er
father she could only feel a terrified, inarticulate pity. It was not
sympathy. She could not understand enough to sympathize. It was the same
sort of hungry, brooding pity she used to feel for the hungry beasts on
the farm.

"Marcella, do you think if I were to eat a lot of meat I'd be stronger?"
he asked hopefully. "Oh, make me stronger!--give me something," and
suddenly raising himself in bed, he threw his arms about her and, with
his grey head on her shoulder, sobbed desolately. She held him, stroking
his head, aching to find words, but utterly dumb with terror. And when,
later, they got him the food he craved, he could not eat it. Turning
from it in disgust, he prayed:

"There is nothing left, but only Thou, O Lord. No longer art Thou my
shield and buckler, for no longer can I fight. Thou hast laid me very
low, O Lord. Thou hast made me too weak to fight longer; Thou hast
bruised me so that I cannot live save in pain; Thou hast laid me very
low."

There was a long silence. His eyes, faded from the bright blue-grey that
used to flash with fire, were dull and almost colourless as he lay
looking at the faded tapestry of the bed canopy.

"When I pray for courage, Lord, Thou givest pain--Thou givest weakness.
When I pray for strength Thou givest a great hunger and a sinking into
the depths. And then in Thy loving kindness Thou givest Thy body and
blood--for my comfort."

The room grew darker. The fire flickered and spurted as the salt dried
out of the driftwood and burnt in blue tongues of flame. Marcella
shivered, listening to the distant beat of the sea. The house was very
silent, with that dead silence that falls on houses where many of the
rooms are unfurnished. The stir and clamour of the beasts outside had
gone forever. Outside now was only one old cow, kept to give milk for
Andrew. The barren fields lay untended, for Duncan went to the fishing
to bring a little handful of coins to the master he feared and loved,
and Jean went softly about the kitchen in the shadows.

Suddenly Andrew spoke, and Marcella started, drawing a little nearer to
him.

"Do ye mind, Marcella, when we read yon books from Edinburgh--and you
used to be such an idiot, and make me so mad?"

"I mind it," she nodded, thinking painfully of those hard books.

"There was something in one of them that I seized on with a bitter
scorn. It was explaining how the idea of the sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Christ had grown up. It said h