But there lay the shilling in the centre of the table, and there stood Naomi in a cloud of steam, hard at work on an immoderate pile of washing—­even a man’s miscalculating eye could see that it was immoderate.

“I didn’t call—­” he began, with a glance towards the shilling.

“No; I know you didn’t.  But you may so well take it all the same.”

Geake had rehearsed a small speech, but found himself making out and signing the voucher as usual; and, as usual, when it was signed, he drew over a chair, and dropped on his knees.  In prayer-meeting he was a great hand at “improving” an occasion of bereavement; but here again his will to speak impressively suddenly failed him.  His words were: 

“Lord, there were two women grinding at a mill; the one was taken, and t’other left.  She that you took, you’ve a-carr’d beyond our prayers; but O, be gentle, be gentle, to her that’s left!”

He arose, and looked shyly, almost shamefacedly, at Naomi.  She had not turned.  But her head was bowed; and, drawing near, he saw that the scalding tears were falling fast into the wash-tub.  She had not wept when her husband was lost, nor since.

“Go away!” she commanded, before he could speak, turning her shoulders resolutely towards him.

He took up his hat, and went out softly, closing the door softly behind him.

His eye, which was growing quick to read Naomi’s face, saw at once, as he entered the room a week later, that she deprecated even the slightest reference to her weakness.  It also told him—­he had not guessed it before—­that her emotional breakdown had probably more to do with physical exhaustion than with any eloquence of his.  The pile of washing had grown, and the woman’s face was grey with fatigue.

Geake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of hinting that this kind of thing must not go on.  Nevertheless it was Naomi who began.

“Look here,” she said, as he put down the voucher; “there ain’t goin’ to be no more prayin’, eh?”

“Why, to be sure there is,” he answered with a show of great cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.

“I’d liefer you didn’t.  I don’t want it.  I don’t hold by any o’t.  You’m very kind,” she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and then recovering its firmness, “and I reckon it soothed mother.  But I reckon it don’t soothe me.  I reckon it rubs me the wrong way.  There’s times, when I hears a body prayin’, that I wishes we was Papists again and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at ’em!”

She paused, looked up into Geake’s devouring eyes, and added, with a poor attempt at a laugh: 

“So you see, I’m wicked, an’ don’t want to be saved.”

Then the man broke forth: 

“Saved?  No, I reckon you don’t!  Wicked?  Iss, I reckon you be!  But saved you shall be—­ay, if you was twice so wicked.  Who’ll do it?  I’ll do it—­I alone.  I don’t want your help.  I want to do it in spite of ‘ee:  an’ I’ll lay that I do!  Be your wickedness deep as hell, an’ I’ll reach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up:  be your salvation stubborn as Death, I’ll wrestle wi’ the Lord for it.  If I sell my own soul for’t, yours shall be redeemed!”