"John Randolph!"
"Rege!"
The two men stood facing each other with hands held in a vice-like grasp, all unconscious of what was going on around them in the street.
"Where did you come from?"
"Where have you been?"
John laughed. "In and around Marlborough all the time, except when I went to New York for my degree."
"And never let us hear a word from you all these years!"
"You forget, Rege, your father forbade me to hold any communication withHollywood."
Reginald's face grew grave. "Poor father. Well he's done with it all now."
"You don't mean that he is dead, Rege?"
"Yes—and little Nan."
"Oh!" The exclamation was sharp with pain.
"I think she fretted for you, John. She just seemed to pine away. Every day we missed her about the same time, and they always found her in the same place, down by the green road. Then scarlet fever came. She never spoke of getting well—didn't seem to want to. The night she died she put her arms around mother's neck and whispered. 'Tell Don me'll be waitin' at the gate.' That was all."
John wrung Reginald's hand and turned away. Reginald looked after him with misty eyes. "I used to tell mother it would break his heart. I never saw any one so wrapped up in a child!"
"And your father, Rege?" John was calm again.
"Had a fit of apoplexy soon after. I think Nan was the only thing in the world he cared for. It had never struck him that she could die. We sold Hollywood and went abroad. Mother's health broke down—she was never very strong, you know. We spent one year in Italy and one in France, but the shock had been too great. She lies in a lovely spot beside the sea."
"Not your mother too, Rege!"
Reginald's voice broke. "Yes, they are all gone. It was a great deal to happen in a few years. I am a wealthy man, John, but I am all alone in the world, except for Elise. Well," he added more lightly, "I have learned not to rebel at the inevitable. It is only what we have to expect."
"Elise!" echoed John wonderingly, after the first shock of grief was over.
"My wife," said Reginald proudly. "You must come home at once and let me show you the sweetest woman in the world."
"Not just yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But I will come to-night."
"Always helping somewhere, John. What a grand fellow you are!"
"We are in the world to help the world, else what were the use of living?"
"I can't do anything," said Reginald, "with this clog." He looked contemptuously at his ebony crutch as he spoke.
John laid his hand upon his arm. "Rege," he said in his old, tender way. "I think this very 'clog' as you call it, is a preparation to help those who are passing through the baptism of pain."
* * * * *
Mrs. Reginald Hawthorne welcomed her husband's friend with a winning charm. She was very pretty, very graceful and very young. Reginald idolized her. John saw that as he looked around the sumptuous home whose every fitting was a tribute to her taste. They had just finished unpacking the things they had brought from Europe.
"Strangely enough," said Reginald with a laugh, "I told Elise this morning that now I was going to start out in search of you!"
He had developed wonderfully. John saw that too. Travel and trial had brought out the good that was in him—but not the best.
The evening passed pleasantly. Mrs. Hawthorne played beautifully, andReginald had kept ears and eyes open and talked well.
"How about the other life, Rege?" asked John when they had a few moments alone. "This one seems very fair."
"All a humbug, John. You Christians are chasing a will o' the wisp, a jack o' lantern. You remember my fad for mathematics? I have followed it up, and I find your theory a 'reductio ad absurdum.' I must have everything demonstrable and clear. This is neither."
"Yet it was a great mathematician who said, 'Omit eternity in your estimate of area and your solution is wrong.'"
Reginald shook his head. "I have nothing to do with this faith business.I go as far as I see, no further."
"God calls our wisdom foolishness, Rege. Jesus Christ put a tremendous premium upon the faith of a little child."
"Things must be tangible for me to believe in them. Reason is king with me."
"Without faith in your fellow man—and your wife—you would have a poor time of it, Rege; why should you refuse to have faith in your God? Is your will tangible, and can you demonstrate the mysterious forces of nature? You know you can't, Rege, you have to take them on trust; and if you had seen what I have, you would know that poor human reason is a pitiful thing! But I won't argue with you. Some day you will understand."
Reginald Hawthorne went back into the room where his wife was sitting. "Elise, darling, you have seen one of the grandest men in the world to-night. The only trouble is that on one subject he is a crank."
"Oh, Reginald, do you mean it! I thought he was splendid. And what a wonderful face he has!"
Reginald started. "Hah! Am I to be jealous of my old friend? But I might have known," he added sadly, "no one could care long for such a wreck as I!"
The girl wife put her arms around his neck and kissed him softly, "You foolish boy!" she whispered, "you know I shall never love any one but you!"
And Reginald Hawthorne counted himself a perfectly happy man.
Judge Hildreth sat in his library, alone. He had left home immediately after dinner, ostensibly to catch the evening train for New York, and had sent the carriage back from the station to take his family to the Choral Festival which was the event of the year in Marlborough, and then returning in a hired conveyance, had let himself into his house like a thief. When we sacrifice principle upon the altar of expediency, truth and honor, like twin victims, stand bound at its foot. He wanted to be undisturbed, to have time to think, and God granted his wish, until his reeling brain prayed for oblivion!
No sound broke the stillness. With the exception of the servants in a distant part of the house, he was absolutely alone.
He drew out his will from a secret drawer of his desk and looked it over with a ghastly smile. "To my dear niece, Evadne, the sum of thirty thousand dollars, held by me in trust from her father." Then came a long list of charities. It read well. People could not say he had left all to his family and forgotten the Lord. If his executors should find a difficulty in realizing one quarter of the values so speciously set forth, they could only say that dividends had shrunk and investments proved unreliable. It was not his fault. He had meant well. Besides, he had no thought of dying for years. There was plenty of time for skillful financing. Other men had done the same and prospered. Why should not he?
But the letters must be destroyed. He had come to a decision at last. It was an imperative necessity. His hesitancy had been only the foolish scruples of an over sensitive conscience. The tremendous pressure of the age made things permissible. He was "torn by the tooth of circumstance" and "necessity knows no law." So he entrenched himself behind a breastwork of sophisms. Long familiarity with the suggestions of evil had bred a contempt for the good!
He stretched out his hand towards the drawer. There should be no more weak delay. If a thing were to be done, 'twere well it were done quickly.
The horror of a great fear fell upon him. Again his hand had fallen, and this time he was powerless to lift it up!
The hours passed and he sat helpless, bound in that awful chain of frozen horror. In vain he struggled in a wild rage for freedom. No muscle stirred. Where was his boasted will power now? Hand and foot, faithful, uncomplaining slaves for so many years, had rebelled at last!
His brain seemed on fire and the flashing thoughts blinded him with their glare. The letters rose from their sepulchre and, clothed in the majesty of a dead man's faith, looked at him with an awful reproach, until his very soul bowed in the dust with shame. His will still lay upon the desk, open at the paragraph "to my dear niece, Evadne," and the words "in trust," like red hot irons, branded him a felon in the sight of God and men!
He remembered having once read a quotation from a great writer,—"When God says, 'You must not lie and you do lie, it is not possible for Deity to sweep his law aside and say—'No matter.'" Did God make no allowances for the nineteenth century?
The others returned from the Festival, and Louis passed the door whistling. He had had a rare evening of pleasure with Evadne. Towards its close, under cover of the rolling harmonies, he had leaned over and whispered "I love you, dear!" and Evadne had held out her hand to him with the low pleading cry, "Oh, Louis, if you really do, then set me free!" but he had only smiled and taken the hand, on which his ring was gleaming, into his, and settled his arm more securely upon the back of her chair; and John Randolph, sitting opposite with Dick and Miss Diana, had watched the little scene and drawn his own conclusions with a sigh.
The night drew on. The electric lights which it was Judge Hildreth's fancy to have ablaze in every room downstairs until the central current was shut off, still gleamed steadily upon the rigid figure before the desk, with the white, drawn face and the awful look of horror in its staring eyes. In an agony he tried to call, but no sound escaped the lips, set in a sphinx-like silence.
He must shake off this strange lethargy. It was not possible for him to die—he had not time. To-morrow was the meeting of the Panhattan directors—they were relying upon him to work through the second call on stock—and two of his notes fell due, if he did not retire them his credit would be lost at the bank; and there was the banquet to the English capitalists, with whom he was negotiating a mining deal; and he must arrange with his broker to float some more shares of the "Silverwing"—and manipulate, manipulate, manipulate—
An agonized, voiceless cry went up to heaven. "Oh, God, let me have to-morrow!"
In the morning a servant found him, when she came to clean the room, and fled screaming from the presence of the silent figure with the awful entreaty in its staring eyes.
Louis hurried downstairs to learn the cause of the commotion, followed by Mrs. Hildreth, swept for once off her pedestal of stately calm.
Shivering with horror the family gathered in the beautiful room which had been so suddenly turned into a death chamber, the servants weeping boisterously, Isabella and her mother in violent hysterics, and Marion clinging with wide, frightened eyes to Louis, who found himself thrust into a man's place of responsibility and did not know what to do!
He sent one servant to the Hospital for Evadne—instinctively he turned in his thought to her,—another for the Doctor; while with one arm around Marion, he tried to sooth his mother and Isabelle.
And in the midst of all the wild commotion his father sat, unmoved and silent, his agonized face lifted in an attitude of supplication, his lifeless hands lying heavily upon the now worthless papers, since for him there would be no to-morrow!
* * * * *
The stately obsequies were ended. The paid quartette had sung their sweetest, while Doctor Jerome, standing beside the frozen face in the massive coffin, had delivered an eloquent eulogium, and Mrs. Hildreth, clad in her costly robes of mourning, had been led to her carriage by her son. Everything had been conducted in a manner befitting the Hildreth honor.
* * * * *
"Evadne!" Louis turned a white, scared face towards his cousin, who stood beside him as he sat at his father's desk. Upstairs Mrs. Hildreth and Isabelle were in solemn consultation with a dressmaker. In the drawing-room Marion was being consoled by Simpson Kennard.
"Well, Louis?" She laid her hand on his shoulder gently. She was very sorry for him.
"There is some awful mistake. Poor Father seems to have counted on funds which we can find no trace of. The estate is not worth an eighth of what he valued it at. There is barely enough to keep you, mother and Isabelle, alive!" He laid his head down on the desk while great tears fell through his fingers. The shameful mystery of it was intolerable.
"But, Louis, have you looked everywhere? There must be some explanation—"
Louis shook his head. "Everywhere, but in this drawer. I opened it but there is nothing but musty old letters. I haven't time to go into them now. Oh, little coz, I don't dare to look you in the face. All the money that was left you by your father is gone!"
"Don't tell Aunt Kate and the girls, Louis, There is no need that they should ever know. I have my profession and I am strong. Uncle Lawrence never meant to do anything except what was right, I know."
Louis looked up at her and there was a strange reverence in his cynical face. He was in the presence of a Christliness which he had never dreamed of. "I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garment," he said humbly. But he did not offer to release her from her promise. He had not learned to be generous—yet.
Evadne's dream was ended and rude was the awaking. The idea of helping her fellows had grown to be a passion with her and very fair had been the castle in the air of which she was the Princess. A home, not rich or stately but full of a delightful homeiness which should soothe and cheer those who, walking through the world amid a storm of tears, call earth a wilderness, while their desolate hearts echo the mournful question,—"Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow." She, too, had been lonely,—she could understand, and by the sweet influence of human love and sympathy lift their thought above the earthly shadows up to the love of God.
She had not dreamed of doing things on a grand scale. Evadne Hildreth was wise enough to know that comfort cannot be dealt out in wholesale packages,—she never forgot that Jesus of Nazareth helped the people one by one.
She had never questioned the terms of her father's will—if there was a will. She had supposed when she became of age there would be some change, but her uncle had made no reference to the subject and she had not liked to ask. He was always kind—he would do what was best. Some day she would be free to carry out this beautiful dream of hers. She could afford to wait. Now there was nothing to wait for any more!
How strange it seemed, when the need was so great and she longed to help much! Well, she was only a little child,—she could trust her Father. God understood.
That was what he had said, this strong, true friend of hers, that night he asked the question which he had never asked again. How gentle he was!—but it was the gentleness of strength—and how every one depended on him! She, herself, had learned to expect the helpful words which he always gave her when they met. Friendship was a beautiful thing!
John Randolph came up behind Evadne one morning as she was dressing the burns of a little lad who had been severely injured at a fire. She did not hear his step—she was telling a bright story to the little sufferer, to make him forget his pain, and the boy was laughing loudly. His face was very grave, but his eyes lightened as they always did when they rested upon her face.
"Mrs. Reginald Hawthorne is very ill. Can you, will you come?"
And Evadne answered with a simple "Yes." They needed so few words, these two.
"I tell you I will not die!" The piercing cry rang through the handsome room and fell like molten lead upon the heart of the man who with strained, haggard face was sitting by the bedside. "You have not told me the truth, Reginald! There is a God. I feel it! You have always laughed and called me young and foolish, but I know better than you do, now. You said if our lives were governed by reason, we would meet death like a philosopher, and I do not know how to die! You used to laugh and say the whole thing was child's play and there was nothing to fear, and I believed you,—I thought you were so wise, but it was easy to believe you then with your arms folded close about me and the sunlight streaming through the windows and the shouts of the children outside, but now you cannot go with me and I am afraid to go alone." The eyes, wild and despairing, burned fiercely in the pallid cheeks. "Do you hear, Reginald? I am afraid, I tell you; horribly afraid! You used to say you would lay down your life to save me. Why do you not help me now?
"What makes you look so strangely, if it is all nonsense, Reginald? why do you shut out all the sunshine and why is the house so still? You told me once you were going to die with a laugh on your lips. I am dying, Reginald, why don't you help your wife to die as you mean to do? A——h!"
Her voice died away in a low wail of terror and the delicate blue veins in her temples throbbed with feverish excitement. Reginald Hawthorne had crouched down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. The pitiful cry began again.
"To die, when life is so sweet! To be shut up in a coffin and buried in a cold, dark grave! You don't love me, Reginald. If you did, you would die too—with a laugh on your lips you know—then I should have that to cheer me, and we should be together, and I should not be afraid. But now you look so strangely, Reginald. Don't you care for me any more? Can you let them take me away from this beautiful world and stay in it all by yourself?
"I suppose you will give me a splendid funeral—you are so generous you know—but I will not care whether the prison is pine or mahogany if I am to be shut up in it all alone! And you will have a long procession, with plumes and flowers and show, but you will leave me in the dreary cemetery and you will come back to our home, where we have been so happy together—so happy, just you and I—but you see you are a philosopher and I do not know how to die!
"And some day you will forget me—men do such things they say—and another woman will be your wife and I will be all alone!"
"Sister!" The abject man in the chair held out his hands in an agony of entreaty, "Come here and help us—if you can!" and Evadne came swiftly into the room, and, sitting down on the side of the bed, gathered the pitiful little figure to her heart.
"It is not death but life," she said gently. "This body is notyou. The home of the soul is more beautiful than, any earthly home can ever be. It is those who are left behind dear, who mourn, not those who go."
Elise Hawthorne laid her head on Evadne's shoulder like a tired child. "But I am afraid," she whispered. "If this is true, and God is holy, I am not fit, you know."
"Your Father loves you dear, for he sent his Son to die. The thief on the cross was a sinner, yet Christ took him to Paradise. The fitness must come from Jesus. His blood washes whiter than snow."
"But I have done nothing to earn it. I have lived for myself alone."
"We never can earn a gift, dear. God gives in a royal way. He says to you only 'Believe I have given you life through my Son.'" Evadne had taken the tiny Bible which she always carried from her pocket and was turning its pages rapidly. "Here it is. Will you raise the blind, Mr. Hawthorne, that your wife may see for herself? 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,'—the best he had!—'that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,' you see there is no death for those who trust in him. And then 'He that believeth on the Sonhatheverlasting life.' It does not mean that we may have it after years of toil. The Israelites, stung by the serpents, had no time to reason or plan to live better, for they were dying, but they could turn their eyes to the brazen serpent which God had ordered to be lifted up in the midst of tho camp for an antidote to the poison. So Christ has been 'lifted up' upon the cross for us. He died instead of you. Why should you die forever when he has paid your ransom and set you free?"
"But I cannot touch him,—I cannot be sure it is true."
"The Israelites could not touch the brazen serpent. They simply looked, and lived. There is just one condition for us to-day and it is 'Believe.' Cannot you take your Heavenly Father at his word as you would your husband? Cannot you treat God the same?"
Mrs. Hawthorne looked wonderingly at her nurse. "Treat him the same as I do my husband!" she exclaimed. "Why, with Reginald, I believe every word he says."
"And I with God," said Evadne reverently.
"What charm have you wrought?" asked John Randolph in a whisper, as they stood together that evening beside a quiet sleeper. "This is the first natural sleep she has had. I believe it will prove her salvation."
Evadne looked up at him, and over her face a light was breaking, "I have led her to Jesus, the Mighty to save."
* * * * *
The Hawthornes were going to Europe. The young wife's convalescence had been tedious and it was a very frail little figure which clung to Evadne the evening before they started. They had pleaded with her to go with them. "Give up this toilsome work which is overtaxing your strength," Reginald had said, as they sat together one evening in the twilight, "and make your home with us. You have grown to be our sister in the truest sense of the word and we have learned to lean upon you, Elise and I. We can never hope to repay you," he continued huskily, "but it would be such a pleasure to have you with us for good."
Evadne looked at the pleading eyes with which Elise Hawthorne seconded her husband's wish and her lips trembled. "How rich God is making me in friends!" she said. "I shall never forget that this thing has been in your hearts, but I must be about my Father's business."
And then John Randolph had come to make one of his pleasant, informal visits and they had sat together in a beautiful fellowship, talking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom.
"Doctor Randolph," Elise asked suddenly, "what is your conception of prayer? Evadne says it means to her communion and companionship with Jesus. She says it is 'the practice of the presence of God.'"
John Randolph's face grew luminous. "To me it means a great stillness," he said. "Did you ever think of the silences of God? 'Be still, and know that I am God,' 'Stand still, and see his salvation.'"
"But are we not to ask for what we want?" asked Mrs. Hawthorne wonderingly.
"Oh, yes, but we learn to ask so little for ourselves when we love our Father's will. The trouble is, we, want to do the talking. God would have us listen while he speaks."
"Then what does it mean to worship God?" she asked. "We cannot always be in church."
John Randolph smiled. "We do not need to be. If our hearts are all on fire with the love of God, we worship him continually."
When he rose to go he turned towards Evadne. "How goes life with you now, dear friend?"
The grey eyes, full of a clear shining, were lifted to his, "I am absolutely satisfied with Jesus Christ."
Marion was married and living in New York. Louis had taken a small house, where he lived with his mother and Isabelle. He spent his days in the monotonous routine of a hank, and to his pleasure-loving nature the drudgery seemed intolerable, but he said little. Evadne never complained!
One day he went to see her at the Hospital and she was frightened at the pallor of his face. She led him to the superintendent's reception room—there they would be undisturbed. He staggered blindly as he entered the room and then sank heavily on a sofa near the door. He looked like an old man.
"Louis!" she cried in alarm, "what is the matter?"
He took a letter from his pocket and held it toward her. It bore her own name, and the writing was her father's!
"Can youeverforgive?" Then he buried his face in his arms and groaned aloud. The awful disgrace and shame of it seemed more than he could bear.
Interminable seemed the hours after Louis had left her, walking slowly, with that strange, grey shadow upon his face, and stooping as if some unseen burden were crushing him to the earth. She dared not let herself think. She must wait until she was alone. At last she was free to go to her room.
Down on her knees she read the passionate farewell words, which made her heart thrill, so full of tender advice and loving thought for her comfort. Through streaming tears she looked at the closely written pages of instructions, so minute that she could not err—and he had disliked writing so much! This was the weary task which had tried him so! And all these years she had never known. She had been robbed of her birthright!
Fierce and long the battle raged. When it was ended God heard his child cry softly, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
She had forgiven!
Mrs. Simpson Kennard was sitting in her pretty morning room with her baby on her knee. She looked across the room at her sister who was paying her a visit. "I wish you had a little child to love, Isabelle. It makes life so different. I am just wrapped up in Florimel."
"For pity's sake, Marion," cried Isabelle peevishly, "don't you grow to be one of those tiresome women who think the whole world is interested in a baby's tooth! I certainly do not echo your wish. I think children are a nuisance."
Marion caught up her baby in dismay. "Why, Isabelle, just think how much they do for us! They broaden our sympathies—I read that only the other day, and——"
"Broaden your fiddlesticks!" said Isabelle contemptuously. "Easy for you to talk when you have everything you want! If you had to live in that poky little house in Marlborough, I guess you would not find anything very broadening about them!
"It is perfectly preposterous to think of our being reduced to such a style of living!" she continued, as Mrs. Kennard strove to soothe her baby's injured feelings with kisses. "Just fancy, only one servant! I never thought a Hildreth would fall so low."
"But you and Mamma are comfortable, Isabelle. It is not as if you were forced to do anything."
"Do anything!" echoed Isabelle. "Are you going crazy?"
"Well, see how hard Evadne has to work? and she is a Hildreth as well as you."
"Evadne!" said Isabelle sarcastically, "with her nerves of steel and spine of adamant! Evadne will never kill herself with work. She is too much taken up with her wealthy private patients. You should have seen her driving round with the Hawthornes in their elegant carriage And I reduced to dependence upon the electric cars! I don't see how she manages to worm her way into people's confidence as she seems to do. I couldn't, but then I have such a horror of being forward."
"'All doors are open to those who smile.' I believe that is the reason,Isabelle."
"Stuff and nonsense!" was Miss Hildreth's inelegant reply.
"She is a dear girl, Isabelle. Why will you persist in disliking her so?"
"Oh, pray spare me any panegyrics!" said Isabelle carelessly. "It is bad enough to have Louis blazing up like a volcano if one has the temerity to mention her ladyship's name."
"How is Louis?" asked Mrs. Kennard, finding she was treading on dangerous ground.
"Oh, the same as usual. He looks like a ghost, and is about as cheerful as a cemetery. He spends his holidays going over musty old letters in papa's desk. I'm sure I don't see what fun he finds in it. It is so selfish in him, when he might be giving mamma and me some pleasure—but Louis never did think of anyone but himself. One day I found him stretched across the desk and it gave me such a fright! You know what a state my nerves are in. I thought he was in a fit or something,—he just looked like death, and he didn't seem to hear me when I called. He had a large envelope addressed to papa in his hand and there was another under his arm that didn't look as if it had ever been opened, but I couldn't see the address. I ran for mamma, but before we got back he was gone and the letters with him. Whatever it was, it has had an awful effect upon him, though he won't give us any satisfaction, you know how provoking he is. It is my belief he is going into decline, and I have such a horror of contagious diseases!
"If Evadne is so anxious to work, why doesn't she come and help mamma and me? It is the least she could do after all we have done for her, but as mamma says, 'It is just a specimen of the ingratitude there is in the world.'"
* * * * *
The months rolled by and Evadne sat one afternoon in the superintendent's reception room reading a letter which the postman had just delivered. It bore the Vernon postmark.
She had seen but little of Mrs. Everidge through the years which followed her graduation. She had been constantly busy and her aunt's hands had been full, for her husband's health had failed utterly and he demanded continual care. Now her long, beautiful ministry was over, for Horace Everidge, serenely selfish to the last, had fallen into the slumber which knows no earthly waking, and Aunt Marthe was free.
"I do not know what it means," she wrote, "but something tells me I shall not be long in Vernon. I am just waiting to see what work the King has for me to do."
Evadne pressed the letter to her lips. "Dear Aunt Marthe! If the majority had had your 'tribulum' they would think they had earned the right to play!"
She looked up. John Randolph was standing before her with a package in his hands.
"I have been commissioned by the Hawthornes to give this into your own possession," he said with a smile.
She opened it wonderingly. Bonds and certificates of stock bearing her name. What did it mean? John Randolph had drawn a chair opposite her and was watching her face closely.
"You cannot think what long consultations we have held on the subject of what you would like," he said, "you seemed to have no wishes of your own. At last a happy thought struck Reginald, and he sent me a power of attorney to make the transfer of these bonds and stocks to you. It is a Trust Fund to be used to help souls. We all thought that would please you best of all. You are a rich woman, Miss Hildreth."
A great wave of joy swept over her bewildered face. "So God has sent me the fulfilment of my dream!" she said softly. And John Randolph understood.
That evening she wrote to Mrs. Everidge.
"Dear Aunt Marthe,—The King's work is waiting for you in Marlborough. The work that we used to long for—the joy of lifting the shadows from the hearts of the heavy laden—God has given to you and me!"
* * * * *
"Why should you not come to 'The Willows'?"
John Randolph put the question one afternoon, as they were enjoying Miss Diana's hospitality in the fragrant porch. Evadne had just finished a merry recital of their woes.
"We have looked at houses until we are fairly distracted, Aunt Marthe and I. One had a cellar kitchen, and I am not going to have my good Dyce buried in a cellar kitchen; and one had no bathroom, and another was all stairs; and they are all nothing but brick and mortar with a scrap of sky between. I want trees and water and fields. The poor souls have enough of masonry in their daily lives."
"I believe it is decreed that you should come here," he continued, after the first exclamations of surprise were over. "It is just the work our lady delights in, and she cannot be left alone. Dick goes to College next month and I must live in town. The house is beautiful for situation, and a threefold cord of love and faith cannot easily be broken."
He looked round upon them, this man who found his joy in helping others, and waited for their answer.
"It would be beautiful, beautiful!" cried Evadne, "if MissChillingworth were willing. But the house is not large enough, DoctorRandolph, we shall need three or four guest chambers, you know."
"Nothing easier than to build an addition," said John, with the quiet reserve of power which always made his patients believe in the impossible.
Evadne laid her hand upon Miss Chillingworth's—"Dear Miss Diana," she said gently, "you do not say 'No' to us; do you think you could ever find it in your heart to say 'Yes'? I know it must seem a terrible innovation, but we could never have imagined anything half so delightful, Aunt Marthe and I. The atmosphere—outdoors and in—is perfection!"
Miss Diana looked at the sparkling face and then at Mrs. Everidge with her gentle smile. "I find myselfveryglad," she said, "since I have to lose my boys, but do you think we had better make any definite plans, dear, until we have talked it over with the Lord?"
And John Randolph said to Evadne with eyes that were suspiciously bright; "It is impossible for anyone to get very far from the Kingdom, when they live with our Lady Di."
The talk had wandered then to different subjects, and John Randolph listened to the soft play of Evadne's fancy and watched the light in her wonderful eyes. Her nature, so long repressed in an uncongenial environment, in this new soil of love and sympathy was blossoming richly and he found her very fair. He had rarely seen her resting. Now the shapely hands were folded together in a beautiful stillness—and then the breeze had waved aside a flower, and a sunbeam, darting through the trellis, fell upon the stone in her ring and made it sparkle with a baleful fire!
"Poor Louis!" Isabelle had said, the last time he had been called to prescribe for her frequently recurring attacks of indisposition, "he will have to wait for promotion now before he can think of marriage. It is very hard for him."
So again the truth and the lie had mingled.
Very sweet grew the life at 'The Willows' and Mrs. Everidge and Evadne and Miss Diana found their hands full of happy work.
Unavella still reigned supreme in her kitchen. "'Tain't a great sight harder to cook for a dozen than six," she had remarked sententiously, when the plan was unfolded to her, "it's only a matter uv quantity, the quality's jest the same. Ef Miss Di-an's a'goin ter start in ter be a she Atlas an' carry the world on her shoulders, she'll find I'm warranted ter wash an' not shrink in the rinsin'. I'm not a'goin ter be left behind, without I hev changed my name."
Dyce kept the rooms in spotless order and waited upon the guests.
"Dear friend," said Evadne one morning, as she watched her putting loving touches to the dining table, "you take as much trouble as if you expected Jesus Christ to be here!"
"So I does, Miss 'Vadney," she answered simply, "I never feels comfortable 'cept when dere's a place fer de Lord," and Evadne answered, "Dear Dyce, you make me feel ashamed!"
Many and varied were the guests who partook of their hospitality. The famine which no material wealth can alleviate is not confined to the dwellings of the poor. Hearts starve beneath coverings of velvet and loneliness often rides in a carriage. Many were the patients whom the world counted "well to do" that John Randolph sent to Evadne to be comforted. There was nothing to make them suspect that the keen intuition of the young physician had read their secret. 'The Willows' was simply a charming retreat where he sent them to try his favorite tonics of sunlight and oxygen; they never dreamed they were to be the recipients of favors which would not be rendered in the bill.
It was a beautiful fellowship in which they were banded together, for the Hawthornes had returned and were learning to find their pleasure in doing their Father's will. Dick True was in the brotherhood also, and never came home for his vacations without bringing with him "some fellow who needed a taste of love," and the overgrown boys would glory in their strength as they lifted Miss Diana from the carriage after a delightful drive, and learn a strange gentleness as they were unconsciously trained in the little deeds of chivalry which bespeak a true man.
Soon after Evadne's dream had materialized John Randolph had sent her a dainty little equipage to help on the work.
"You are too kind!" she cried, as she thanked him, "too generous!"
"Can we be that?" he asked, "when we are giving to a King? It is a theory of mine that a drive in the country with the right companion is better than exordiums. These poor souls have never learned to see 'sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and God in everything.' You must give me the pleasure of a little share in your beautiful work, my friend."
"A little share!" echoed Evadne. "Is it possible that you do not know,Doctor Randolph, how much of it belongs to you!"
The beauty of the life was that the guests were taken into the heart of the living and felt themselves a part of the home. They never preached, these wise, tender women, but the beautiful incidental teachings sank deep into hearts that would have been closed fast against sermons. There was no stereotyped effort to do them good, they simply lived as Christ did, and the world-tired souls looked on and marveled, and rejoiced in the sunlight of the present and the afterglow which made the memory of their visit a delight.
"'Do not leave the sky out of your landscape,'" said Aunt Marthe in her cheery way, as Mrs. Dolours was wailing over her troubles. That was all—for the time,—Mrs. Everidge believed in homeopathy—but it set her hearer thinking, and thought found expression in questioning, until she was led to the feet of the great Teacher and learned to roll her burden of trouble upon him who came to bear the burdens of the world.
"'We are not to be anxious about living but about living well,'" said Miss Diana to a young man who prided himself upon being a philosopher "that is a maxim of Plato's but we can only carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into Christ's keeping day by day.
"You just seem to live in the present," wealthy Mrs. Greyson said with a sigh, as she folded her jeweled fingers over her rich brocade, "I don't see how you do it! Life is one long presentiment with me. I am filled with such horrible forebodings. I tell Doctor Randolph, it is a sort of moral nightmare."
"Some of your griefs you have cured,And the sharpest you still have survived,But what torments of pain you endured,From evils that never arrived!"
Evadne quoted the words from a book of old French poems she had found in the library. Then she asked gently, "Why should you worry about the future, dear Mrs. Greyson, when it is such a waste of time? Don't you believe our Father loves his children?
"A waste of time." That was a new way of looking at it! Mrs. Greyson had always prided herself upon being thrifty, and, if God loved, would he let any real harm happen? She knew she would shield her children. How blind she had been!
"Ah, but you have never known sorrow!" and Mrs. Morner drew her sable draperies around her with a sigh. "Just look at your face! Not a shadow upon it and hardly a wrinkle. You are one of the favored ones with whom life has been all sunshine."
Mrs. Everidge laughed brightly. She had never pined to pose as a martyr before the world.
"God has been wondrous kind to me," she said, "but there is a cure for all sorrow, dear friend, in his love. The great Physician is the only one who has a medicament for that disease. It is not forgetfulness, you know—he does not deal in narcotics—but he lays his pierced hand upon our bleeding hearts and stills their pain. Our memory is as fresh as ever, but it is memory with the sting taken out."
"Ah, but you cannot understand—how should you? You have always had everything you wanted, and you have never lost anything or longed for what has been denied you!" and a toilworn woman, whose life seemed one long battle with disappointment, looked enviously at Miss Diana, over whose peaceful face life's twilight was falling in tender colors.
"Not quite everything I wanted, dear," said Miss Diana softly, "but I have come to know that God himself is sufficient for all our needs."
"Our dear Miss Diana has learned that 'we must sit in the sunshine if we would reflect the rainbow,'" said Aunt Marthe in her low tones. "It is a good rule, 'for every look we take at self, to take ten looks at Jesus.' She lives in the light of his smile."
Then through the open window they heard Evadne singing,
"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,Round our restlessness, his rest."
And the weary soul folded its tired wings, all wounded with vain beatings against the prison bars of circumstance, and was hushed into a great stillness against the heart of its Father.
* * * * *
John Randolph sought Evadne in the familiar porch which had grown to be to him the sweetest spot on earth.
"You are always busy," he said with a smile, as he lifted the garment she was making for the little waif who was to have her first taste of heaven at 'The Willows.' Satan has no chance to find an occupation for you."
"But, oh, Doctor Randolph, what a drop in the bucket all our doing seems, when we think of the need of the world!"
"Yet without the drops the bucket would be empty, dear friend. God never expects the impossible from us, you know. I think Christ's highest commendation will always be, 'She hath done what she could.' It is when we neglect the doing that he is wounded."
After a pause he spoke again. "With your permission I am going to send you a new patient." There was no trace of the struggle through which he had passed. This brave soul had learned to do the right and leave the rest with God.
Evadne laughed. "Still they come! Is it man, woman or child. DoctorRandolph?"
"Your cousin Louis." His voice was very still.
"Poor Louis! Is it more serious then? He has been looking wretchedly for months."
John Randolph examined her face critically. Could she call him "poorLouis" if she loved?
"His present trouble is nervous strain, aggravated by the unaccustomed confinement, and some mental excitement under which he is laboring. He must have a long rest, with a complete change of environment. If anyone can lift the cloud which seems to be hanging over him, I think it is you."
Evadne shook her head sadly. "The only one who can help Louis is JesusChrist," she said.
Louis Hildreth lay upon a couch in the cool library the morning after his arrival at 'The Willows.' Evadne had been shocked at the change in him since she had seen him last. His eyes were sunken, while underneath purple shadows fell upon his pallid cheeks. He touched Evadne's hand as she sat beside him. It was his hand!
"What a splendid fellow Randolph is!" he exclaimed suddenly. "He is making himself felt in Marlborough, I tell you. Strange, how some men forge their way to the front, while the rest of us just float down the stream of mediocrity. No wonder we are not missed, when we drop out of the babbling conglomerate of humanity into silence," he added bitterly. "Who would miss a single pair of fins from amidst a shoal of herring!"
"I think it is because Doctor Randolph is not content to float, Louis," Evadne answered gently. "He must always be climbing higher. Like Paul, he is 'pressing towards the mark.'"
"He is a grand fellow! And the beauty of it is he never seems to think of himself at all. Most men would get to be top-lofty if they accomplished as much as he does every day."
Evadne's lips parted in a happy smile. "I think Doctor Randolph is too much occupied with Jesus to have time to waste upon himself."
"Upon my word, coz, you're a puzzle! You talk in an unknown tongue. Don't you know Self is the god we worship, and the aim of our existence is to have it wear purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?"
"It should not be!" cried Evadne. "Oh Louis, dear Louis, life can never be grand until we are able to say—'Self has been crucified with Christ!'"
* * * * *
Weeks rolled into months and Louis was still at 'The Willows.' His cynicism had come to have a strangely wistful ring. John Randolph's visits were frequent and they held long conversations together, these men, the one who had seized every opportunity and made the most of it, the other who had let his golden chances slip through his fingers one by one; then John Randolph would go bravely back to his life of toil, while Louis listened to Evadne's sweet voice as she sang in the gloaming, or watched his ring glisten as her deft fingers were busy with their deeds of love.
"How do you do it?" he exclaimed one evening when they were alone together. "You never rest! Your whole life seems to be centered in the lives of others, and there is nothing attractive about them, if there were I could understand. It looks like such drudgery to me. Tell me, little coz, what makes you give up all your ease to make these people happy?"
"When we love our Father it is our joy to do his will," she answered softly.
"If I could live like you and Randolph I should be perfectly satisfied.I wish I had the courage to try."
"Mere outward living cannot save us, Louis. Nothing can but faith in the atoning blood and the name and the love of Christ. Then—when we believe, you know—all things become possible. We make an awful mistake when we think we know better than the Bible. Nicodemus lived a perfect outward life, yet Christ said to him, 'Except ye be born again—of the Word and the Spirit—ye cannot see the Kingdom of God.' We are running a terrible risk when we try to live without Jesus."
"That is what Randolph says. He is a one idea man, if ever there was one, and yet he is so many sided! He is the most uncompromising fellow I ever knew. I should as soon expect to see the stars fall from the sky as to see him do a shady thing. You would be amused, coz, to see the lady mother and Isabelle joining forces to lay siege to his affections."
What meant that sudden start and then the blush which flamed up over cheek and brow? Louis Hildreth closed his thin fingers over Evadne's ring with a long drawn sigh. He was beginning to realize that a hand, without a heart, is an empty thing.
Long after she had left him he lay motionless. This knowledge which had come to him so suddenly had a bitter taste.
* * * * *
"You ought to get well, Hildreth, and you ought to be a very happy man,"John Randolph spoke the words suddenly as he rose to take his leave.
"I never expect to be either. When a man has all he has prided himself upon swept away from him, and all that he longs for denied him, how can it be possible?"
"'Count it your highest good when God denies you.' Is that too hard a gospel? We shall not read it so in the light of eternity. It is only that Christ may become to us the 'altogether lovely' One."
"Did you ever love—a woman?" Louis put the question suddenly, watching his friend's face with a jealous scrutiny.
"Yes." The answer was as simple and straightforward as the man. He knew of nothing to be ashamed of in this beautiful love of his life.
"And her name was?—"
"Evadne."
John Randolph spoke the name for the first time to another, looking up at the sky. When he turned to leave the room he saw that Louis' face was buried among his cushions and he drove away in a great wonderment. What could it all mean?
"Knocking, knocking, who is there?Waiting, waiting, oh, how fair!'T is a pilgrim, strange and kingly,Never such was seen before.Ah, my soul, for such a wonder,Wilt thou not undo the door?"
Evadne sang the words softly in the twilight: sang them with a great note of longing in her pleading voice. She and her cousin were alone.
"Evadne, come here."
She crossed the room and knelt beside his couch.
"Little coz, I have let the Pilgrim in."
And Evadne buried her face in the cushions with a low cry. The crown of rejoicing was hers—at last!
* * * * *
"There is only one thing wanting between you two." Louis looked wistfully at John Randolph and Evadne, as they stood beside him, talking brightly of how he should help when he grew strong.
"And what is that?" Doctor Randolph asked the question with a smile.
Louis drew his ring from Evadne's finger and laid her hand in that of his friend. "Take her, Randolph, she is worthy of you. I would not say that of any other woman."
With a great joy surging in his heart, John Randolph held out his other hand. She must give herself. He could not take her from another's giving.
A lovely shyness flushed into the pure face, their eyes met, and Evadne laid her hand in his without a word.
"Evadne!" The rich, tender tones fell throbbing through the silence, enwrapping the name in a sweet protectiveness. "Life is—for us—to do the will of God!"
End of Project Gutenberg's A Beautiful Possibility, by Edith Ferguson Black