"Could the good God not have prevented all this?" I wailed.
"Perhaps not, for thy sake," she said softly.
"Oh, she will not, she will not!" I moaned. "Holy Mother, tell me she never will!"
"I cannot, dear. On the contrary, I think she will."
"I never could have believed it of Lady Sybil!"
Lady Judith made no reply; but I thought the expression of pain deepened in her face.
"Dear Helena," was her gentle answer, "sometimes we misunderstand our friends. And very often we misunderstand our Father."
She tried to comfort me: but I was past comfort. I was past food, sleep,--every thing. I went to bed,--it was a miserable relief to get away from the daylight; but I could not sleep, and no tears would come. Only one exceeding bitter cry,--
Would He help me? What had I ever been to Him, or done for Him, that He should? He had shed His life-blood on the holy rood for me; and I had barely ever so much as thanked Him for it. I had never cared about Him. Where was the good of asking Him?
Yet I must cry to Him, for who else was there? Of course there were Mary Mother and the holy saints: but--Oh, I hope it was not wicked!--it seemed as if in my agony I pushed them all aside, and went straight up to Him to whom all prayer must come at last.
Where was Guy?--feeling, in his darkened chamber, as if his heart were breaking?
Where was Sybil?--awake, perhaps, with a lighted lamp, wrestling between the one love of her heart and the pride of life.
And where was God? Did He hear me? Would He hear? And the cry came again, wrung from my very life as if I must have help.
"Help me, Jesu Christ! I have no help. I can do nothing. I can even think of nothing. I can bear no more. Help me, not because I deserve help, but because I want Thee!"
And the darkness went on, and the quiet beats of the water-clock, and the low, musical cry of the watchmen outside; and the clang of arms as they changed guard: but no holy angel came down from Heaven to tell me that my prayer was heard, and that it should be to me even as I would.
Was there no help?--was there no hope?--was there no God in Heaven?
Oh, it cannot, cannot be that she will decide against him! Yet Lady Judith thinks she will. I cannot imagine why. Our own sweet Sybil, to whom he has seemed like the very life of her life! No, it can never be true! She will never, never give him up.