Part 20 (1/2)

”Nanna! Nanna!”

”It is the truth, David. How the good G.o.d can treat his bairns so, I know not; but you and I may also deserve his wrath in like manner.

I am feared to hope different. O David, I am feared to be a mother again!”

”Nanna! Nanna! what can I say?”

”There is nothing to say. If I should meet Vala in that place where infants 'earnestly desire to see and love G.o.d, and yet are not able to do so,' I should cover my face before the child. If she blamed me, I should s.h.i.+ver in speechless agony; if she did not blame me, it would be still harder to bear. Were we only sure--but we are not sure.”

”_We are not sure._” David repeated the words with a sad significance. Nanna's argument, evolved from her own misery and ill.u.s.trated by that misery, had been before David's eyes for months. He could not escape from such reasoning and from such proof, and his whole life, education, and experience went to enforce the pitiful dilemma in which their love had placed them.

”It is His will, and we must bear it to the uttermost,” continued Nanna, with a sorrowful resignation.

”I am very wretched, Nanna.”

”So am I, David, very wretched indeed. I used to think monks and nuns, and such as made a merit of not marrying, were all wrong; maybe they are nearer right than we think for. Doubtless they have a tender conscience toward G.o.d, and a tender conscience is what he loves.”

Then David rose from Nanna's side and walked rapidly to and fro in the room. Motion helped him to no solution of the tremendous difficulty. And Nanna's patient face, her fixed outward gaze, the spiritual light of resolute decision in her eyes, gave to her appearance an austere beauty that made him feel as if this offering up of their love and all its earthly sweetness was a sacrifice already tied to the horns of the altar, and fully accepted.

Now, the law of duty lay very close to David's thoughts; it was an ever-present consciousness, haunting his very being; but the sensual nature always shrinks away from it. David sat down and covered his face with his hands, and began to weep--to sob as strong men sob when their sorrow is greater than they can bear; as they never sob until the last drop, the bitterest drop of all, is added--the belief that G.o.d has forsaken them. This was the agony which tore David's great, fond heart in two. It forced from him the first pitiful words of reproach against his G.o.d:

”I was sure at last that I was going to be happy, and G.o.d is not willing. From my youth up he has ay laid upon me the rod of correction. I wish that I had never been born!”

”My poor lad! but you are not meaning it.” And Nanna put her arms around his neck and wept with him. For some minutes he let her do so, for he was comforted by her sympathy; but at last he stood up, pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes, and said as bravely as he could:

”You are right, Nanna. If you feel in this way, I dare not force your conscience. But I must go away until I get over the sore disappointment.”

”Where will you go to, David?”

”Who can tell? The countries in which I may have to earn and eat my bread I know not. But if I was seeing you every day, I might get to feel hard at G.o.d.”

”No, no! He fas.h.i.+oned us, David, and he knows what falls and sore hurts we must get before we learn to step sure and safe.”

”In the end it may all be right. I know not. But this I know: pain and cold and hunger and weariness and loneliness I have borne with a prayer and a tight mouth, and I have never said before that I thought him cruel hard.”

”His ways are not cruel, my dear love; they are only past our finding out. The eternal which makes for righteousness cannot be cruel.

And if we could see G.o.d with our eyes, and hear him with our ears, and understand him with our reason, what grace would there be in believing in him? Did not the minister say last Sabbath that our life was hid with Christ in G.o.d, and that therefore G.o.d must first be pierced ere we could be hurt or prejudiced? Then let us take what comfort we can in each other's affection, David, and just try and believe that G.o.d's ways are the very best of all ways for us.”

”Sometime--perhaps--”

”And don't leave me, David. I can bear all things if you are near to help and comfort me.”

”Ay, ay; but women are different. I cannot fight the temptation when I am in it; I must run away from it. Farewell! Oh, dear, dear Nanna, farewell!”

He kissed the words upon her lips, and went hastily out of the house; but when he had walked about one hundred yards he returned. Nanna had thrown herself despairingly upon the rude couch made for Vala, and on which the child had spent most of her life. There Nanna lay like one dead. David knelt down by her; he took her within his arms, kissed her closed eyes, and murmured again upon her lips his last words of love and sorrow. Her patient acceptance of her hard lot made him quiver with pain, but he knew well that for a time, at least, they must each bear their grief alone.

Nanna's confession of her love for him had made everything different.