The mob, feeling now secure of
their prey, could indulge in revilings. “So they persecuted Jesus of old,” said one, with a laugh.
“Will the Virgin save you?” asked another.
But enough. One does not repeat the talk of those through whose lips the arch-fiend speaks without disguise. They reviling, and he praying, disappeared in the darkness and the storm.
Edith Yorke had passed that evening in her own room. It had been her custom to keep the eve of her communions in retirement, and to-night she had more than ordinary food for reflection. It was almost eleven o’clock when she began to prepare herself for bed, but she still heard her aunt and Clara up downstairs. Mrs. Yorke had not been well, and, unwilling that her husband should lose his rest, had sent him upstairs to sleep, and kept Clara with her. Edith was just thinking that she had a mind to go down and see how her aunt was, when she heard the small gate of the avenue open, and shut again instantly, as if some one had run through.
Her window was partly raised. She threw it up, and stepped out on to the top of the portico. Her heart divined the danger at once. Already the messenger was half-way up the avenue, and, before she could see that it was a woman, she heard her panting breath and half-exhausted voice: “Help! They are killing Father Rasle!”
A faintness as of death swept over Edith. She would have spoken, but could only sink on her knees and lean over the railing. Mrs. Yorke, too, had heard the click of the gate, and had opened the sitting-room window, and Edith heard her voice and Clara’s. To them the woman told her story.
“Do not speak loudly,” Mrs.
Yorke said. “Mr. Yorke and Edith must not know. They can do no good, and would only make trouble. Clara, go and wake Patrick, and do it quietly. I tell you, my poor woman, my husband could do nothing, and I shall not allow him to be called.”
Edith grew strong the moment she knew the truth. The woman had left the house before Father Rasle did, and a rescue might still be possible. She opened her door noiselessly, stepped out, and closed it after her; then fled down the back-stairs, out through the back-door, and down the avenue to the upper gate. Reaching the road, she flew over it with winged feet. At North Street, instead of going down toward the centre of the town, she crossed to a lumber-road leading to the river. The bridge was far below, but one who dared could go over here on the boom that kept the logs. Edith dared, considering the peril not worth a thought. When some bugle-toned reveille of the soul wakes up our slumbering faith, then miracles become possible.