Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/339

 blood-chilling sounds stopped for a minute and started again.

At last dawn rose, the cocks crowed lustily, the cattle lowed, the birds sang. The flies clustering on the wall-papers woke and buzzed and crawled. Mary got up and dressed hurriedly. God had plagued her enough. She would pray until she found peace.

Where could she go and not be seen or heard? The Big House garden held too many ghosts. She hurried down the street, down the hill, toward the thick pine woods. Nobody would find her there. The morning star blazed in the gray east, the night was over. She would spend this day in prayer.

Her misery was not a garment that could be shed. It was mixed in her flesh and blood. Only God could cast it out and heal her.

A deep hush lay at the foot of the pines, but high overhead an early morning breeze moved.

She closed her eyes and fell on her knees and bent her head to the earth. But her tongue and lips and voice had got separated and dumb. Despair threatened her. Misery split the shell of her heart clear in two. She could feel it break and bleed. God's mercy was hardened against her and His hand fell heavy on her; thoughts came into her head, but when she tried to hold to