No. Better go directly to the fountainhead. That would be the part both of propriety and wisdom.
She screwed her courage to the sticking-point, and went.
The two disciples were lodged in an upper story. She had her knuckles against the panel of their door when at last her resolution was arrived at. Straightway relinquishing her former purpose, she hastened down the stairs to the floor on which He was. As she went the clock in the hall struck three.
The announcement of the hour moved her to fresh irresolution. Would it be seemly to rouse Him out of slumber to press on Him such a petition? Yet if she did not do it now, when could she? She might never again have such an opportunity. Were His ears not always open to the prayers of those that stood in need of help? What difference did the night or the morning make to Him? She put out her hand towards the door.
As she did so a great fear came over her. It was as though she was stricken with paralysis. She could neither do as she intended nor withdraw her hand. She remained as one rooted to the floor. How long she stayed she did not know. The seconds and the minutes passed, and still she did not move. Presently her fear grew greater. She knew, although she had not made a sound, that, conscious of her presence, He was coming towards her on the other side of the door.
Then the door was opened, and she saw Him face to face. He did not speak a word; and she was still. The gift of fluent speech for which she was notorious had gone from her utterly. He looked at her in such fashion that she was compelled to meet His eyes, though she would have given all that she had to have been able to escape their scrutiny. For in them was an eloquence which was not of words, and a quality which held her numb. For she was conscious not only that He knew her, in a sense of which she had never dreamed in her blackest nightmares, but that He was causing her to know herself. In the fierce light of that self-knowledge her heart dried up within her. She saw herself as what she was--the embittered, illiberal, narrow-minded woman who, conscious of her isolation, had raised up for herself a creed of her own--a creed which was not His. She saw how, with the passage of the years, her persistence in this creed had forced her farther and farther away from Him, until now she had grown to have nothing in common with Him, since she had so continually striven to bring about the things which He would not have. She had placed herself in opposition to His will, and now had actually come to solicit His endorsement of her action. And she knew that in so doing she had committed the greatest of all her sins.
She did not offer her petition. But when the door was closed again, and He had passed from her actual sight, there stood without one from whose veins the wine of life had passed, and whose hair had become white as snow. Although not a word had been spoken, she had stood before the Judgment Seat, and tasted of more than the bitterness of death. When she began to return to her own room she had to feel her way with her hands. Her sight had become dim, her limbs feeble. She had grown old.
CHAPTER XVI
[IN THE MORNING]
All through the night people remained in the street without. With the return of day their numbers so increased that the authorities began to be concerned. The house itself was besieged. It was with difficulty that the police could keep a sufficient open space in front to enable persons to pass in and out. An official endeavoured to represent to the inmates the authoritative point of view.