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.
Therefore, a Helper.

Now, struggle as she would for warmth or healthy hopes, the world was gray and silent.

Her defeated woman's nature called it so, bitterly.

Christ was a dim, ideal power, heaven far-off.
She doubted if it held anything as real as that which she had lost.
As if to bring back the old times more vividly to her, there happened one of those curious little coincidences with which Fate, we think, has nothing to do.