In cautious whispers, with eyes anxiously fastened on the door lest it open, the two little maids planned every detail of the course of action they had decided to follow.
But after Abigail had said good-night, Deliverance sat motionless a long time. All knowledge of the village came to her only in the sounds that floated through the window. She heard the jingle of bells and a mild lowing, and knew it was milking-time and that the cows were being driven home through Prison Lane. She wondered if Hiram had yet mended the meadow bars. Later she heard the boys playing ball in the lane, and she seemed to see the greensward tracked by cow-paths and dotted by golden buttercups. At last the joyous shoutings of the boys ceased and gave way to the sound of drumming. She could see the town-drummer walking back and forth on the platform above the meeting-house door, calling the people to worship.
Suddenly she thought of her father. She put forth her arms, reaching in vain embrace. “Oh, my dear father,” she cried, and her voice broke with longing, “oh, my dear father, I be minded o’ ye grieving for me all so lonesome in the still-room! Alas, who will pluck ye June roses for the beauty waters?”
Sad though her thoughts were that she could not see him, yet these very thoughts of him at last brought her peace.
She knew that Sir Jonathan’s proposal to procure a new trial for her had found favour in her heart, and she feared what her answer would be on the morrow. Underneath her tears and prayers, underneath her gladness and relief to see Abigail and the plans they had devised, was the shamed determination to reveal the secret rather than be hanged. She would hold out to the last moment, then—if Abigail were able to accomplish nothing—the little maid’s cheeks burned in the darkness, burned with such shame at her guilty resolve that she put her hands over them.
In the darkness she saw forming a shadowy picture of the dearest face in the world to her, her father’s long thin face, with its kindly mouth and mild blue eyes. All her life Deliverance believed that, in some mysterious way, her father came to her in prison that night. However it was, she thought that he asked her no question, but seemed to look down into her heart and see all her shame and weakness.
She shrank from his gaze, putting her hands over her breast to hide her heart away from him. Was it not better, she urged, she should commit just one small sin, and return to him and Ronald, and live a long life so good that it would atone for the wrong-doing?
But he answered that a little life sweetly lived was longer in God’s sight than a life of many years stained by sin.
She asked him if it were not a great pain to be hanged when one was innocent, and he admonished her that it was a greater pain to lose one’s loyal word and betray one’s King who was next to God in authority.
All at once he faded away in a bright light. Deliverance opened her eyes and found that the long night had passed, that the morning had come, and that she must have been dreaming. She lay silent for a long time before rising. All the shame of yesterday had gone from her heart, which was washed clean and filled with peace. She whispered very softly the words of her dream, A little life sweetly lived.