Part 37 (1/2)

Surely that sacrifice must turn those sinful souls to peace.

Though they did not know it, and for Mr. Sylva.n.u.s Smith's prospect of peace, it was as well he did not, both Aura and her grandfather were special objects of intercession at many hundreds of chapels the very next Sunday. For the story naturally grew in the telling.

Meanwhile Gwen, poor soul, was laid with much fervour beside her baby, the rector duly officiating; for the old shepherd and his wife, thinking of their own funerals to come, held fast to tradition.

Whatever else you might be in life, death brought you back to the Church, back to the solemn old service in which dust is reverently committed to dust, ashes to ashes.

Nearly all the village attended, for, in a way, it was proud of Gwen.

There was but one notable absence. Alicia Edwards was not there to take her part in singing ”Day of Wrath” over her dead friend. She was in bed or at any rate confined to her room; for the dramatic death on New Year's morning had apparently been too much for her nerves.

The gossips of the village went in and out, condoling with her, and applauding her sensibility, and retailing to her all the affecting particulars of the funeral, the wreaths, the remembrances from souls saved by the dead girl's singing, the excellence of the mournings provided by Myfanwy Jones, and the apparently real grief of Mervyn Pugh, who went about looking like a lost soul himself.

Only over the latter statement did Alicia Edwards commit herself so far as to say with sphinxlike gravity, ”I do not wonder. Mervyn and Gwen were always friends. Yes, indeed! even at school they were friends.”

Looking back from her new knowledge concerning Gwen's past, Alicia's only wonder was, indeed, that no one had ever suspected Mervyn. And yet, who could suspect Mervyn? Mervyn, the pattern of the village; Mervyn, among whose perfections her own facile heart had been entangled these many years past. Nor was she alone. Half the village girls would have given their eyes to secure him for their own.

And now that he had fallen from his high pedestal, it seemed to her, woman-like, that she desired him more than ever. That desire, in truth, was the cause of her seclusion. She was not ill--simply she could not make up her mind what to do. One-half of her a.s.serted that she ought to denounce Mervyn; that it was wrong for her to allow him thus to play the hypocrite, that it would be good for his soul's health to do penance in sackcloth and ashes; the other half found excuses for him beneath the cloak of consideration for the slur which would be cast by the unrighteous over the whole revival, could it be shown that one of the most prominent in starting it was--so to speak--an unrepentant castaway; for repentance in such a case as this meant the confession for which the elders of the congregation had clamoured, the lack of which had sent an unbaptized child to the happily infinite mercy--seat of G.o.d.

Alicia knew all this. She had been well brought up, well drilled by her father in the catechisms, and in her inmost soul--a very conventional, placid, harmless soul--she was quite shocked at Mervyn's stony-heartedness. For all that, she could not make up her mind to denounce him. She would give him time. He knew that she knew his secret, and that she was the only person in the world now who knew it--at least of this world; for the ”wild girl of Cwmfairnog,” as the village had dubbed Aura, had not even attended the inquest. Martha had given her evidence, and Martha had known nothing. So there was no likelihood of the truth coming out except through her, Alicia. Perhaps Mervyn, knowing this, would come to her and unburden his soul.

Undoubtedly, if Providence had not intended her to denounce the sinner--and of this, as the days went on, she became more and more certain--it must have had some other purpose in making her the sole recipient of the terrible knowledge.

What purpose?

For to her, as to Morris Pugh, as to nearly all these traffickers in cheap marvels, the impulse to see some hidden meaning, some direct dealing of the Creator with His creature man, had become almost an obsession.

What purpose, then, could Providence have had in thus choosing Alicia Edwards out of all the village to be this sole recipient?

The answer was easy. That Mervyn might come to her as a sort of mediator, as he might have come to a father confessor.

So, as the time wore on, Alicia waited for Mervyn; but Mervyn never appeared, not even after she came down, becomingly dressed in deep mourning, to sit in the back parlour and receive her friends. Myfanwy Jones, whose holiday had been extended over the funeral by reason of the many orders she had successfully placed for it, looked in several times, but there was not much love lost between the two nowadays. So when, on the morning after the funeral, Myfanwy came to say good-bye, Alicia was relieved. She felt the influence of this big, beautiful, worldly creature to be malign; and, once it was removed, she was sure that Mervyn would surely return to the holder of his secret.

”You will be going by the midday carrier,” said Alicia cheerfully; ”you will have a fine drive to Llanilo whatever.”

”A beautiful drive,” a.s.sented Myfanwy; ”I was trying to make Mervyn Pugh take it with me for a change, but he prefers to mope. I did not know him such a friend of poor dead Gwen.”

She challenged Alicia with her bold black eyes, and Alicia felt herself flush.

”When people spend their lives together in holy work, Myfanwy dear,”

she replied in a purring voice, ”it is very close they grow to each other, very close indeed.”

”If they spend their lives together anyway,” retorted Myfanwy with a superior laugh, ”they often grow very close--very close indeed--sometimes too close.”

But Alicia was prepared for her, and smiled sweetly. ”You do not understand religion, Myfanwy. As Mervyn says, it is such a pity--but we must hope for the best--it will come some day.”

”So will Christmas,” replied Myfanwy with a sphinxlike smile; ”but I am not fond of waiting, whatever you may be. Well, good-bye, dear. Do not be frightened when Williams and Edwards send in their bill--it need not be paid till you are married, remember.”

Alicia paled. The memory of that bill was more to her now than the mere fact that when it came, it would mean a demand for money. That she might manage; but how about the claim on her character? For it would be a big bill, a record of much extravagance. One comfort was that, if she married Mervyn--which seemed not so unlikely now as it had seemed a short time ago--he would not be so terribly shocked; or at any rate he would not be in a position to throw so many stones!

It was a lovely afternoon, one of those early January days when earth and sea and sky combine to play a trick on the world, and cheat it into the belief that winter is over. The air, too, felt lighter, more wholesome to Alicia, now that Myfanwy Jones had presumably left the village; presumably, because, though Alicia had not actually seen her go, her boxes had certainly been in the carrier's cart.