"It is cruel," she said in a low, difficult voice. "How can there be any brightness when I am like this? It is very cruel."
"Where shall we go?" asked Vivien softly. "Shall we go to some spot where we shall be very, very quiet and undisturbed? I should like you to forget who I am, even what has brought me, and just to be as if I did not exist. If you feel like talking, then talk. But if you want to be quiet, I can be quiet too. Oh, my dear, I can be very, very quiet. I have been through the deeps, where there is nothing possible but dumb silence."
Isla then remembered the tragedy of Vivien Rosmead’s life, and her own pity and sympathy which in times past had never failed any in need, awoke to newness of life. The frozen springs of her being leaped again with life, and, with an almost unconscious desire to help, she slipped her hand through Vivien’s arm.
"Why is it that life is so full of hideous suffering for women?" she asked with a vague passion. "I used to believe in God--in all things beautiful and good. Now I believe nothing."
"Your faith will come back. Even I say that," said Vivien softly. "I don’t want to belittle your suffering, dear, but it is of an impersonal kind. The woman who cannot be blamed if she loses faith is the one who has been cheated in her own self, whose womanhood has been flouted and scorned, whose love has been trampled on and despised. That is where the silent deeps are. May I say just what I will?"
"Surely," answered Isla, lifted clean out of herself by something tragic and mysterious in that other woman’s face.
"Your father was an old man, full of years and honour. His life had become a little burdensome to him, and though I never saw him, I know that his fine spirit must have fretted at his forced inactivity. What you must do now is to dwell upon his rejuvenation. He has gone where there is no death, where his powers will be restored, where once more all things are possible."
Isla’s hungry eyes never for a moment left the speaking face of the woman at her side.
All the time they were moving slowly, but surely, away from the house up to the wide spaces of the great moor where the great silence dwelt.
"Tell me more," was the mute question of Isla’s eyes and lips.