WHERE?
Alma was sitting in her own room, with her treasure-house before her.
Its door was still fast locked, as was her purse for all applications
for pecuniary help. Closed, too, seemed the door of her heart to the
great Friend who still lovingly knocked without. His question, "Where
is the guest-room?" had been met by a long, unbroken silence.
Now Alma's mind was on her future plans. She had shaken the little
cottage, and had been quite dissatisfied with the result. She rose
hastily. A drawer in her writing-desk was impulsively unlocked. She
took out a jewel-case where a diamond ring, and a brooch set with the
same precious stones, and a watch with a monogram in pearls, were lying
side by side. She looked admiringly at them, and carefully examined
them all. The ring, the brooch, and the little watch were then
deliberately let down the chimney of the golden house, as if they had
been black sweeps on a lawful errand. They were given, "offered," she
felt, and her design was now far on its way to its accomplishment.
There could be no more earthquake-like shakings of that cottage. That
amusement must be abandoned.
There was a sharp prick from Alma's conscience in the midst of her
evident satisfaction. Her father had said this jewellery would some
day belong to her, and had even, at her special request, allowed her to
have the now sacrificed treasures in her own keeping. "They were to be
mine. They _are_ mine," she said to herself. "I have offered them. I
shall never wear them now. My mother in heaven would approve of what I
have done." Here her conscience gave her a cruel pang. She was
inclined to open again the velvet-lined box, and lay the jewellery
where it had so long rested, but that was impossible without opening
the little locked door of the treasure-house. That she had vowed to
herself she would not do before the time appointed--a time she was now
most anxious should soon arrive.
At this moment Alma heard the sound of footsteps. She thrust the case
into its drawer, locked it and dropped the key into her pocket like one
disturbed in a dishonest act rather than in a noble deed. There was a
loud knock at the door. Alma opened it, and Frans stood before her.
"What do you want here?" she said impatiently.
"I can't find papa," said Frans. "I wanted to tell him that it went
'bully' for me at the examination this morning. I thought perhaps your
highness might like to know it too. The teachers seem to think I shall
stand 'tip-top' in my report."
"I don't believe you will deserve it," said Alma sharply. "I never see
you studying."
"But I have studied lately, more than I ever studied in my life. I
didn't go to bed a single night last week before one o'clock."
"You ought to be ashamed to tell it!" said Alma reprovingly. "You know
papa don't allow you to sit up late."
"I shall tell him about it myself, and I know papa will excuse me,"
said Frans, in high spirits.
The colonel did excuse Frans, and was delighted to hear of his success,
though he did not fail to say it was hard to make up by such forced
studying for neglect during the term, and a thing that he hoped would
never be needed again.
Frans was in a glorious good-humour during the short time he allowed
himself for lunch, and made his pony fly as he hurried back to school
immediately afterwards.
The school was in a village about twenty minutes' ride from the
colonel's home. The afternoon session was over, and yet Frans did not
return. The colonel was very anxious about his son. He feared that he
had been induced to celebrate his success in some wild frolic, and sent
in a messenger to search after him.
The report came back that Frans had done very badly at school during
the latter part of the day, and had ridden off at full speed, evidently
in a very bad humour at his failure.
Later in the evening the pony came home, riderless, and sorrow settled
on the household at Ekero.
"It is only some foolish trick that Frans is playing upon us!" Alma had
said at first, but as the hours wore away she too had become really
anxious.
The colonel, who went himself at once to the village, came home late,
discouraged and distressed. Telegraphing and sending off messengers in
every direction had been in vain. The morning brought terrible news.
A theft had been committed in a shop near the schoolhouse the evening
before, and an older pupil of bad repute had disappeared. It was
generally whispered that he and Frans had gone off together.
Alma's feelings can easily be imagined. Shame, anger, righteous
indignation, and real distress were strangely mingled together. Her
father left home as soon as these horrible rumours were told him. Alma
was alone all day, save when she was called on to hear the moans of the
housekeeper over her "dear boy who had gone wrong; such a sweet boy as
he had always been towards her."
At such a mention of himself Frans would have been much astonished, as
this faithful friend of the family had not failed to set his
shortcomings fully before him. She now reproached Alma for not making
home more pleasant for her brother, for "worrying and worrying at him
until he had no peace of his life. Such a knowing boy as he was, too,
with the ways and doings of beasts and birds at his tongue's end. As
for the Swedish kings, he could tell stories about them all a long
midsummer day, if a body had patience to listen. And _he_ not do well
at an examination!" and the housekeeper snapped her fingers in contempt
of the whole pedagogical corps.
To these various forms of lamenting Alma listened in convicted silence.
She was glad of any company in the dismal loneliness of the house, and
felt she deserved much blame, if not all the burden of responsibility
that was cast upon her, for Frans's misdoings.
The colonel had been unwearied in his efforts to find his son; but when
he was at last convinced that he had gone off in company with a boy
suspected of actual theft, he would not seek for his son to be brought
home to public trial and possible conviction. The authorities might
find the boys if they could, he would take no further steps in the
matter.
The colonel locked himself into his room, and not even Alma's gentle
knock was answered. Like the housekeeper, he had a deep sense of
Alma's coldness and bitterness towards her brother, and he understood
how Frans must have dreaded to meet her after his disgrace at the
examination. He understood, too, how much Frans must have feared his
displeasure; but that such a mother's son should be so degraded as to
consort with a thief and possibly share his guilt! The thought was
madness. He pictured the desperate boy, flying perhaps to a far
country, to suffer, and sin and go down to the lowest depths of
degradation. The prayer burst forth from the depths of the colonel's
heart, "God have mercy on my son! God have mercy on me, a sinner!"
There was a thoroughgoing penitence in that closed room. The colonel's
whole life stood before him, with all its shortcomings and its sins.
To the world it had been an outwardly blameless life, but within there
had been an uncertain faith, a half-heartedness, an indecision in his
inner life, that ill befitted one who so well knew the love and purity
of his heavenly Father. He cast himself upon his knees, to rise
forgiven, and strengthened to lead a decided, devoted Christian life.
With his own humiliation came back his tenderness towards his absent,
erring boy.
When the door was opened at last to Alma, she saw the traces of sorrow
and deep emotion on her father's face. She threw herself into his
arms, exclaiming, "Dear, dear papa!" She could say no more. He gently
closed the door by which she had entered. No human being ever knew the
words that then passed between them, but they were henceforward to be
bound together by a new and a holier tie than ever before.