"It is rather a man's pleasure," said Faith;—"isn't it?"
"Do you think so?" said the doctor. "Ah, you know better. Do you mean to say," he added softly, "that a woman doesn't know the pleasure of power?"
"I don't think I do," said Faith meeting his eyes with a smile. He smiled too, a different smile from what was usual with him.
The drive was long—much longer than Faith had counted upon, although they went so fast. "Down by the river"—the doctor had said; but it appeared not yet what part of the river he was aiming for. Still it was beautiful; the broken country, open and free, with the cloud shadows and the brilliant sunlight driving across it, and grey sharp rocks everywhere breaking it, and tufts and reaches of brown or sear woodland diversifying it, was not easy to weary of. Nor did Faith weary. The doctor's words had sent her off on a long journey of thought, while she travelled over all that open, sunlight and shadow, country. Starting from the words, "Behold we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us";—she had gone on to moral government and suasion; the means and the forces of both, not failing to illustrate largely here from personal experience; and on and up to the one great and strong hand that holds the reins of all, and makes even sunlight and shade, rock and hill, do his work and his bidding.
But now in all that broad picture of life and life work, appeared a little dark spot; which, small as it was, formed for the moment the vanishing point, where every line of beauty and sunlight met and ended. For with that strange recognizing of unknown things, Faith saw before her the house where the dying woman lay,—and knew it for that, before the doctor spoke. A plain, brown, unpainted house; straight and square, with no break of piazza or window blinds; tapestried on the front with frost-bitten gourd vines, the yellow and green fruit yet unscathed. The usual little gate and dooryard common to such country houses; the usual remains of autumn flowers therein; the usual want of trees. Yet by the universal law of indemnification, the house was more picturesque than painting and architecture could have made it. Neighbours it had none, for contrast; but a low woody point of land stretched off behind it, reaching out even into the Mong. And the Mong itself—with its cool sharp glitter in the stirring wind, and the swash of its blue waves at the very foot of the little paling about the house; its white-sailed craft, its white-winged sea gulls;—
"Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,
The silent grave!
Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost
In one dark wave.
'Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,
And tinkling rill.
There all are equal. Side by side
The poor man and the son of pride
Lie calm and still."
Of the two that now entered that little dooryard, one felt all this and one did not. The one who had felt "the power of an endless life," perceived the narrow bounds of this,—to the one who had nothing beyond, its domain was vast. And as is often the case, the man went first and the angel followed.
The doctor stepped up to the bedside and made some general enquiries.
But it did not appear that there was much he could do.
"Mrs. Custers," said he presently, "you know I promised I would bring, if I could, a lady to see you. Here she is—Miss Derrick."