“For I say unto you,
Whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause
Of fornication causeth her
To commit adultery.”
She shut the book. She looked at the Church. She looked at the Church, the morning stars sang through her flimsy nightgown. But she was not cold. She wondered.
She went back into bed, holding the Bible. Two fingers marked the two places she had read. Her eyes narrowed.—I am beginning to think! Once more she jumped up. She turned the curtains back so that the windows were bare. She went again to her bed. She could see the Church now from her pillow. She pressed the little black book against her breasts. “Where,” she said aloud, “in which of the two places does it touch me?” She pressed the Bible against her left breast and against her right breast. She liked the feel of the hard book against her.... “What sucks me?” she whispered.” ... that which has cast me out, or the other that draws, that welcomes?” She lifted her two hands high above her face. “Yes” she cried, “the other that calls me good!” Her hands fell in her bosom.—I am beginning to think. Do words in sunlight leap from a page and leave it? She turned her head, gazed at the wall of the Church so heavy and fixed against the sun-dazzled window. The organ rose. A hymn, many-voiced, twined with the organ, pealed slanting upwards toward her through the window.—It leaves the Church. Comes to me. I hear it as no one ... don’t I know?... as none of them sticking in their varnished pews. I hear alone. Out of a Church. She took the Bible again and read the words of Jesus.
She read them calmly. She looked away seeing the terrible words. Pain, agony of shame and of deprival, rending of doubt parted once more the golden haze she had lived in for a moment.—I am sinking back! She was afraid.—I am sinking. There it was all ... Harry, her search to hold, to find him: the lancing anguish of her revelation: Leon, Edith, the ecstacy of Good ... and the cool-lipped stranger so close pointing a finger, thrusting her out with a finger.
Fanny rocked in her bed, rocked motionless, dizzy with rocking thoughts.—Go away, go away, she moaned.—Why, why must I ask Why? I cannot bear it.
There was a knock on her door. She was very still. Knock, knock.
“What is it?”
“May I come in?... It’s Clara Lonergan....”
“O you.... Yes. Come in.”
The girl smiled: “It’s such a bully morning.”