When she was alone in her little sleeping-room, the door shut, one candle burning, her eyes went to the wooden crucifix beneath which every night before getting into her narrow bed she knelt in prayer, and she began to cry. She sat down on the bed and cried and cried. All her flesh seemed melting into tears.
“My poor life! My poor life!”
That was the interior cry of her being, again and again repeated—“My poor life—stricken, soiled, crushed down in the ooze of a nameless filth.”
Childless and now betrayed! How terrible had been her happiness on the edge of the pit! The days in Greece—Robin—Dion’s return from the war! And she had wished to live rightly; she had loved the noble things; she had had ideals and she had tried to follow them. Purity before all she had——
She sickened; her crying became violent. Afraid lest some of the sisters should hear her, she pressed her hands over her face and sank down on the bed.
Presently she saw Mrs. Clarke before her, the woman whom she had thought to keep out of her life—the fringe of her life—and who had found the way into the sacred places.
She cried for a long while, lying there on the bed, with her face pressed against her hands, and her hands pressed against the pillow; but at least she ceased from crying. She had poured out all the tears of her body.
She sat up. It was long past midnight. The house was silent. Slowly she began to undress, hating her body all the time. She bathed her face and hands in cold water, and, when she felt the water, shivered at the thought of the stain. When she was ready for bed she looked again at the crucifix. She ought to pray, she must pray. She went to the crucifix and stood in front of it, but her knees refused to bend. Her pride of woman had received a terrific blow that day, and just because of that she felt she could not humble herself.
“I cannot pray—I won’t pray,” she whispered.
And she turned away, put out the light and got into bed.