THE VISION OF ZORA

How Zora found the little church she never knew; but somehow, in the
long dark wanderings which she had fallen into the habit of taking at
nightfall, she stood one evening before it. It looked warm, and she was
cold. It was full of her people, and she was very, very lonely. She sat
in a back seat, and saw with unseeing eyes. She said again, as she had
said to herself a hundred times, that it was all right and just what she
had expected. What else could she have dreamed? That he should ever
marry her was beyond possibility; that had been settled long
since--there where the tall, dark pines, wan with the shades of evening,
cast their haunting shadows across the Silver Fleece and half hid the
blood-washed west. After _that_ he would marry some one else, of course;
some good and pure woman who would help and uplift and serve him.

She had dreamed that she would help--unknown, unseen--and perhaps she
had helped a little through Mrs. Vanderpool. It was all right, and yet
why so suddenly had the threads of life let go? Why was she drifting in
vast waters; in uncharted wastes of sea? Why was the puzzle of life
suddenly so intricate when but a little week ago she was reading it, and
its beauty and wisdom and power were thrilling her delighted hands?
Could it be possible that all unconsciously she had dared dream a
forbidden dream? No, she had always rejected it. When no one else had
the right; when no one thought; when no one cared, she had hovered over
his soul as some dark guardian angel; but now, now somebody else was
receiving his gratitude. It was all right, she supposed; but she, the
outcast child of the swamp, what was there for her to do in the great
world--her, the burden of whose sin--

But then came the voice of the preacher: _"Behold the Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sin of the world_."

She found herself all at once intently listening. She had been to church
many times before, but under the sermons and ceremonies she had always
sat coldly inert. In the South the cries, contortions, and religious
frenzy left her mind untouched; she did not laugh or mock, she simply
sat and watched and wondered. At the North, in the white churches, she
enjoyed the beauty of wall, windows, and hymn, liked the voice and
surplice of the preacher; but his words had no reference to anything in
which she was interested. Here suddenly came an earnest voice addressed,
by singular chance, to her of all the world.