Then they all sat down again and the meeting developed a very business-like side.There was a great deal of discussion as to dates, places, appointments, and Maggie was amused to discover that in this part of the proceedings Mrs.Smith had a great deal to say, and took a very leading place.
The gathering became like any other assemblage of ladies for some charitable or social purpose, and there were the usual disputes and signs of temper and wounded pride; in all those matters Miss Avies was a most admirable and unflinching chairman.
Then at last the real moment came.Miss Avies got up to speak.She stood there, scornful, superior, and yet with some almost cynical appeal in her eyes as though she said to them: "You poor fools! No one knows better than I the folly of your being here, no one knows better than I how far you will, all of you, be from realising any of your dreams.Tricked, the lot of you!--and yet--and yet--go on believing, expecting, hoping.Pray, pray that I may be wrong and you may be right."What she actually said was as follows: "This will be our last meeting before the end of the year.What will come to all of us before we all meet again no one can say, but this we all know, that we have, most of us, been living now for many years in expectation.
We have been taught, by the goodness of God, to believe that we must be ready at any moment to obey His call, and that call may come, in the middle of our work, of our prayers, of our love for others, of our pursuit of our own ambitions, and that whenever it does come we must be ready to obey it.We have been told by our great and good Master, who has been set over us for our guidance by God Himself, that that call may now be very near.Whatever form it may take we must accept it, give up all we have and follow Him.That is understood by all of us.I will not say more now.This is not the time for any more directions from me.We must address ourselves, each one of us, to God Himself, and ask Him to prepare us so that we may be as He would have us on the day of His coming.I suggest now before we part that we share together in a few minutes of private prayer." They all rose, and Maggie, before she knelt down, caught a sudden glimpse of the pale girl whom she had noticed earlier standing for a moment as though she were about to make some desperate appeal to them all.Some words did indeed seem to come from her lips, but the scraping of chairs drowned every other sound.
Nevertheless that figure was there, the hands stretched out, the very soul struggling through the eyes for expression, the body tense, sacred, eloquent, like the body of some young prophetess.
Then all were on their knees, and Maggie, too, her face in her hands, was praying.It was, perhaps, the first time in her life that she had actively, consciously, of her own volition prayed.The appeal formed itself as it were without her own agency.
"God--if there is a God--give me Martin.I care for nothing else but that.If You will give me Martin for my own always, ever, I will believe in You.I will worship You and say prayers to You, and do anything You tell me if You give me Martin.Oh God! I ought to have him.He is mine.I can do more for him than any one else can--I can make him happy and good.I know I can.God give him to me and I will be your slave.God, give me Martin--God, give me Martin."She rose, as it were, from the depths of the sea, from great darkness and breathlessness and exhaustion.For a moment she could not see the room nor any detail, but only one pale face after another, like a pattern on a wall, hiding something from her.
She stood bewildered beside her aunts, not hearing the strains of the last hymn nor the quaver of Aunt Anne's trembling voice beside her.
"God, give me Martin," was her last challenge in the strange pale silence that floated around her.Then suddenly, as though she had pushed open a door and gone through, she was back in the world again, a flood of sound was about her ears, and in front of her the red face of Mrs.Smith, her mouth wide open, like the mouth of an eager fish, singing about "the Blood of the Lamb" with unctuous satisfaction...