"I have been thinking," he said, out of a long silence, "of you and Derry. I--I want you to marry him, dear, before I go."
"Yes. Emily says I have no right to stand in the way of your happiness. And I have no right. And some day, perhaps, oh, my little Jean, my grandchildren may hear the chimes--"
White and still, she stood with her face upturned to the stars. "Life is so wonderful, Daddy."
And this time she said it out of a woman's knowledge of what life was to mean.
They went in, to find that the Connollys had retired. Jean slept in a great feather-bed. And all the night the chimes in the College tower struck the hours--
In the morning, Jean went over to the church with Mrs. Connolly. It was Saturday, and things must be made ready for the services the next day. Jean had been taught as a child to kneel reverently while Mrs. Connolly prayed. To sit quietly in a pew while her good friend did the little offices of the altar.
Jean had always loved to sit there, to wonder about the rows of candles and the crucifix, to wonder about the Sacred Heart, and St. Agnes with the lamb, and St. Anthony who found things when you lost them, and St. Francis in the brown frock with the rope about his waist, and why Mrs. Connolly never touched any of the sacred vessels with bare hands.
But most of all she had wondered about that benignant figure in the pale blue garments who stood in a niche, with a light burning at her feet, and with a baby in her arms.
Faintly as she gazed upon it on this winter morning, Jean began to perceive the meaning of that figure. Of late many women had said to her, "Was my son born for this, to be torn from my arms--to be butchered?"
Well, Mary's son had been torn from her arms--butchered--her little son who had lain in a manger and whom she had loved as much as any less-worshipped mother,--and he had told the world what he thought of sin and injustice and cruelty, and the world had hated him because he had set himself against these things--and they had killed him, and from his death had come the regeneration of mankind.
And now, other men, following him, were setting themselves against injustice and cruelty, and they were being killed for it. But perhaps their sacrifices, too, would be for the salvation of the world. Oh, if only it might be for the world's salvation!