At the window of the sitting room, looking out into the street, Rotha was sitting listlessly. No one else was in the room. She turned her head when she heard Mr. Digby's footsteps, and the face he saw then smote his heart. It was such a changed face; wan and pale, with the rings round the eyes that come of excessive weeping, and a blank, dull expression in the eyes themselves which was worse yet. She did not move, nor give any gesture of greeting, but looked at the young man entering as if neither he nor anything else in the world concerned her.
Mr. Digby felt then, what everybody with a heart has felt at one time or another, that the office of comforter is the most difficult in the world. In one thing at least he imitated Job's friends; he was silent. He came close up to the girl and stood there, looking down at her. But she turned her wan face away from him and looked out of the window again. She looked, but he was sure she saw nothing. He did not venture to touch her; he saw that she was not open to the least token of tenderness; such a token would surely turn her apathetic calm into irritation. Perhaps even his standing there had some such effect; for after a little while, Rotha said,
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Digby?"
He sat down, and waited. However, people do not live in these days to be several hundred years old; and proportionately, seven days of silence would be more of that sort of sympathy than can be shewn since Job's time. Yet what to say, Mr. Digby was profoundly doubtful. Finding nothing that would do, of his own, he took his little Testament from his pocket, and turning the leaves aimlessly came upon the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. He began at the beginning and read slowly and quietly on till he came to the words,
'"Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
"'Jesus said unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.'—"
"Please don't, Mr. Digby!" said Rotha, who after a few verses had buried her face in her hands.
"Don't what?"
"Don't read any more."
"Why not?"