And the old precentor hurried on to join the choir invisible.
XXII
"The MILLS of The GODS"
Margaret was home again. She had been gone from us two immeasurable days. It was Mr. Blake who rang the bell, for it was his house had sheltered her when my cruel anger drove her from my own. Need and sorrow never turned to him in vain.
When the door was opened, Margaret stood before it alone. Her mother it was who opened unto her, for this is woman's oldest and holiest avocation, door-keeper unto wandering feet. In all His delicate missions woman is God's deputy.
Through all my narrative of this sad affair I have said but little of Margaret's mother, but I know my readers have discerned her presence amid it all, as one discerns a brooding mountain through the mist. The great background of every tragedy is a woman's stately sorrow.
I had been visiting the sick, far more for my sake than for theirs, and was not home when Margaret returned. But a nameless fragrance greeted me at the door, and in my study I found Margaret in her mother's arms. The latter quietly withdrew and the compact between father and daughter was soon complete. It was of mutual surrender, wherein is mutual peace. Margaret's only word was that she could not give her father up—nor Angus—that I must say nothing more about her love and that we must wait—together. Which was all sweet enough to me, for she was mine again, and our manse light had been rekindled.
For the rest, I was willing to wait, on which after all hangs the reality of all joy or sorrow. Every grief hath that opportunity of cure; every joy that peril of vicissitude. Till time hath ceased from her travail, no man can tell her offspring's sex, whether it be rugged care, or sweet and tender joy.