The Weavers: a tale of England and Egypt of fifty years ago - Complete. Gilbert Parker

dreamed not of in Soolsby’s but upon the hill, Faith,

       though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.

       How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous

       things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding

       capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which

       try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life—unless,

       indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean. The Epicurean I well

       understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.

       I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of

       pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing. I could have

       walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit

       of mind and desire have kept me in the better path. But offences

       must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh! I have

       begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our

       farthest cells of life. I begin to see how near good is to evil;

       how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from

       actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel

       tomorrow. Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in

       acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no

       explanation, which—”

      He paused, disturbed. Then he raised his head, as though not conscious of what was breaking the course of his thoughts. Presently he realised a low, hurried knocking at his door. He threw a hand over his eyes, and sprang up. An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood within the room, beside the table where he had been writing. There was silence as they faced each other, his back against the door.

      “Oh, do you not know me?” she said at last, and sank into the chair where he had been sitting.

      The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could not bear the strain of the silence. She seemed to have risen out of the letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her—of what concerned them both? How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in going she had done the discreeter, safer thing. But she had come—she had come!

      All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still. He was almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and self-command of the Quaker people was upon him.

      “Can you not see—do you not know?” she repeated, her back upon him now, her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress.

      “Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?”

      “Oh, do not blame me!” She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face as pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness. “I did not know. It was so hard to come—do not blame me. I went to Alexandria—I felt that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out. Did you not understand why I went?”

      “I understand,” he said, coming forward slowly. “Thee should not have returned. In the way I go now the watchers go also.”

      “If I had not come, you would never have understood,” she answered quickly. “I am not sorry I went. I was so frightened, so shaken. My only thought was to get away from the terrible Thing. But I should have been sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel, and that I shall never forget. All my life I shall be grateful. You have saved me from a thousand deaths. Ah, if I could give you but one life! Yet—yet—oh, do not think but that I would tell you the whole truth, though I am not wholly truthful. See, I love my place in the world more than I love my life; and but for you I should have lost all.”

      He made a protesting motion. “The debt is mine, in truth. But for you I should never have known what, perhaps—” He paused.

      His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say. She looked and looked, but did not understand. She only saw troubled depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose. “Tell me,” she said, awed.

      “Through you I have come to know—” He paused again. What he was going to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been sorely hurt already. He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely.

      “By what happened I have come to see what matters in life. I was behind the hedge. I have broken through upon the road. I know my goal now. The highway is before me.”

      She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke. “I wish I knew life better. Then I could make a better answer. You are on the road, you say. But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road—oh, I understand that at least! Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth. You are hiding from me what you feel. I have upset your life, have I not? You are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian people, are they not? Their faith is peace, and for me, you—” She covered her face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and looked him in the eyes: “For me you put your hand upon the clock of a man’s life, and stopped it.”

      She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently upon her arm, and she sank back again. “Oh, it was not you; it was I who did it!” she said. “You did what any man of honour would have done, what a brother would have done.”

      “What I did is a matter for myself only,” he responded quickly. “Had I never seen your face again it would have been the same. You were the occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind. There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I did take, you could not be responsible.”

      “How generous you are!” Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter. Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry the tears from the paper with her handkerchief. As she did so the words that he had written met her eye: “ ‘But offences must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh!’ I have begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life.”

      She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: “Come away, come away.”

      She pointed to the words she had read. “I could not help but see, and now I know what this must mean to you.”

      “Thee must go at once,” he urged. “Thee should not have come. Thee was safe—none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind. We might never have met again.”

      Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. “You think you hide the real thing from me. I know I’m ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about—about it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to be punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not for me you would not. …” With a sudden wild impulse she got to her feet. “And you shall not,” she cried. “I will not have it.” Colour came rushing to her cheeks.

      “I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone.”

      There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke excitedly:

      “I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment’s regret. He had planned, planned—ah, God, can you not see it all! I would have taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not have cried out from