Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/46

38 Perhaps it was her duty. Yet this was hard for one who asked only that she might walk on softly in the bitterness of her soul, guarding for herself the hush that lies about new-made graves.

She had grown almost content, living in the constant presence of the dead. Now a sudden change of work disturbed her. She was asked to leave her books, and to do district visiting in the slums. The swarming people irritated her. The sights and sounds made her ill. She could not really care, she said to herself, about the wretched people she was trying to serve. Yet the thought of them troubled her dreams. At night their faces followed her on her journey to the past. Soiled fingers seemed to clutch her gown as she walked the old, familiar ways.

She went on in a maze. That old expectation of finding on the other side of each shut door the face she loved went with her to the slums. But the open doors revealed only dirt, misery, sin. Again and again the rebellious cry arose.