but I’ll no forsake Him. No; there’s no word of power put into my mouth to speak to you, John Diarmid, not any word of power, but them that take the sword shall perish by the sword. He said it with His own lips.’
‘Amen!’ said Mr. John; ‘it matters little. What is life to you or me that I should care to preserve it? As long as there is a race oppressed, so long is God’s word hindered in this world. I must go to my work—the time of patience and quiet is past.’
‘Oh, Mr. John!’ cried Isabel, ‘you will never go and leave her alone like this?’