Prayer, Gundred felt, was the only obvious method. The Almighty must be asked to declare as to the sanctity of the crusade that she was meditating. Gundred, filled with the consciousness of holiness, would, nevertheless, go to Heaven to have that consciousness confirmed. In all ways she was clean and blameless, worthy of the celestial attention. She looked doubtfully for a moment at the little fair curls that lay on her dressing-table. But after all, they could not really be called a fraud on the Almighty, for were they not built up out of her own hoarded combings? And, for the rest, there was no other spot of deceit or frailty anywhere in her. So she knelt in confidence, and prayed. If her hatred for Ivor Restormel were wicked, would God give a sign by causing it to die immediately? On the other hand, if it continued to thrive in her heart, she would take its persistence as a sign that it was very pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and might be pursued to its ultimate extremities. She laboured the point once more, so that Heaven could not possibly fail to grasp it. If to-morrow she still hated Ivor Restormel, she would understand that her hatred was pious and profitable; if she should awake feeling filled with love and pity for him, then she must believe that her previous inspiration had been a temptation of the Evil One. Filled with a sense of imminent revelation, Gundred went to bed, and could hardly sleep for anxiety as to the morrow, and the sentiments that the morrow would show forth.
It was late when she woke from tardy and troubled dreams. Over her soul for a minute or two there brooded a heavy weight of mystery. Something wonderful was immediately to happen. But for a moment she could not discern what it was. Then she remembered her prayer, and fell to scanning her morning’s feelings for its answer. The revelation was at hand. But it would only burst upon her fully when she had come face to face with her imagined enemy. In a ferment of anxiety she had herself dressed, then hurried downstairs, her colour perceptibly heightened and her demeanour almost ruffled by the tense anxiety of her expectation. Into the morning-room she hastened, eager to find Ivor Restormel. There he was; she paused upon the threshold watching him, and waiting for the miraculous guidance that Heaven would certainly vouchsafe. Had her feelings for him changed during the night? In a flash of satisfaction the answer came, admitting no further question or cavil.
For she hated him as much as ever. Yes, certainly as much as ever—even more, perhaps. And nothing could so clearly prove, after her prayers, that her hatred was pleasing to the Almighty. If it had been evil, He would, of course, have annulled it, according to request. God evidently meant her to hate Ivor Restormel, and to doubt any more would be nothing short of wicked infidelity. Triumphant in perfect satisfaction, in self-complacency restored and enhanced by this prodigious proof of God’s approval, Gundred addressed herself quietly to everyday life once more. Strengthened in her Heaven-sent attitude of mind, she advanced towards the breakfast-table with an added majesty of calm, and scattered greetings with a fair assumption of benevolence. With the answer to her prayer a sense of rest had come upon her and made it easier for her to be kind even to Ivor Restormel. She found the others of her party busy discussing some new and interesting point. Jim made haste to enlighten her.
‘The Rovers are going down Long Kern this morning, mother,’ he exclaimed. ‘And Ivor says he is going with them. I am awfully keen to go, too. Don’t you think I might?’
Gundred instantly avenged herself for the suffering that her son’s perverse disloyalty had been so long inflicting upon her.
‘Most certainly not,’ she replied. ‘I have a perfect horror of such places. You would not wish him to go, Kingston—no?’
‘There can’t be any danger,’ replied Kingston; ‘they will have efficient ropes and things. And Weston says there are the most wonderful caves at the bottom.’
‘Are you really going, Mr. Restormel?’ asked Gundred, without paying further heed to Jim’s protests or Jim’s disappointment. She saw in a second how brilliantly God had answered her prayers for help. Long Kern was a small but deadly rift in the limestone of the hill above, which dropped three hundred feet of narrow shaft sheer down to unfathomable caverns below. Gundred saw clearly that the whole problem of her life was to be solved by a miracle. For Heaven may make a miracle out of any particularly happy coincidence. And what coincidence could possibly be more happy, more miraculous than this? For God clearly meant to destroy Ivor Restormel underground.
Ivor, meanwhile, declared that he was eagerly looking forward to the exploration. The Rovers, about a dozen of them, were to make the descent at midday, and meant to stay in the caves down below until they had unravelled, as far as possible, the labyrinth of their passages. As for precautions and methods, they were to use rope-ladders and guiding wires, so that no real risk of any sort could be anticipated.
Gundred listened with a wise smile. She knew better. Ivor Restormel might take as many precautions as he pleased; nothing could avail him against the combined weight of Gundred’s prayers and Heaven’s attention to them. This scheme of his was quite obviously the direct inspiration of the Powers above, working in Ivor to his destruction, as they had worked so many years ago for the fatal hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Egypt. Gundred blandly acquiesced, and lent an unusually pleasant countenance to the young man’s exposition of his plans. As he was so evidently doomed, she might fairly relax the righteousness of her wrath against him. Even for one merciful moment she thought of interposing, of saving Ivor’s life by deprecating his scheme. But the moment passed—she saw how irreverent it would be to counter Heaven’s design. And to oppose Ivor’s plan would necessarily be to oppose Heaven’s also. So Gundred piously resigned everything into God’s hands, and stood aside to let matters take their course.