Milly raised doubts which subsided in a kind of awe when Agatha faced her with the evidence of dates.
"You remember, Milly, the night when he slept."
"I do remember. He said himself it was miraculous."
She meditated.
"And so you think it"s that?" she said presently.
"I do indeed. If I dared leave off (I daren"t) you"d see for yourself."
"What do you think you"ve got hold of?"
"I don"t know yet."
There was a long deep silence which Milly broke.
"What do you _do_?" she said.
"I don"t do anything. It isn"t me."
"I see," said Milly. "_I_"ve prayed. You didn"t think I hadn"t."
"It"s not that--not anything you mean by it. And yet it is; only it"s more, much more. I can"t explain it. I only know it isn"t me."
She was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable about having told her.
"And Milly, you mustn"t tell him. Promise me you won"t tell him."
"No, I won"t tell him."
"Because you see, he"d think it was all rot."
"He would," said Milly. "It"s the sort of thing he does think rot."
"And that might prevent its working."
Milly smiled faintly. "I haven"t the ghost of an idea what "it" is. But whatever it is, can you go on doing it?"
"Yes, I think so. You see, it depends rather----"
"It depends on what?"
"Oh, on a lot of things--on your sincerity; on your--your purity. It depends so much on _that_ that it frightens you lest, perhaps, you mightn"t, after all, be so very pure."
Milly smiled again, a little differently. "Darling, if that"s all, I"m not frightened. Only--supposing--supposing you gave out? You might, you know."
"_I_ might. But It couldn"t. You mustn"t think it"s me, Milly. Because if anything happened to me, if I did give out, don"t you see how it would let him down? It"s as bad as thinking it"s the place."
"Does it matter what it is--or who it is," said Milly, pa.s.sionately; "as long as----" Her tears came and stopped her.
Agatha divined the source of Milly"s pa.s.sion.
"Then you don"t mind, Milly? You"ll let me go on?"
Milly rose; she turned abruptly, holding her head high, so that she might not spill her tears.
Agatha went with her over the grey field towards the Farm. They paused at the gate. Milly spoke.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Certain."
"And you won"t leave go?" Her eyes shone towards her friend"s in the twilight. "You _will_ go on?"
"_You_ must go on."
"Ah--how?"
"Believing that he"ll be all right."
"Oh, Aggy, he was devoted to Winny. And if the child dies----"
CHAPTER SIX
The child died three days later. Milly came over to Agatha with the news.
She said it had been an awful shock, of course. She"d been dreading something like that for him. But he"d taken it wonderfully. If he came out of it all right she _would_ believe in what she called Agatha"s "thing."
He did come out of it all right. His behaviour was the crowning proof, if Milly wanted more proof, of his sanity. He went up to London and made all the arrangements for his sister. When he returned he forestalled Milly"s specious consolations with the truth. It was better, he told her, that the dear little girl should have died, for there was distinct brain trouble anyway. He took it as a sane man takes a terrible alternative.
Weeks pa.s.sed. He had grown accustomed to his own sanity and no longer marvelled at it.
And still without intermission Agatha went on. She had been so far affected by Milly"s fright (that was the worst of Milly"s knowing) that she held on to Harding Powell with a slightly exaggerated intensity. She even began to give more and more time to him, she who had made out that time in this process did not matter. She was afraid of letting go, because the consequences (Milly was perpetually reminding her of the consequences) of letting go would be awful.
For Milly kept her at it. Milly urged her on. Milly, in Milly"s own words, sustained her. She praised her; she praised the Secret, praised the Power. She said you could see how it worked. It was tremendous; it was inexhaustible. Milly, familiarised with its working, had become a fanatical believer in the Power. But she had her own theory. She knew of course that they were all, she and Agatha and poor Harding, dependent on the Power, that it was the Power that did it, and not Agatha. But Agatha was _their_ one link with it, and if the link gave way where were they?
Agatha felt that Milly watched her and waylaid her; that she was suspicious of failures and of intermissions; that she wondered; that she peered and pried. Milly would, if she could, have stuck her fingers into what she called the machinery of the thing. Its vagueness baffled and even annoyed her, for her mind was limited; it loved and was at home with limits; it desired above all things precise ideas, names, phrases, anything that constricted and defined.
But still, with it all, she believed; and the great thing was that Milly _should_ believe. She might have worked havoc if, with her temperament, she had doubted.
What did suffer was the fine poise with which she, Agatha, had held Rodney Lanyon and Harding Powell each by his own thread. Milly had compelled her to spin a stronger thread for Harding and, as it were, to multiply her threads, so as to hold him at all points. And because of this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid lest the pull he had on her might weaken Rodney"s thread.
Up till now, the Powells" third week at Sarratt End, she had had the a.s.surance that his thread still held. She heard from him that Bella was all right, which meant that he too was all right, for there had never been anything wrong with him _but_ Bella. And she had a further glimpse of the way the gift worked its wonders.
Three Fridays had pa.s.sed, and he had not come.