She said the text, and let him repeat it after her word by word, as a child follows its mother in prayer.
“And try hard, Ansel! Remember the children and poor Jenny!”
“Yes, yes. I will, Peace! Poor Jenny! I’m sorry for her. And the children—You know I wouldn’t harm any one for the whole world, don’t you, Peace?”
“Yes, I do know, Ansel, how good and kind you are; and I know you’ll see all this in the true light soon. But now you’re excited.”
“Well, say it just once more, and then I shall have it.”
Once more she said the words, and he after her. He got them straight this time, without admixture from the other text. There came a rush of his feet on the stairs, and a wild laugh.
“Jenny! Jenny! It’s all right now, Jenny!” he shouted, as he plunged into the apartment, and was heard beating as if on a door closed against him. It must have opened, for there was a sound like its shutting, and then everything was still except a little pathetic, almost inaudible murmur as of suppressed sobbing in the dark of the entry below. Presently soft steps ascended the stairs and lost themselves in the rear of the apartment.
“Now, young man,” said Hughes, “I think you had better go. Peace will be in here directly to look after me, and it will distress her to find any one else. It is all right now.”
“But hadn’t I better stay, Mr. Hughes? Can’t I be of use?”
“No. I will defer reading that passage to another time. You will be looking in on us soon again. We shall get on very well. We are used to these hypochrondriacal moods of Ansel’s.”