His solicitude hurt
her. It was all for her material comfort. It did not matter to
him what mental agony she might suffer over his strange attitude.
For the first time in their married life Mary Bell felt
resentment against her husband.
They drove along in silence, past the snow-powdered hedges of
spruce, and under the arches of the forest roadways. They were
late, and a great stillness was over all the land. David Bell
never spoke. All his usual cheerful talkativeness had
disappeared since the revival meetings had begun in Avonlea.
From the first he had gone about as a man over whom some strange
doom is impending, seemingly oblivious to all that might be said
or thought of him in his own family or in the church. Mary Bell
thought she would go out of her mind if her husband continued to
act in this way. Her reflections were bitter and rebellious as
they sped along through the glittering night of the winter's
prime.
"I don't get one bit of good out of the meetings," she thought
resentfully. "There ain't any peace or joy for me, not even in
testifying myself, when David sits there like a stick or stone.
If he'd been opposed to the revivalist coming here, like old
Uncle Jerry, or if he didn't believe in public testimony, I
wouldn't mind. I'd understand. But, as it is, I feel dreadful
humiliated."
Revival meetings had never been held in Avonlea before. "Uncle"
Jerry MacPherson, who was the supreme local authority in church
matters, taking precedence of even the minister, had been
uncompromisingly opposed to them.
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