The poor child. The poor, poor child,
how she suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home.
It was a bitter six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred for ever. As
she sat by the bed of her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the
agony of the knee, and the still worse agony of these diabolic, but
perhaps necessary modern treatments, she felt her heart killed and going
cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her frail, brave, wonderful, little
Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white flower! Ah, how had she,
Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so careless, so sensual.
'Let my heart die! Let my woman's heart of flesh die! Saviour, let my
heart die. And save my child. Let my heart die from the world and from
the flesh. Oh, destroy my heart that is so wayward. Let my heart of pride
die. Let my heart die.'
So she prayed beside the bed of her child. And like the Mother with the
seven swords in her breast, slowly her heart of pride and passion died in
her breast, bleeding away. Slowly it died, bleeding away, and she turned
to the Church for comfort, to Jesus, to the Mother of God, but most of
all, to that great and enduring institution, the Roman Catholic Church.
She withdrew into the shadow of the Church. She was a mother with three
children. But in her soul she died, her heart of pride and passion and
desire bled to death, her soul belonged to her church, her body belonged
to her duty as a mother.
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