Captivity Part 67

"I thought--He never gave you--anesthetics--" she told herself. "Why, that's what death is--"

Then came the clear vision of G.o.d--not the Great Being with devastating feet at all: He seemed to be like the surgeon in Sydney, for a moment, very sure of His work, very strong, very much stronger and wiser than she was. It was no use at all to fight a thing so wise and strong and tender--

At that moment, as this most beautiful, most kindly thing came to her, she wanted to tell Kraill about it, so that he should be filled with the beauty of it without having to come to death to find it out. The pencil was in her hand, resting on the page. Her brain willed her fingers to conquer their heaviness, their farawayness, and write:

"G.o.d seems like you when you told me I needn't be frightened about Louis any more--"

The cras.h.i.+ngs in her ears grew fainter. More light came.

"No. He is more than that. He is the sun that is s.h.i.+ning and the soft noise that is coming up from the sea--and Andrew's laughing--No--those were only His robes that I was looking at!--G.o.d is the courage you loved--G.o.d is the courage; His clothes are loving-kindness--"

In that moment that the structure of her life fell inwards she saw still more.

"I know now that I need not regret all these greeds and hungers and prides of mine that have been unfulfilled. They have been burned out by the courage and the loving-kindness--"

The pencil rolled on to the floor; what her spirit had willed to tell him her fingers had made a weak scrawl of straggling, futile marks.