For so the living soul will cry to the
dead, and the creature to its God; and of all this crying there comes
nothing. The lifting up of the hands brings no salvation; redemption is
from within, and neither from God nor man; it is wrought out by the soul
itself, with suffering and through time.
Doss, on the kitchen doorstep, shivered, and wondered where his mistress
stayed so long; and once, sitting sadly there in the damp, he had dropped
asleep, and dreamed that old Otto gave him a piece of bread, and patted him
on the head, and when he woke his teeth chattered, and he moved to another
stone to see if it was drier. At last he heard his mistress' step, and
they went into the house together. She lit a candle, and walked to the
Boer-woman's bedroom. On a nail under the lady in pink hung the key of the
wardrobe. She took it down and opened the great press. From a little
drawer she took fifty pounds (all she had in the world), relocked the door,
and turned to hang up the key. The marks of tears were still on her face,
but she smiled. Then she paused, hesitated.
"Fifty pounds for a lover! A noble reward!" she said, and opened the
wardrobe and returned the notes to the drawer, where Em might find them.
Once in her own room, she arranged the few articles she intended to take
tomorrow, burnt her old letters, and then went back to the front room to
look at the time.
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