"Only a remnant seemingly," said the doctor.
"We'll be taking it with us, though," said the constable, and then the rolling mist of unconsciousness covered everything again.
When it passed Bessie knew that the police were suspecting her. They thought they had found her out, and they were going to bring the whole machinery of the law to punish her. What a wicked thing the law was! She had injured nobody—nobody that anybody had ever seen in this world. She had only tried to save somebody she loved from shame and pain. And yet the constables, the courts and the coroners were all in a conspiracy to crush one poor girl! No matter! She would deny everything.
Next day was Sunday. Bessie heard the church bells ringing across the Curragh, and, before they stopped, the singing of a hymn. The Primitives were holding a service at the corner of the high road before going into their chapel. After the hymn somebody prayed. It was Will Skillicorne. Bessie (listening through her open skylight) recognised the high pitch of his preaching voice. He would be standing on the chapel steps.
There was a great deal about "carnal transgression," about "brands plucked from the burning," about "the judgments of the Lord," and finally about the "conscious sinner," throwing herself upon her Saviour and repenting of "the sin she had committed against God." At the close of his prayer Will gave out the first two lines of another hymn—
"I was a wandering sheep,
I did not love the fold."
Bessie knew whom all this was meant for. The Primitives were torturing her. But they were torturing somebody else as well. Through the singing and praying she heard her mother's sighs downstairs, and the beating of her foot on the hearthstone, as she sat by the fire and listened to the service for her guilty child.
What a cowardly thing religion was! Sin? What sin had she committed? She had never intended to do wrong, and only those who had gone through it could know what she had suffered. Anyway, such as she was God had made her. She would admit nothing. Nothing whatever.
Two days passed. Bessie's heart softened and became calm. The police were leaving her alone—they must have given up that nonsense about punishing her. Everything was going to turn out as she had expected.
On the third day, her mother, coming into her bedroom, found her with widely-opened eyes and all her face a smile. Yes, she was herself once more. In fact there had not been much amiss with her. Only, never having been ill before, she had been frightened and had come home to be nursed by her mother. But now she was better and must soon go back .... back to where she came from.