Deliver us from Evil Read Online Free Page A

prayed, but it did not comfort his spirits, for the chill seemed on his soul and his words could not rise up to God; and so Robert thought then - which as a child he had never felt before - how he was lost amidst the vale of Mortality.
    Emily made a face at him. 'You look even gloomier than you did before,' she said. 'It frightens me, Robert, when you look so solemn.'
    She rode up closer so that she could shelter beside him. 'Can you tell what has happened?'
    But Robert shook his head. And indeed, despite the sudden despair he had felt, there was nothing he could see which he immediately understood. The snow-storm was abating now. Ahead of them, a stretch of level ground which must once have been a lawn extended as far as the house; the snow was much churned up with tracks. Directly before the empty doorway of the house, a group of some six or seven men was gathered. Robert recognised one of them as Mr Gerrard Webbe, who preached universal salvation to the villages about Salisbury, calling for the levelling of privilege and wealth so that the oppressed might establish a heaven on earth. Once, though, in the days before the war, he had been a surgeon; and sometimes, as he went from place to place, Mr Webbe would still be called on to minister to the sick. Robert suddenly wondered in what capacity, whether as a surgeon or a man of God, he was serving now; for as Mr Webbe knelt with his back to him in the snow, Robert was unmistakably reminded of how his father had knelt in the Cathedral, head bowed, gazing down at the body of the murdered child. As then, so now, the view was obscured; but Robert felt, with a sudden shudder of certainty, that he scarcely needed to see what Mr Webbe was examining. Another person was dead: the killer -the sorcerer . .. whatever he might be . .. the demon - had killed again. And at the same moment as he understood this, he realised how clearly he could see all that lay before him; he gazed up at the front of the house, and saw how every window was illumined by candle flames, so that a patchwork of shadow and gold lit up the snows.
    'Hannah,' he cried aloud.
    He had not meant to speak. His father turned in his saddle, and frowned. He opened his mouth, as though to ask Robert a question; but then his frown deepened still further, and when he did speak it was to order his son away. Robert went without complaint; indeed, with relief. He had no wish to break his father's commands a second time. He glanced back at the candles again - and then thought of Hannah: imagined her dead; her belly ripped open for the life inside. He did not want to believe it, but he did - for he was certain now whose baby they had seen, scooped up in his father's arms; and he remembered the anguished cry of the Cathedral minister, his despairing question, 'Why?'
    As Robert looked about him, they passed out from the gardens, and left the candle flames behind. All was black again. Suddenly, a fresh eddy of snow scudded across his face. The wind screamed through the trees, but he could only hear, not see, the boughs as they creaked; and beyond them, no matter how terrible the gale, the stones would be standing silent on the plain. Robert shivered; and when Emily met his gaze, not asking any questions now, he could think only of how he did not want her to be dead as Hannah was: her bright eyes to dim - her plump, soft body to turn cold and blue like the snow. He reached out to squeeze her arm, but at their backs the wind continued to moan; and when Emily whispered that she was scared, Robert could think of nothing comforting to say.
    Emily's father was riding ahead of them, and it was he who broke the silence at last. He did not speak of the scene they had just left, but when he mentioned that Mrs Foxe was staying with Lady Vaughan, Robert knew for certain that it was Hannah who was dead. Only a terrible tragedy could have persuaded his mother to leave her home on such a night; certainly, nothing else could have persuaded her to