"But Paul was inspired?"
"Yes, thank God!—to declare that dividend of present joy to all shareholders in the stock of eternal life. But doubtless, only faith can take it out."
Eleanor sat silent, chewing bitter thoughts. "O this is what these people have!"—she said to herself;—"this is the helmet of salvation! And I am as far from it as ever!" The conversation ended there. Eleanor was miserable all day. She did not explain herself; Mrs. Caxton only saw her preoccupied, moody, and silent.
"There is preaching again at Glanog to-night," she said a few days afterwards; "I am not yet quite well enough to go. Do you choose to go, Eleanor?"
Eleanor looked down and answered yes.
She went; and again, and again, and again. Sundays or week days, Eleanor missed no chance of riding her pony to the little valley church. Mrs. Caxton generally went with her, after the first week; but going in her car she was no hindrance to the thoughtfulness and solitude of the rides on horseback; and Eleanor sometimes wept all the way home, and oftener came with a confused pain in her heart, dull or acute as the case might be. She saw truth that seemed beautiful and glorious to her; she saw it in the faces and lives as well as in the words of others; she longed to share their immunity and the peace she perceived them possessed of; but how to lay hold of it she could not find. She seemed to herself too evil ever to become good; she tried, but her heart seemed as hard as a stone. She prayed, but no relief came. She did not see how she could be saved, while evil had such a hold of her; and to dislodge it she was powerless. Eleanor was in a constant state of uneasiness and distress now. Her usually fine temper was more easily roughened than she had ever known it; the services she had long been accustomed to render to others who needed her, she felt it now very hard to give. She was dissatisfied with herself and very unhappy, and she said to herself that she was unfit to properly minister to anybody else. She became a comparatively silent and ungenial companion to her aunt. Mrs. Caxton perhaps understood her; for she made no remark on this change, seemed to take no notice; was as evenly and tenderly affectionate to her niece as ever before, with perhaps a little added expression of sympathy now and then. She did not even ask an explanation of Eleanor's manner of getting out of church.
Eleanor and her aunt, as it happened, always occupied a seat very near the front and almost under the pulpit. It had been Eleanor's custom ever since the first time she came there, to slip out of her seat and make her way down the aisle with eager though quiet haste; leaving her aunt to follow at her leisure; and she was generally mounted and off before Mrs. Caxton reached the front door. During the service always now, Eleanor's eyes were fastened upon the preacher; his often looked at her; he recognized her of course; and Eleanor had a vague fear that if she were not out of the way he would some time or other come down and accost her. It was an unreasoning fear; she gave no account of it to herself; except that her mind was in an unsettled, out-of-order state, that would not bear questioning; and if he came he would be certain to question her. So Eleanor fled and let her aunt do the talking—if any there were. Eleanor never asked and never knew.
This went on for some weeks. Spring had burst upon the hills, and the valleys were green in beauty and flushing with flowers; and Eleanor's heart was barren and cold more than she had ever felt it to be. She began to have a most miserable opinion of herself.
It happened one night, what rarely happened, that Mr. Rhys had some one in the pulpit with him. Eleanor was sorry; she grudged to have even the closing prayer or hymn given by another voice. But it was so this evening; and when Eleanor rose as usual to make her quick way out of the house, she found that somebody else had been quick. Mr Rhys stood beside her. It was impossible to help speaking. He had clearly come down for the very purpose. He shook hands with Eleanor.
"How do you do?" he said. "I am glad to see you here. Is your mind at rest yet?"