After this he was every-where her champion. He was seen going to the
hall with his old regularity. He took a great liking for the child,
and had him frequently at the rectory. Very soon people began to say
that "Miss Hallam must hev done about t' right thing, or t' rector
wouldn't iver uphold her;" and no one doubted but that all had been
fully explained to him.
Yet it was not until the close of the year that the subject was again
named between them. The day before Christmas, a cold, snowy day, he
was amazed to see Elizabeth coming through the rectory garden, fighting
her way, with bent head, against the wind and snow. At first he feared
Harry was ill, and he went to open the door himself in his anxiety;
but one glance into her bright face dispelled his fear.
"Why, Elizabeth, whatever has brought you through such a storm as
this?"
"Something pleasant. I meant to have come yesterday, but did not get
what I wanted to bring to you until this morning. My dear, dear, old
friend! Rejoice with me! I am a free woman again. I have paid a great
debt and a just debt; one that, unpaid, would have stained forever
the name we both love and honor. O thank God with me! the Lord God
of my fathers, who has strengthened my heart and my hands for the
battle!"
And though she said not another word, he understood, and he touched
her brow reverently, and knelt down with her, and the thin, tremulous,
aged voice, and the young, joyful one recited together the glad
_benedictus_:
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and
redeemed his people,
"And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of
his servant David;
"As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been
since the world began:
"That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand
of all that hate us;
"To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember
his holy covenant;
"The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
"That be would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the
hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
"In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our
life.
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