She,
too, had her place and work. She thought that night she saw it
clearly, and kept her eyes fixed on it, as I said. They plodded
steadily down the wide years opening before her. Whatever slow,
unending toil lay in them, whatever hungry loneliness, or
coarseness of deed, she saw it all, shrinking from nothing. She
looked at the big blue-corded veins in her wrist, full of
untainted blood,--gauged herself coolly, her lease of life, her
power of endurance,--measured it out against the work waiting for
her. No short task, she knew that. She would be old before it
was finished, quite an old woman, hard, mechanical, worn out.
But the day would be so bright, when it came, it would atone for
all: the day would be bright, the home warm again; it would hold
all that life had promised her of good.
All? Oh, Margret, Margret! Was there no sullen doubt in the
brave resolve? Was there no shadow just then, dark, ironical,
blotting out father and mother and home, creeping nearer, less
alien to your soul than these, than even your God?
If any such cold, masterful shadow rose out of years gone, and
clutched at the truest life of her heart, she stifled it, and
thrust it down. And yet, leaning on the gate, and thinking
vacantly, she remembered a time when through that shadow, she
believed more in a God than she did now. When, by the help of
that very dead hope, He of whom she read to-night stood close, an
infinitely tender Helper, that with the differing human loves she
knew, had loved His mother and Mary.
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