"THE MORNING COMETH"
She dismissed the notion, the next moment, as absurd; but it returned
again and again, each time more persistent; slowly she once more
ascended the steps of the church absorbed in the thought.
At one side of the wide vestibule, a door led into a long hall. In one
of the many rooms opening from it Miss Kendall was holding her meeting.
The door was heavy and swung slowly. Just before Elizabeth opened it
sufficiently to gain a view of the hall, she heard her own name spoken
in Miss Kendall's decisive tones.
"Pardon me, Miss Withrow, but you are mistaken. The Miss Gordon you
have reference to is a student or milliner or something; we certainly
haven't asked her to join us. I know because I met her over on Seaton
Crescent when I was calling on those tiresome boarders. Mrs. Jarvis's
Miss Gordon is quite another person, I don't know her personally, but
they say Mr. Huntley is quite enamored and----"
Elizabeth shrank back closing the door softly. Here was a predicament
indeed! The approaching swish of silken skirts sounded along the hall,
and she ran noiselessly up the carpeted stairway looking for some place
of concealment. The door leading into the auditorium confronted her,
and shaking with silent laughter she pushed it open and slipped
noiselessly within. A soft hushed movement like one breathing in sleep
filled the great space. She paused, startled--the church was crowded.
Away up in the dim pulpit at the other end a man was speaking.
Elizabeth dropped breathlessly and embarrassed into the pew nearest the
door. She had no idea what this gathering was for or who the speaker
was. Mrs. Jarvis attended the regular Sunday morning services in St.
Stephen's, whenever a headache did not prevent, and Elizabeth
accompanied her. But beyond this the girl had not the slightest
connection with any of the activities of this religious body of which
she was a member. Otherwise she might have known that this was a great
gathering of students, many of whom were young volunteers for the army
of the King that was fighting sin far away in the stronghold of
heathenism. She would have heard, too, that the man up there in the
pulpit, with every eye set unwaveringly upon him, was one who had
stirred the very pulses of her native land by his call to the laymen of
the church to a wider vision of their duty to the world. But poor
Elizabeth knew very little more about this great movement than if she
had been one of the heathen in whose behalf it was being made.
And perhaps because she had been so long shut away from the great
things of life, for which her heart vainly cried, her very soul went
out to the words of the speaker. He was nearing the end of his
address, and was making his appeal to those young people to invest
their lives in this great work for God and humanity.
Looking back upon that scene afterwards, it almost seemed miraculous to
Elizabeth, that the first words of his message she heard were from that
prophetic poem that had always moved her to tears in her childhood days
when her father read them at family worship.
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, the
desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom
abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing." This was the
promise to those who responded to their Master's call. The
wildernesses of the earth, the sad and solitary places, were to be made
glad and beautiful at their coming.
And then Elizabeth grasped the purpose of the gathering. She read it
as much in the sea of eager upturned faces as in the speaker's words.
She knew, too, that he was not speaking to her. She had no part nor
lot in this great onward march of the world. She belonged to those who
were clogging the wheels of progress. A feeling of intense envy seized
her, all her old yearning for love and service came over her with
twofold strength, and with it the bitter remembrance that she had
wasted her life in worse than idleness.
The low, deep, appealing voice went on, and she bowed her head in
humiliation. But surely he was speaking to her now. "Do you want to
find Jesus Christ?" he was asking. "Have you lost your hold on Him?
Then go out where the drunkard and the orphan and the outcast throng in
their sin and misery--you will find Him there!"
For a brief space Elizabeth heard no further word. That message was
especially for her. For she had lost her hold upon Him, and with Him,
she realized it for the first time, she had lost the joy and power of
life. She had been very near Him many times--when her father read of
His love and sacrifice, or Mother MacAllister showed her the beauty of
His service. The Vision Beautiful had been hers, and she had refused
to go out at the call of the hungry, and so it had not stayed.
And now a new vision--the tormenting picture of what she might have
made of her life was being shown her through the magic of the speaker's
words. "The King's Highway," he called his address. "And an highway
shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness.
The unclean shall not pass over it, the wayfaring men, though fools,
shall not err therein." He pictured to their eager young eyes, what
that Way would be for the world, when they prepared it for the coming
of their King.
"Would they make this way of holiness accessible to someone?" he asked.
"To those wayfaring men who were sure to err unless guided thereto."
He ended with the Prophet's words, and the choir, away up in their
brightly lighted gallery arose and burst forth into the glorious words
that closed the vision.
"Then shall the redeemed of the Lord come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall receive joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
Elizabeth could bear no more. She arose, the tears blinding her, and
slipped quietly out. She had seen Jean looking over the gallery
railing with serious eyes, and Stuart standing by a pillar with a group
of fellow-students, his face pale and tense. She dared not risk
meeting them or anyone else she knew. She hurried down the stairs and
out along the street struggling for her self-control. Half consciously
her footsteps turned in the direction of that little street where she
had seen the girl that looked like Eppie. The tumult of
self-accusation within drove her to immediate action. She would go
down there at once and see that girl, and help and comfort her, and
perhaps--even though she had wandered so far away, she might prove the
speaker's words true--she might find the Vision return. Choking back
her sobs she hurried along. The memory of the sad sight, that pitiful
ill-clad girl striving to comfort the still more pitiful old man
driving her forward as if with a whip.
The twilight had fallen and the dingy street looked even more gloomy.
She was terrified by the glimpses of rough-looking men and slatternly
women, by the loud voices and the sounds of violence that issued from
many of the houses. But her fear did not once make her think of
turning back. Her soul now recognized the fact that there were things
more to be dreaded in the life of uselessness from which she was
fleeing.
She turned down the dark alley from which she had seen the girl emerge,
stumbling over heaps of garbage. Even in her terror she had a faint
sense of grim enjoyment at the thought of how horrified Mr. Huntley
would be could he know. She almost hated him for his solicitous care
of her when she compared it with his indifference to these ragged
shrill-voiced women about her. She paused at length before one of the
low hovels and timidly knocked. At the same moment the door suddenly
opened and a young man came lounging heavily out. By the light from
the doorway Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a heavy brutal face, as he
slouched past her. She started back, about to run, but stopped. Just
beyond him in the doorway stood the girl she sought. The pale light of
a flickering gas jet above her head revealed her face. There was no
mistaking her now. Elizabeth forgot her fears and went forward with a
joyful little run.
"Eppie!" she cried, "oh, Eppie! Do you know me?"
The girl stood staring.
"Is it?--Is it you--Lizzie?" she whispered.
"Yes--it's Lizzie. May I come in, Eppie?"
The girl shrank back as though afraid, but there was a pleading look in
her hungry eyes, a gleam of something like hope that drew Elizabeth in.
She stepped down into the chilly little room. The flickering gas jet
shed a pale circle of light around the wretched place. At one glance
every detail of the sordid surroundings seemed to be stamped upon
Elizabeth's brain; the low bed in the corner under the sloping roof,
where the old man lay, covered by a ragged quilt, the rusty fireless
stove, with the water falling drip, drip upon it from the melting snow
on the sagging roof, the old cupboard with its cracked dishes and its
smell of moldy bread. And yet she looked only at her lost school-mate,
at the hungry, frightened eyes and the white thin face. She saw, too,
how the girl shrank from her, fearful and yet hopeful, and a great
flood of pity surged over her. She took both the thin rough hands in
her delicately gloved ones and tried to smile.
"Oh, Eppie!" she cried, "where have you been this long, long time, my
dear?"
The effect of her words alarmed her. Eppie clutched her hands and
burst into a storm of sobs. Frightened and dismayed, and at a loss
what to do, Elizabeth blindly did the very best thing. She put her
arms about the shaking little figure and held it close. She drew her
down to an old box that stood by the damp wall, and the two old
school-mates, so widely separated by fate, clung to each other and
sobbed.
"Oh, Lizzie! oh, Lizzie," the girl kept repeating her friend's name
over and over. "You always promised you'd come and see me, and I
thought you'd forgot me--you being such a grand lady. I thought you'd
forgot me!"
"Eppie," whispered Elizabeth, "don't! oh, don't! I wanted to find
you--long ago--but I didn't know where you were. Hush, dear, don't cry
so, you will make yourself ill. See, you will waken your grandfather."
She stopped at this, choking back her sobs. "It's because I'm so glad
you came, Lizzie, and you such a fine lady," she whispered. "I hadn't
nobody left." She sat up and wiped away her tears on her ragged apron.
"I seen you at that boarding-house where Charles Stuart was," she
continued, "but you looked so grand I wouldn't let on to you I was
there. I thought you wouldn't want me. And I wouldn't let him tell
even Jean. But the woman wouldn't keep me, I was no good, and I was
ashamed to tell Charles Stuart I'd gone, he was so awful good, and so
me and grandaddy moved in here and I didn't let on, and I got washing;
but the lady didn't pay me, and oh, Lizzie, grandaddy's sick and
I--couldn't help it."
"Couldn't help what?" asked Elizabeth, puzzled over the incoherent
recital. "Tell me all about it, Eppie."
"Tell me, dear," she patted her as though she had been a hurt child.
So Eppie began at the day they came to Toronto and told their whole sad
history. They had lived with her father for a time. He had written
them to come, for he had a little grocery store and was doing well. He
had been kind and good at first, and they had been happy. But he had
began to drink again--drink had always been his trouble, and at last
everything had to be sold and he went away West, leaving her and her
grandfather alone. Then commenced a sorrowful story--the story of
incompetence struggling with greed and want. They would have starved
she declared only for Charles Stuart. It was he was the good kind lad.
He had met her on the street one day last autumn and for a long while
he had done everything to help them. He had found a place where
grandaddy could board, and got work for her again and again. But she
had always failed. "I tried, Lizzie," she said, sitting before her
friend with hanging head, twisting the corner of her ragged apron
pitifully, "but I'd never been learned how to do things, and I guess I
was awful slow. When the ladies scolded I would just be forgetting
everything, and then they would send me away. And when Charles Stuart
got me a place at Mrs. Dalley's and I lost it, too, I was that ashamed
I couldn't tell him. So we moved down here to this house, for I'd
saved a little money, and grandaddy was pleased because he said it was
a home of our own again, and he didn't seem to mind the water coming in
on the bed. But the rent's awful dear, and the man that owns it he
said he'd send me to jail if I didn't pay him next time. I hadn't any
money last time, because the lady I worked for wouldn't pay me. Oh,
Lizzie, don't you think rich people ought to pay folks that work for
them?"
"Who didn't pay you?" asked Elizabeth, her eyes burning.
"Miss Kendall. She's a grand lady and works in the church and Charles
Stuart asked her to let me work for her. But she'd always tell me to
come back some other day when I went and asked her for money, and next
week they're going to turn us out. Oh, Lizzie, do you mind yon Mr.
Huntley that put grandaddy and me off our farm? He owns this house and
now he's putting us out again! Grandaddy says God is good and kind and
that He'll never forsake us. But I don't think He cares about us, or
He wouldn't let all these awful things happen to us." She had been
growing more and more excited as the recital continued. Her cheeks
burned and she plucked nervously at her apron. Now a desperate look
came into her eyes, her voice rose shrilly and Elizabeth gazed at her
in terror.
"Did you see that man that was here when you came?" Elizabeth nodded,
a new terror clutching her heart. Until now she had not realized that
there might be far fiercer beasts of prey than even the wolves of
poverty following Eppie's footsteps. "He's a bad man, Lizzie, but he's
been kind to me. He gave me money yesterday or grandaddy would a'
starved. Bad people are better to you than good people. He gave me
money if I'd promise to go and keep house for him. And I'm
going--to-morrow--and I'll get bad too--everybody round here's bad and
I don't care any more----"
She burst into violent sobbing again, and Elizabeth could only hold her
tight and say over and over in helpless woe, "Oh, Eppie, my poor
Eppie." For of the two girls clinging together in the damp little
hovel, perhaps the more fortunate one was experiencing a greater depth
of despair. A very chaos of darkness had descended upon Elizabeth's
soul. She was taking her first glimpse of that world of misery and
shame into which Eppie was being so ruthlessly driven, and her whole
soul recoiled. To her excited imagination the girl in her arms was the
sacrifice offered for her own comfort. It seemed as though the price
of the boxes of roses and candy that were lavished upon her, had been
wrung from those poor helpless hands now clutching her so desperately.
And Mrs. Jarvis too; Elizabeth arraigned her before the ruthless
tribunal of her awakened conscience. Why had she let all this happen,
when she could have prevented it with a word?
Suddenly Eppie stopped sobbing and raised her head listening.
Elizabeth looked at her and followed her eyes to the bed. The old man
had made a slight movement, and uttered a strange, choking cough. His
granddaughter ran to him with incoherent murmurs of endearment.
Elizabeth following tenderly, the girl turned down the ragged coverlid,
and laid her hand on his wrinkled forehead. There was the stamp of
death on his peaceful old face.
"What's the matter?" whispered Elizabeth.
Eppie turned upon her wild eyes of terror. "I don't know. There's
something wrong with him. Oh, what'll I do? What'll I do?"
"I'll get a doctor," cried Elizabeth, darting towards the door. Her
heavy fur stole slipped from her shoulders, but she took no notice of
it. She fled out into the night and went stumbling once more over the
garbage heaps of the dark alley.
Mr. MacAllister had come in late for his supper that evening, and Mrs.
Dalley's latest dining-room maid had served him with an air of cold
reproach that almost gave that kind-hearted young man an attack of
indigestion. He hurried away from the uncomfortable atmosphere, and
found that his room-mate had gone out. He did not go to his books at
once, but sat in their one easy-chair, his hands deep in his pockets,
staring at his boots. John always declared the Pretender drew his
inspiration therefrom, for after any prolonged study of those
goodly-sized appendages he always arose and accomplished something
startling. This time his meditation was longer than usual; his mind
was on the lecture of that afternoon. Finally he arose and drew from
the table a writing-pad. He wrote a long letter, and as he sealed it
his dark eyes shone. For he knew that away up in a little northern
valley, a woman with a sweet wistful face, who had waited for the
message that letter contained, many long anxious years, was still
waiting for it, and its coming would fill her heart with joy and
thankfulness.
He had just finished when he heard his chum come thundering up the
stairs. He looked up with laughing expectation. He knew by the manner
of John's ascent that there was something grand and glorious doing.
"What's up now? You came up that stairs like an automobilly-goat. Is
the house on fire?"
John leaped across the room, threw his cap upon the floor, and had
poured out his good news before he got his overcoat off.
"Isn't that the dandiest luck?" he finished up. "I've just been down
at Huntley's office. He telephoned just before supper. And I'm to
have all expenses paid beside, and nothing but Dagoes and Chinamen to
dope." He had taken off his boots by this time and was rummaging in
the bedroom for his slippers, never pausing a moment in his talk.
"Huntley's a gentleman all right, isn't he? Of course, it's all 'cause
he's so sweet on Lizzie; but I'm mighty thankful his sweetness came in
my direction. A chap like you, with one of the best farms in Ontario
at his back, can't have any idea what it's like to go to college on
wind. Say, won't it seem funny to have little Lizzie married to that
chap. She wouldn't confess to-day, but I could see there was something
up."
He paused at last, for it was being borne in upon his joy-blended
senses that his chum, who had always heretofore rejoiced when he
rejoiced, was making no response.
"It'll be good practice for my first year, don't you think?" he asked
rather lamely.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so." Charles Stuart's answer was even lamer.
John emerged from his room bearing the captured slippers.
"You're not sick, are you, old man?" he asked.
"Sick? No! What makes you ask such a fool question?"
"Why, you're looking perfectly green round the gills. You're not going
out, are you?"
For the Pretender had sprung up and was dragging on his boots. He was
finding it impossible to pretend any longer.
John watched him anxiously, all uncomprehending.
"Better let me take your temperature, Mac. Diphtheria's fairly booming
in your year. Packard has it now."
"Nonsense! I'm all right. You meds. are always on the trail of death
and disease."
"I thought you said you were going to plug to-night."
Charles Stuart was savagely dragging on his overcoat. "Well, I'm not,
I'm going out."
"You haven't a pain or an ache anywhere, have you?"
The patient might have answered truthfully that he was conscious only
of one great ache through his whole being, but instead he answered
shortly: "Pain? Your granny! No, of course not!"
The door slammed soundingly behind him, and John sat gazing at it until
the house shook with another tremendous bang, this time from the street
door.
"Well, I'll be----" said the young man, and then paused, feeling how
utterly hopeless it was to find a word expressive of his feelings. In
all the years of their life-long comradeship he had never known Charles
Stuart to behave in such a manner. "He's gone batty!" he said at last
to the closed door, and then slowly and meditatively he returned to his
books. "He's fixing for dip. all right," he added; "I'll have Bags in
to overhaul him when he comes back." Then, with the satisfaction of a
medical student who has correctly diagnosed and prescribed for a case,
he settled himself comfortably in the easy-chair and went to work.
Meanwhile the supposed victim of incipient diphtheria was striding down
the street as though pursued by that and every other fell disease. A
worse malady had seized him, and he was calling himself a fool that he
had been so blind to its symptoms. Life without the sunshine of
Elizabeth's presence was a problem he had never faced. That he and she
belonged to each other since the beginning of time had always been his
deep-rooted conviction. And now he had lost her, and had realized it
for the first time on the very day when he had found the true glorious
meaning of life. His senses were numbed by the irony of his fate. He
was conscious only of the fact that he had received a blow, and that he
must move swiftly and more swiftly. He was whirling round a corner
when he heard his name called sharply. He stopped short in mingled joy
and fear. Someone was crossing the street towards him with headlong
speed. It was she herself!--Elizabeth--coming to him with outstretched
hands. He went swiftly to meet her.
"Lizzie! What is it?" he cried, catching the hands in his.
"Oh, Charles Stuart!" she cried with a sob of relief, "come--quick!
I've found Eppie!"