The light fell through the stained-glass window in a soft tangle of hues upon the floor . Salome felt a sense of peace and happiness fill her heart . Even Judith 's anger lost its importance . She leaned her head against the window-sill , and gave herself up to the flood of tender old recollections that swept over her . Memory went back to the years of her childhood when she had sat in this pew every Sunday with her mother . Judith had come then , too , always seeming grown up to Salome by reason of her ten years ' seniority . Her tall , dark , reserved father never came . Salome knew that the Carmody people called him an infidel , and looked upon him as a very wicked man . But he had not been wicked ; he had been good and kind in his own odd way . The gently little mother had died when Salome was ten years old , but so loving and tender was Judith 's care that the child did not miss anything out of her life . Judith Marsh loved her little sister with an intensity that was maternal . She herself was a plain , repellent girl , liked by few , sought after by no man ; but she was determined that Salome should have everything that she had missed -- admiration , friendship , love . She would have a vicarious youth in Salome 's . All went according to Judith 's planning until Salome was eighteen , and then trouble after trouble came . Their father , whom Judith had understood and passionately loved , died ; Salome 's young lover was killed in a railroad accident ; and finally Salome herself developed symptoms of the hip-disease which , springing from a trifling injury , eventually left her a cripple . Everything possible was done for her . Judith , falling heir to a snug little fortune by the death of the old aunt for whom she was named , spared nothing to obtain the best medical skill , and in vain . One and all , the great doctors failed . Judith had borne her father 's death bravely enough in spite of her agony of grief ; she had watched her sister pining and fading with the pain of her broken heart without growing bitter ; but when she knew at last that Salome would never walk again save as she hobbled painfully about on her crutch , the smouldering revolt in her soul broke its bounds , and overflowed her nature in a passionate rebellion against the Being who had sent , or had failed to prevent , these calamities . She did not rave or denounce wildly ; that was not Judith 's way ; but she never went to church again , and it soon became an accepted fact in Carmody that Judith Marsh was as rank an infidel as her father had been before her ; nay , worse , since she would not even allow Salome to go to church , and shut the door in the minister 's face when he went to see her .
`` I should have stood out against her for conscience ' sake , '' reflected XXXXX in her pew self-reproachfully .
Carmody Judith Salome accident flood hip-disease left old pining years