This, then, must she do. She must pluck out that thing which had offended her, which had betrayed her into a sin against her own motherhood, and cast it from her. She must pluck out her gift and offer it up in expiation.
And so she knelt there in the darkness and tendered her sacrifice; so she thrust from her the thing which had been so dear to her; so she entered into her compact with God.
"Oh, God, grant me my child's life, and I will never write again. I have sinned in selfishness and vanity, but I am repentant and will sin no more. I have plucked out my right eye. I have cut off my right hand. I have cast my gifts from me forever. Grant me my son's life, and I will never write again!"
Hour after hour she entreated God to make terms with her. The night crept by, slow-footed and silent, but she was not aware of the passing of time, or of the deepening of the stillness within the house, or of the quivering of the sword above her head. She no longer listened for sounds from that distant room. She no longer strove to pierce the intervening walls with her mother's sixth sense. She heard nothing but the voice which had counselled her; she strove for nothing but to obey that voice. Her whole being concentrated itself into a prayer. She was conscious only of herself and God, and of her passionate effort to reach Him.
"Oh, God, hear me! I have sinned, but I will sin no more. My heart is broken with remorse. I will never write again!"
So she pleaded with God throughout the long night. And pitiful and insolent as was her bargaining, God must have found in it something to weigh.
For with the first light of the morning, Ted opened the door—and there was light in his worn face, too.
"Sheila—Sheila!——"
And then they fell into each other's arms, sobbing—sobbing as they could not have done if their little son had died.