"If it was his business standing and his good name, instead of Thora's happiness and good repute that was the question, oh, how careful and conciliatory he would be! How anxious to keep his affairs from public discussion! It would be anything rather than that! I have the same feeling about Thora's good name. The marriage ought to go on for Thora's sake. I do not want the women of Kirkwall wondering who was to blame. I do not want them coming to see me with solemn looks and tearful voices. I could not endure their pitying of 'poor Miss Thora!' They would not dare go to Coll with their sympathetic curiosity, but there are such women as Astar Gager, and Lala Snackoll, and Thyra Peterson, and Jorunna Flett. No one can keep them away from a house in trouble. Thora must marry. I see no endurable way to prevent it." Then being dressed she went to Thora's room, and gently opened the door. Thora was standing at her mirror and she turned to her mother with a smiling face. Rahal was astonished and she said almost with a tone of disapproval, "I am glad to see thee able to smile. I expected to find thee weeping, and ill with weeping." "For a long time, for many hours, I was broken-hearted but there came to me, Mother, a strange consolation." Then she told her mother about the prayer she heard her soul say for her. "Not one word did I speak, Mother. But someone prayed for me. I heard them. And I was made strong and satisfied, and fell into a sweet sleep, though I had yet not solved the problem I had proposed to solve before I slept." "What was that problem?" "First, whether I should marry John just as he was, and trust the consequences to my influence over him; or whether I should refuse him altogether and forever; or whether I should wait and see what he can do with my father and the good Bishop, to help and strengthen him." And as Thora talked, Rahal's face grew light and sweet as she listened, and she answered--"Yes, my dear one, that is the wonderful way! Some soul that loved thee long, long ago, knew that thou wert in great trouble. Some woman's soul, perhaps, that had lived and died for love. The kinship of our souls far exceeds that of our bodies, and their help is swift and sure. Be patient with Ian. That is what I say." "But why that prayer? I never heard it before." "How little thou knowest of what thou hast heard before! Two hundred years ago, all sorrowful, unhappy women went to Mary with their troubles." "They should not have done so. They could have gone to Christ." "They thought Mary had suffered just what they were suffering, and they thought that Christ had never known any of the griefs that break a woman's heart. Mary knew them, had felt them, had wept and prayed over them. When my little lad Eric died, I thought of Mary. My family have only been one hundred years Protestants. All of them must have loved thee well enough to come and pray for thee. Thou had a great honour, as well as a great comfort."