Her aunt did not for a long time speak again.Maggie sat there her mind a maze of the Chapel, old Crashaw, Miss Avies, and Martin.
Slowly the cold crept into her feet and her hands, but her head now was burning hot.Then suddenly her aunt began to talk in a dreamy rather lazy voice, not her natural daily tone which was always very sharp and clear.She talked on and on; sometimes her sentences were confused and unfinished, sometimes they seemed to Maggie to have no meaning; once or twice the voice dropped so low that Maggie did not catch the words, but always there was especial urgency behind the carelessness as though every word were being spoken for a listener's benefit--a listener who sat perhaps with pencil and notebook somewhere in the dark behind them.
"So sorry...so sorry, Maggie dear...so sorry," the words ran up and down."I hadn't meant to take you away before the service was over.Elizabeth could have...sometimes my pain is very bad and Ihave to lie down, you know.But it's nothing--nothing really--only I'm glad, rather, that you should share all our little troubles, because then you'll know us better, won't you? Dear Maggie, there's been something between us all this time, hasn't there? Ever since our first meeting--and it's partly been my fault.I wasn't good at first, I wanted to be kind, but I was stiff and shy.You wouldn't think that I'm shy? I am, terribly.I always have been since I was very little, and just to enter a room when other people are there makes me so embarrassed...I remember once when mother was alive her scolding me because I wouldn't come in to a tea-party.But Icouldn't; I stood outside the door in an agony, doing everything to make myself go in--but I couldn't...But now I've come to love you, dear, although of course you have your faults.But they are faults of your age, carelessness, selfishness.They are nothing in the eyes of God, who understands all our weaknesses.And you must learn to know Him, dear.That is my only prayer now.If I am taken, if I go before the great day--if it be His will--then I pray always, now that I may leave you in my place, waiting for Him as I have waited, trusting Him as I have trusted...you saw to-night what it means to us, what it must mean to any one who has listened.There were times, years ago, when I had not turned to God, when I did not care, when I thought of earthly love...God drew me to Himself...You too must come, Maggie--you must come.You mustn't stay outside--you are asked, you are invited--perhaps you will be compelled..."The voice sank: Maggie's teeth chattered in her head from the cold, and her foot had gone to sleep.She felt obstinate and rebellious and frightened, she could not think clearly, and the words that came from her, suddenly, seemed to her not to be her own.