Part 11 (1/2)

”Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your hand here, on her dead face. Is your loss like hers?” he said lower, looking into the dull pain in her eyes. Selfish pain he called it.

”Let me go,” she said. ”I am tired.”

He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderly enough,--for the girl suffered, he saw.

”What will you do?” he asked her then. ”It is not too late,--will you help me save these people?”

She wrung her hands helplessly.

”What do you want with me?” she cried. ”I have enough to bear.”

The burly black figure before her seemed to tower and strengthen; the man's face in the wall light showed a terrible life-purpose coming out bare.

”I want you to do your work. It is hard, it will wear out your strength and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people. G.o.d calls you to it. There is none to help them. Give up love, and the petty hopes of women. Help me. G.o.d calls you to the work.”

She went, on blindly: he followed her. For years he had set apart this girl to help him in his scheme: he would not be balked now. He had great hopes from his plan: he meant to give all he had: it was the n.o.blest of aims. He thought some day it would work like leaven through the festering ma.s.s under the country he loved so well, and raise it to a new life. If it failed,--if it failed, and saved one life, his work was not lost. But it could not fail.

”Home!” he said, stopping her as she reached the stile,--”oh, Margret, what is home? There is a cry going up night and day from homes like that den yonder, for help,--and no man listens.”

She was weak; her brain faltered.

”Does G.o.d call me to this work? Does He call me?” she moaned.

He watched her eagerly.

”He calls you. He waits for your answer. Swear to me that you will help His people. Give up father and mother and love, and go down as Christ did. Help me to give liberty and truth and Jesus' love to these wretches on the brink of h.e.l.l. Live with them, raise them with you.”

She looked up, white; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for her natural food of love.

”Is it my work?”

”It is your work. Listen to me, Margret,” softly. ”Who cares for you?

You stand alone to-night. There is not a single human heart that calls you nearest and best. s.h.i.+ver, if you will,--it is true. The man you wasted your soul on left you in the night and cold to go to his bride,--is sitting by her now, holding her hand in his.”

He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she should understand.

”Do you think you deserved this of G.o.d? I know that yonder on the muddy road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just; that you had done right, and this was your reward. I know that for these two years you have trusted in the Christ you wors.h.i.+p to make it right, to give you your heart's desire. Did He do it? Did He hear your prayer? Does He care for your weak love, when the nations of the earth are going down?

What is your poor hope to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty G.o.d? O Christ!--if there be a Christ,--help me to save it!”

He looked up,--his face white with pain. After a time he said to her,--

”Help me, Margret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard. Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me, this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to this work.”

The storm had been dark and windy: it cleared now slowly, the warm summer rain falling softly, the fresh blue stealing broadly from behind the gray. It seemed to Margret like a blessing; for her brain rose up stronger, more healthful.

”I will not swear,” she said, weakly. ”I think He heard my prayer. I think He will answer it. He was a man, and loved as we do. My love is not selfish; it is the best gift G.o.d has given me.”

Knowles went slowly with her to the house. He was not baffled. He knew that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she was alone, her faith in the far-off Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason,--to stifle by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman's heart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she pa.s.sed through the dark pa.s.sage to her own room.