“But it is my nature to love something with my whole strength, so that all else seems small in comparison,” she said, sighing. “How can I help it?”
While she gazed fixedly at the sky, at first without seeing, she presently became aware of a red-gold crescent moon that had grown visible under her eyes, curved like a bow when the arrow is just singing from the string, like the new moon whereon Our Lady stands, a tower of ivory.
The tears in Bessie's eyes made the shining curve tremble in the sky as though a hand held it; and, as though it were a bent bow, an arrowy thought flew from it, and struck quivering into her heart:
“Love God, and all will be well!”
She sat a minute longer, then rose and went quietly homeward. Aunt Nancy would be anxious about her; and the desire for solitude was gone. She was glad now that she had written to Father Conners, though the letter might have shown a gentler spirit. It was a comfort to have done something that was right, though it was not much.
One does not ordinarily become pious in a moment. We may recognize the voice of God, and be startled at the clearness and suddenness of the summons, but our sluggish faith has ever an excuse for a little more folding of the hands to sleep. [pg 342] But though not obedient at once, Bessie Maynard felt, rather than saw, that there was a refuge which made it no longer possible for her to despair.
Within a few days she received an answer to her letter. The priest was coming to that neighborhood by the last of the week, and would see her. The letter was brief and to the point, and contained not one word of sympathy or exhortation; but the tremulous characters, that told of age or infirmity touched the heart of the reader. This old man gave her no soft words, but he was hastening to her relief. For the first time, she anxiously asked herself if it had not been possible for her to avoid all her trouble, and if there was any element in her story which could reasonably be expected to call forth anything but reproof for herself from a man whose whole life had been one of charity and self-denial. She wished to see him indeed, but she awaited his coming with a feeling little short of terror.
Bessie had not written to her husband. She could not bring herself to do that, for she did not wish to write coldly to him, and she would not use expressions of affection which had no echo in her heart. But she wrote to her son a gentle and tender letter, of which he was neither old nor sensitive enough to feel the pathos. Only one reproach found a place there: “I thought you might like to hear from me, though you cared more for your play than you did to say good-by to me when I came here, and left me to go to the depot alone.” She did not intimate, though she thought, that the business which had called her husband away at the same time might as easily have been postponed.
Father Conners came. His open buggy was driven to the door one morning, and the boy who sat with him held the horse while the priest slowly alighted. He was a large, powerful-looking man, still vigorous, though slightly bent and stiff with age. Snow-white hair framed his expressive face, in which sternness and benevolence were strangely mingled. His color was fresh, perfect teeth gave a brilliancy to his infrequent smile, and his pale-blue eyes were almost too penetrating to be met with ease. He walked with his head slightly bent down and his gaze fixed upon the ground till he reached the door, then looked up to see Bessie standing on the threshold.
She was a pretty creature still, in spite of troubled years, and her manner and expression would have propitiated a sterner judge. Blushes overspread her face, and she trembled; yet an impulse of joyful welcome broke through and brightened her, as a sunbeam brightens the cloud.