IX
David Gillespie woke later than his daughter, and when he had put away the shadows of his unhappy dreams he took up the burden of waking thoughts which weighed more heavily on him. The sight of his child groveling at the feet of that blasphemous impostor and adoring him as her God pitilessly realized itself to him as a thing shameful past experience and beyond credence, and yet as undeniable as his pulse, his breath, his seeing and hearing. The dread which a less primitive spirit would have forbidden itself as something too abominable, possessed him as wholly possible. He had lived righteously, and he had kept evil from those dear to him, both the dead and the quick, by the force of his strong unselfish will; now he had seen his will without power upon the one who was dearest, and whom he seemed to hold from evil only by the force of his right hand. But his hand could not be everywhere and at all times; and then?
The breakfast which the girl had got for him and left on the hearth was warm yet, when he put it on the table, and she could not have been gone more than a few minutes, but she had gone, he did not know where, without waiting to speak with him after the threats and defiances which they had slept upon. When he had poured the coffee after the mouthfuls he forced down, he acted on the only hope he had and crossed the woods-pasture to his sister's cabin.
She understood the glance he gave within from the threshold where he paused, and said, “She ain't here, David.” Nancy had cleared her breakfast away and was ironing at the shelf where she had eaten; the baby was playing on the floor.
Gillespie looked down at it. “I didn't know but what she'd come over to dress it; she cares so much for it.”
“It cares for her, too. But what brings you after her?”
“She's gone somewhere without her breakfast. We had high words last night after I brought her home.”
“I'm afraid you'll have higher words, yet, David. Joey was at the Temple.”
“Nancy, I don't know what to do about her.”
“You knew what to do about me, David.” She gave her stab, and then she pitied him, not for the pain she was willing he should feel from it, but for the pain he was feeling before. “I know it isn't like that. I'm sorry for you both. You haven't come to the end of your troubles.”