"But you must remember that a girl has impulses and yearnings at times,
and she should not be too harshly blamed if she sometimes fails to beat
them down. But now it will all be different. The Blessed Virgin will help
us, and our conflict is over."
Betty and I started back to the coach, both feeling the uplift of
our answered prayer. Probably we were the only devotees that had knelt
before the shrine in hundreds of years, and the Virgin had heard our
supplication. It was a proposition I should have laughed at and held to
scorn prior to that time.
After leaving the shrine, it was only a few minutes till the coach
turned to the left into a narrow road, and we were approaching the end
of our rough journey. We continued to travel at a brisk trot and came
to the forest, "dark and wild," of which Lilly had spoken. Thus far his
"calculations" were correct, and I was beginning to take hope that they
would continue so to the end. After half an hour on the winding road
through the forest, the drivers halted at the gate of which Lilly had
spoken, and in ten minutes more drew rein beside the high brick wall
surrounding Merlin House.
Without the least trouble we found the gates or doors in the wall, and
truly enough, they were of "thick oak" so strong that we could not feel
them vibrate when we tried to shake them, and so firmly locked in the
middle that we almost despaired of opening them.
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