I am quite sure of that. But you have
broken the barrier down by all your pain and bravery during these last
years. I am no less sure of that. I am absolutely confident about it,
and I believe you are too. So that although we shall not see one another
here and as long as we live, the afterwards is quite sure for us both.
And we can wait for that. You can. You have waited with so much strength
all these years since we parted. And I can too, for I get strength from
your victory."
She stopped, and for a while there was silence in that church. To
Feversham her words were gracious as rain upon dry land. To hear her
speak them uplifted him so that those six years of trial, of slinking
into corners out of the sight of his fellows, of lonely endurance, of
many heart-sinkings and much bodily pain, dwindled away into
insignificance. They had indeed borne their fruit to him. For Ethne had
spoken in a gentle voice just what his ears had so often longed to hear
as he lay awake at night in the bazaar at Suakin, in the Nile villages,
in the dim wide spaces of the desert, and what he had hardly dared to
hope she ever would speak. He stood quite silently by her side, still
hearing her voice though the voice had ceased.
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