She was silent, one hand tense upon the curtain cord.
“It’s such a good day to go,” he urged, “such a good day to do the unexpected, Christmas! Everyone expects the unexpected, on Christmas.”
A comical smile worked on her set face, “You do, anyway, Bishop!” she said with a catch in the throat.
“I think I did allow myself to expect this,” he answered, “this making-up. Perhaps I expected it because I wanted it so, for I’ve been in such a hurry somehow, about that baby. Why, he’ll be growing up, while we’re still talking. You have three-quarters of an hour,” he glanced at the clock in quick remembrance of the visit to Dr. Newbold before church-time, “and you’ll go?”
He waited.
She was silent still, until she burst out, “I can’t! I’d say ‘yes’ if I could, when you beg me so. But I can’t say it, and I’ve got to be honest with you. I can’t say it!”
Her face, working with sobs she forced down, was too painful to look at, yet it gave no hope.
“I am very sorry,” he said quietly and turning went into the great study adjoining, which faced, like the dining-room, on the veranda and river. Suddenly very tired, he sank into his desk chair, pressing the tips of his fingers to his temples, which had such a painful way of throbbing every little while this morning.
“I did want it very much,” he acknowledged to himself, “very much.” He sat thinking, for some moments, then remembering, rose and went into the hall to put on his overcoat, whispering, “But it happened to Him like this always—always!”
About to go out into the street, he turned back. The dining-room door was shut. He opened it. Mrs. Graham was still standing in the window recess, her forehead pressed to the cooling pane. There was no one to see her face. Common-place, coarse, ugly with tears, lights were trembling across it. “If she needs me,” she was whispering, “if she needs me,—” for a holy thing was being born.