He shook his head, and for the first time in their acquaintance he seemed
to feel compassion for her. "It isn't possible. I couldn't take your money;
I shouldn't know what to do with it."
"You know what to do with your own," she broke in. "You do good with that!"
"I'm afraid I do harm with it too," he returned. "It's only a little, but
little as it has been, I can no longer meet the responsibility it brings."
"But if you took my money," she urged, "you could devote your life to
preaching the truth, to writing and publishing books, and all that; and so
could others: don't you see?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps others; but I have done with preaching for the
present. Later I may have something to say. Now I feel sure of nothing, not
even of what I've been saying here."
"Will you send for Idella? When she goes with the Savors I will come too!"
He looked at her sorrowfully. "I think you are a good woman, and you mean
what you say. But I am sorry you say it, if any words of mine have caused
you to say it, for I know you cannot do it. Even for me it is hard to go
back to those associations, and for you they would be impossible."
"You will see," she returned, with exaltation. "I will take Idella to the
Savors' to-morrow--or no; I'll have them come here!"
He stood looking at her in perplexity. At last he asked, "Could I see the
child?"
"Certainly!" said Annie, with the lofty passion that possessed her, and she
led him up into the chamber where Idella lay sleeping in Annie's own crib.
He stood beside it, gazing long at the little one, from whose eyes he
shaded the lamp. Then he said, "I thank you," and turned away.
She followed him down-stairs, and at the door she said: "You think I will
not come; but I will come. Don't you believe that?"
He turned sadly from her. "You might come, but you couldn't stay. You don't
know what it is; you can't imagine it, and you couldn't bear it."
"I will come, and I will stay," she answered; and when he was gone she
fell into one of those intense reveries of hers--a rapture in which she
prefigured what should happen in that new life before her. At its end
Mr. Peck stood beside her grave, reading the lesson of her work to the
multitude of grateful and loving poor who thronged to pay the last tribute
to her memory. Putney was there with his wife, and Lyra regretful of her
lightness, and Mrs. Munger repentant of her mendacities. They talked
together in awe-stricken murmurs of the noble career just ended. She heard
their voices, and then she began to ask herself what they would really say
of her proposing to go to Fall River with the Savors and be a mill-hand.