FLIGHT.
GERTRUDE could hardly breathe, but she kept quiet, and the woman
continued her narrative, still in the same dull, hopeless, heart-broken
tone in which she had spoken all along.
"I did everything I could think of. I gave him a warm bath—I poured out
prayers and tears—I did everything to bring him back, but to no avail.
"As to Johnnie, he hung over him too, and cried as I never wish to hear
a child cry again; it wrings my heart now to think of it.
"All night we watched him, and kissed him, and coaxed him, but it was
of no use! At last, Johnnie fell asleep, kneeling on the floor by us,
but no sleep came to my eyes.
"Then I made my fatal mistake and committed a dreadful sin.
"When the morning sun crept in, and still those wide-open startled eyes
gave no sign of intelligence, I made up my mind for flight.
"At first I only intended to gain time, perhaps to consult a doctor in
London, or to try what change of air would do to restore him. But I did
a dreadful thing—I robbed a mother of her child, and I prevented her
doing what she might have done to repair the mischief.
"You will blame me—I know you must—I feel your knees trembling beneath
me. But oh! No one who has not passed through it can conceive what I
suffered then, and what I have suffered since!"
Gertrude's knees did tremble, but by a great effort she murmured some
words of sympathy. While the woman raised her face to wipe from it the
drops of perspiration which stood on her brow.
One thought crossed Gertrude's mind of what they would think if she did
not arrive at the confectioner's, but she was reassured that they would
conclude that she had been persuaded to drive home with Mrs. Shaddock,
and till both parties arrived, each would think she was with the other.
This woman's story would be enough excuse when once she got home!
"It was my terror of what would be done to Johnnie," the woman went on
at length, "that made me fly. Ah! I had better have faced it all, ten
thousand times! Better for myself, better for him. As to me, I have
grown an old, broken-down woman; as to him—he lies here in the cold
ground, and I shall never, never see him again!"
"He is gone to Jesus," whispered Gertrude in a broken voice; "if you
seek Him too, you will meet your boy again."
She did not know how to articulate the words, and yet—still she thought
of herself as a forgiven sinner, and must she not forgive too!
The woman seemed to listen.
"Oh, if I could!" she said, with a yearning cry.
"'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,'" said Gertrude
earnestly. And then she thought of the unfinished story, and how could
she bear to speak of anything till that was told?
But had she not in that brief prayer asked her Heavenly Father to take
it all in hand? And was she going to slight "His" work, which He had
given her to do, in order to take what she thought the best road to
finding little Lester?
"Those are the very words my Johnnie said!" exclaimed the woman,
raising her face for the first time, and letting Gertrude gaze upon its
haggard lines—at least upon so much of them as could be seen in the
increasing darkness.
"'In no wise cast out!' Those are good words!"
She laid her head down again on the trembling knees, and did not speak
for ever so long.
"Why are you so good to me?" she asked at last.
"Because I am so sorry for you," said Gertrude in a low tone.
"I'm not worthy to come to Him," the woman went on; "and yet—yet I
think I must try. Johnnie said he'd been forgiven—and he said I should
be. And oh, though you may not think it, from such a dreadful thing as
I am, but if I could be forgiven by God, and know that the poor mother
I robbed—"
She broke off and flung herself upon Johnnie's grave, and lay there
with her face against the cold clay.
"Dear friend," said Gertrude kneeling down beside her, "go to Jesus
now! Do not wait any longer. You will never be happy without Him; you
will be at peace even in the midst of this dreadful sorrow, if only you
have Him for your Saviour. Do not wait another moment."
And again repeating those words which have brought balm to thousands of
hopeless hearts, Gertrude said, as Johnnie's nurse had done, "'Him that
cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'"
Perhaps Johnnie's persuasion had prepared her, perhaps the week of
anguish she had just passed had softened her heart; at any rate, the
woman believed the loving promise and acted on it.
She "came" to Jesus, and found that she was not cast out! But, covered
with the Atoning Blood, she was drawn into the circle of everlasting
love!
"I've done it!" she whispered at length. "I've come, and He has not
cast me out! Oh, I never saw such love!"
She rose from the ground, and taking Gertrude's hand, pointed towards
the entrance, where the men were beginning to put away their tools.
"I shall never be able to thank you, miss," she said brokenly, "but if
ever there was a grateful heart!—To think that I 'shall' see Johnnie
again now! Oh, miss! I'm lost in joy and wonder. I cannot think that I
am the same woman that I was an hour ago!"
Gertrude, amidst all the conflicting feelings of joy for this new-born
soul, sorrow for her sister, and anxiety as to the future, could do
nothing but weep.
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