Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/272

Henry felt a warm, soft hand take his. A soothing voice was talking to him. But it was difficult to listen. The ceiling was swaying dangerously.

“God is Love,” the voice was saying. “You must put your faith in God.”

“God is Love,” Henry repeated mechanically.

“Let us pray,” said the voice.

Suddenly Henry remembered a moment of his childhood. He was being tortured with an ear-ache, and his mother was holding him in her arms. She stroked his wrist with her fingertips. “This is all nonsense,” she was saying. He remembered how she said it. “This is all nonsense. God is Love. He will not let little boys suffer. Now repeat after me—‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.’” It was as though she administered a medicine. In the same tone she would have commanded, “Come, take this oil!”

Henry felt the warm fingers of the Vicar creep to his wrist and begin a stroking movement.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want,” Henry droned sleepily. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures—” The stroking continued, but more harshly. The Vicar’s voice became more loud and authoritative. It was as though, after years of patient waiting, the Church had at last got Henry Morgan within its power. There was something almost gloating about the voice.

“Have you repented your sins, Sir Henry?”

“My sins? No, I had not thought of them. Shall I repent Panama?”