Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/198

Evan stood rooted upon the road, literally like some heavy statue hewn there in the age of the Druids. It seemed impossible that he should ever move. Turnbull grew restless with this rigidity, and at last, after calling his companion twice or thrice, went up and clapped him impatiently on one of his big shoulders. Evan winced and leapt away from him with a repulsion which was not the hate of an unclean thing nor the dread of a dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and separation from something from which he was now sundered as by the sword of God. He did not hate the atheist; it is possible that he loved him. But Turnbull was now something more dreadful than an enemy; he was a thing sealed and devoted—a thing now hopelessly doomed to be either a corpse or an executioner.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Turnbull, with his hearty hand still in the air; and yet he knew more about it than his innocent action would allow.

“James,” said Evan, speaking like one under strong bodily pain, “I asked for God’s answer and I have got it—got it in my vitals. He knows how weak I am, and that I might forget the peril of the faith, forget the face of Our Lady—yes,