"
"If he had only waited," said David, scarcely knowing what words he was
speaking, "if he had waited until to-morrow, only, or the next day...."
"Yes; if he had waited!"
The Missioner's eyes narrowed. David heard the click of his jaws as he
dropped his head so that his face was hidden.
"If he had waited," he repeated, after David, "if he had only waited!"
And his hands, spread out fan-like ever the stove, closed slowly and
rigidly as if gripping at the throat of something.
"I have friends up in that country he came from," David forced himself
to say, "and I had hoped he would be able to tell me something about
them. He must have known them, or heard of them."
"Undoubtedly," said the Missioner, still looking at the top of the
stove, and unclenching his fingers as slowly as he had drawn them
together, "but he is dead."
There was a note of finality in his voice, a sudden forcefulness of
meaning as he raised his head and looked at David.
"Dead," he repeated, "and buried. We are no longer privileged even to
guess at what he might have said. As I told you once before, David, I am
not a Catholic, nor a Church-of-England man, nor of any religion that
wears a name, and yet I accepted a little of them all into my own creed.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177