"THE WORM-INFESTED CHESTNUT"--GREGORY TELLS THE WORST
In his solitary ramble, Gregory again thought long and deeply over the
situation. The impression was growing strong that the supreme hour of
his life, which would decide his destiny for good or evil, was fast
approaching. For years previously he had given up the struggle against
the latter, and had sunk deep in moral apathy, making greater effort to
doubt everything concerning God than to believe. Then he had lost even
his earthly ambition, and become mere driftwood on the tide of time.
But a sweet, true woman was doing a work for him like that of Elsie for
Prince Henry in the Golden Legend. A consciousness of power to take up
his burden again and be a man among men was coming back, and old Daddy
Tuggar's words were growing into a hope-inspiring prophecy: "She could
take the wickedest man livin' to heaven, if she'd stay right by him."
And yet his self-distrust was painfully and dangerously great, and he
feared that when Annie came to know the worst about him, and how he had
plotted against her, she would shrink from him. If she despaired of him
he would despair of himself. He was certain that he could not win even
an intimate congenial acquaintance, much less a more tender regard,
unless he became a true, good man, worthy of her confidence. He could
not become such by commencing in deception--by hiding the past, and
trying to appear what he was not. For in the first place she would
certainly find him out and despise him, and in the second place his own
nature now revolted at anything false in his relations with her. After
long anxious thought, he concluded that the only safe, as well as the
only honorable, course was perfect frankness. If he began wrong, the
end would be disastrous. He was no longer subject to school-boy
impulses, but was a mature and thoughtful man, and had trained himself
in business to look far and keenly into the consequences of present
action. He saw in this Walton blood an intense antipathy to deceit. His
own nature was averse to it also, and his experience with Hunting had
made it doubly hateful. His pride revolted at it, for his lack of
hypocrisy had been the one ground of self-respect that remained in him.
If in his folly and wickedness he had blotted out the possibility of a
happy future, he must endure the terrible truth as he could. To try to
steal into heaven, earthly or celestial, by the back door of specious
seeming, only to be discovered in his true character and cast out with
greater ignominy, was a course as revolting as foolish. Annie knew him
to be a man of the world, with sceptical tendencies, but to her
guileless nature and inexperience this might not mean anything very
bad. In the secret of his own soul, however, he had to meet these
terrible questions:
"Can God receive and pardon a willing unbeliever, a man who has sinned
against the clearest light, a gambler, a libertine, an embodiment of
selfishness? Can it be that Annie Walton will ever receive even
friendship from one so stained, knowing the additional fact that I
plotted against her and sought for my own senseless gratification to
prove that she was a weak, vain woman, who would be no better than
myself if tempted in like manner? It is true that I never betrayed
innocence or wronged a man out of a dollar. It is true that in the code
of the world I have done nothing to lose my character as a gentleman,
and even my design upon Miss Walton would pass as a harmless flirtation
in society; but the code of the world has no force in her pure mind,
and the license it permits is an insult to the law of God. And now it
is not with the world, but with her and Heaven that I have to deal.
Things at which society shrugs its shoulders indifferently are to them
crimes, and black ones too. I might as well seek her love with a
felon's indictment hanging over me as to seek it hiding my past life.
When she came to find me out she would feel that I had wronged her
unutterably, and confidence, the only basis of lasting esteem, would be
gone.
"Deep in my heart I have never doubted my mother's faith. When I
imagined I did I was self-deceived. Everything here confirms it, and
Miss Walton more than all. I will consult the divine oracle. She shall
be the fair vestal, the gentle priestess. She lives near to heaven, and
knows its mind. If her kind and womanly nature shrinks from me, if she
coldly draws her skirts aside that I pollute them not even with a
touch--if she by word or even manner proves that she sees an impassable
gulf between us--then she need waste no breath in homilies over
repentance and in saying that God can receive those whom man cannot.
I'll not even listen, but go back to the city and meet my fate. If
imperfect human creatures cannot forgive each other--if I have gone so
far beyond the mercy of a tender-hearted woman--then I need look for
nothing from a just and holy God. It's mockery for good people, with
horror and disgust slightly veiled upon their faces, to tell poor
wretches that God will receive them and love them, while they would no
more take them into their confidence and esteem than they would a
pestilence. It's like people saying to one in the last stage of
consumption, 'I hope you will be better soon.' They don't hope or
expect any such thing. The Bible is said to teach that a man can sin
away his day of grace. I had about believed that I had sinned away
mine. This genuine, honest Christian girl has made me think
differently. She has inspired the strong hope that she could lead me to
become a good man--even a Christian. She shall either fulfil that hope
or show it to be false."
Such was the outline of his thoughts that long day, during which hope
and fear balanced an even scale. But the evening shadows found fear
predominating. His awakened conscience and his recent contact with true
moral standards revealed him to himself in darker and still darker
shadow. At times he was almost ready to despair, to bid his
entertainers a courteous farewell on Monday, and go back to the city as
he came, with the additional wretchedness of having seen the heaven he
could not enter.
But when he came down to supper, Annie smiled so sweetly and looked so
gentle and kind, that he thought, "She does not seem one to push a
wretch over a precipice. That warm little hand that charmed away my
headache so gently cannot write Dante's inscription over my 'Inferno,'
and bid me enter it as 'my own place'; and yet I dread her sense of
justice."
In his anxiety and perturbation of mind he was unusually grave and
silent during the meal and evening. Annie exulted secretly over him.
"He is thinking in earnest now. His old apathy and trifling manner are
gone."
He was indeed thinking in terrible earnest. Her effort had awakened no
school-girl interest and penitence that she could soothe and reward by
quoting a few sweet promises, but had aroused a spirit like that which
came down from the hills of Gadara, and which no man could bind.
Men and women in good society may be very polished and refined, and yet
their souls in God's sight and their own be shameful, "naked," wearing
no robe of righteousness, bound by no laws of purity and right, and
"always, night and day, crying and cutting" themselves in the unrest of
remorse. Sad and yet true it was that the demon-possessed man, the
terror of the Gadarenes, was but too true a type of the gentlemanly and
elegant Walter Gregory, as he sat that night in a torment of dread and
hope at the peaceful fireside of a Christian family. If his fears were
realized--if Annie turned from him when he revealed his true self to
her--there seemed to him every probability that evil evermore would be
his master. While she was innocently hoping and praying that her words
and influence might lead him to read his Bible, go to church, and
eventually find his way into the "green pastures beside the still
waters," it seemed that within a few hours she would either avert or
complete that most awful of tragedies--the loss of a soul.
He accompanied them to church the following morning, and his manner was
grave even to solemnity. Little wonder. In a certain sense, in view of
his resolution, the Judgment Day had come to him.
With heavy, contracted brows he listened to a sermon anything but
reassuring. The good old minister inclined to a legal and doctrinal
gospel, and to-day his subject was the perfection and searching
character of the divine law. He showed how God could make no terms with
sin--that he hated it with a terrible and vindictive hatred, because in
all respects it was opposite and antagonistic to His nature--because it
defiled, degraded, and destroyed. He traced all human wretchedness to
this poisonous root, and Gregory trembled and his face grew dark with
despair as he realized how it was inwoven with every fibre of his
heart. Then in simple but strong language the silver-haired old man,
who seemed a type of the ancient prophets, portrayed the great white
throne of God's justice, snowy, too dazzling for human eyes, and the
conscience-stricken man shrunk and cowered.
He turned to Annie to see how this train of thought, so terrific to
him, affected her. Not a trace of fear was upon her face, but only
serene, reverent awe. He glanced at Mr. Walton, but the old magistrate
sat in his place, calm and dignified, evidently approving the action of
the greater Judge. Miss Eulie's face, as seen between himself and the
light of the window, appeared spirit-like.
"Thus they will look on the Judgment Day," thought Gregory, "while I
tremble even at its picture. O the vital difference between guilt and
innocence, between faith and unbelief!"
If the venerable clergyman had been talking personally to Gregory or
any sinful creature, he would not have concluded his subject where he
did. He would have shown how between the throne of justice and the
sinner there stood an Advocate, an Intercessor, a Saviour. But having
logically developed his text, he finished his discourse. Perhaps on the
following Sabbath he might present the mercy of God with equal
clearness. But the sermon of the day, standing alone and confirming the
threatenings of an accusing conscience, depressed Gregory greatly. It
did not anger him, as such truth usually did. He was too weak and
despairing. He now felt the hopelessness and folly of opposition. The
idea of getting into a passion with fate! Only weak natures fume at the
inevitable. There is a certain dignity in silent, passive despair.
Annie's voice singing the closing hymn beside him sounded like an
angel's voice across the "great gulf." Almost mechanically he walked
down the aisle out into the sunny noon of a warm October day. Birds
were twittering around the porch. Fall insects filled the air with
their cheery chirpings. The bay of a dog, the shrill crowing of a cock,
came softened across the fields from a neighboring farm. Cow-bells
tinkled faintly in the distance, and two children were seen romping on
a hillside, flitting here and there like butterflies. The trees were in
gala dress of crimson and gold, and even the mountains veiled their
stern grandeur in a purple haze, through which the sun's rays shimmered
with genial but not oppressive warmth.
The people lingered around the door, shaking hands and greeting one
another with the plain but cordial courtesy of the country. Gregory
heard one russet-apple-faced man say that "Betsy was better," and an
old colored woman, with a visage like that apple in black and mottled
decay, said in cheerful tones that "little Sampson was gittin' right
peart." A great raw-boned farmer asked a half-grown boy, "How's yer
mare?" and the boy replied that the animal was better also. All seemed
better that bright day, and from a group near came the expression,
"Crops were good this year." While the wealthier and more cultured
members of the congregation had kindly nods and smiles for all, they
naturally drew together, and there seemed a little flutter of
excitement over the renewal of the sewing society that had been
discontinued during the summer.
Gregory stood apart from all this, with the heavy contraction still
upon his brow, and asked himself, "What have these simple, cheery,
commonplace people, with their petty earth-born cares and interests, to
do with that 'great white throne' of which we have just heard? and
where in this soft, dreamy landscape, so suggestive of peace, rest, and
everyday life, lurks any hint of the 'wrath of a just and holy God'?"
And then the old pastor, who a little before had seemed a prototype of
John, the stern reformer from the wilderness, came out smiling and
benignant, greeting his flock as a father might his children. The very
hand that had been raised in denunciation, and in threatening a doom
that would appall the heart of courage itself, was given to Gregory in
a warm and cordial grasp. The man he had trembled before now seemed the
personification of sweet-tempered human kindness. The contrast was so
sharp that it seemed to Gregory that either what he saw or what he had
heard must be an utter delusion.
As they were driving home, he suddenly broke the moody silence by
asking Miss Walton, "How do you reconcile the scene at the church door,
so matter-of-fact, cheery, and earthly, with the terrible pictures
suggested by the sermon? If such things are before us, it seems to me
that bright, sunny days like these are mockery."
She looked at him wistfully. The sermon had not been what she would
have wished, but she trusted it would do him good by cutting away every
hope based on anything in himself or in vague general ideas of God's
indiscriminate mercy. She answered gently, "The contrast was indeed
great, now I think of it, and yet each scene was matter-of-fact to me
in the sense of being real. Besides, that one which our pastor
described was a court of justice. I shall have an Advocate there who
will clear me. As for 'bright days,' I believe they are just what God
means His people to have always."
"Yes," said he, gloomily, "that is your side of the question."
"It may be yours also," she replied, in a low tone.
He shook his head and looked away to hide his pain.
After a short time he again said, "Do you not think that the view of
God which your minister gave is very depressing to the average man? Is
not His law too perfect for imperfect humanity?"
"Not at all," she answered, eagerly; but before she could say more, Mr.
Walton, unaware of the subject occupying them, turned from the front
seat and introduced another topic.
After dinner, Gregory went to his room, which he restlessly paced.
"Even her creed, her faith, as well as her purity and truth, raises a
wall as high as heaven between us," he exclaimed, bitterly. "She has
only to see me as God sees, to shrink away appalled, disgusted. Well,
she shall," he muttered, grinding his teeth; "I shall not add the worst
torment of all to my perdition by deceiving her."
As he came down stairs, Annie had just finished reading to the
children, and he said, "Miss Walton, will your ideas of Sabbath-keeping
prevent you from taking a stroll in the garden with me?"
"Not at all," she replied, smiling. "A garden is a good place to keep
Sunday in."
He walked silently at her side across the lawn down a shady walk. Annie
hoped much from this interview, and sent a swift, earnest prayer to
Heaven that she might speak wisely. She feared that his dejection would
pass into discouragement and despair. She saw that he was much
depressed, and judged correctly that it was because he had seen only
one side of a great truth. She hoped to cheer and inspire him with the
other side. Moreover, her religion was very simple. It was only
becoming God's friend, instead of remaining indifferent or hostile. To
her, no matter what the burden, it was simply leading the heavy-laden
to the strong Divine Friend as people were brought to Him of old, and
establishing the personal relations of love, faith, and following.
But she did not realize the desperate nature or the complications of
Gregory's moral infirmity. Still she was a safe adviser, for she did
not propose to cure him herself. She wished to rally and cheer him, to
inspire hope, and to turn his eyes from sin to the Saviour, so she
said, "Mr. Gregory, why do you look as if marching to execution?"
"Perhaps because I feel as if I were," he said.
Just then a variegated leaf parted from a spray overhanging the path
somewhat in advance of them, and fluttered to their feet.
"Poor little leaf!" said Gregory, picking it up, "your bright colors
will soon be lost. Death has come to you too. Why must this wretched
thought of death be thrust on one at every turn? Nature is full of it.
Things only live, apparently, for the sake of dying. Just as this leaf
becomes most beautiful it drops. What a miserable world this is, with
death making havoc everywhere! Then your theology exaggerates the evil
a thousand-fold. If a man must die, let him die and cease to be. But
your minister spoke to-day of a living death, in which one only exists
to suffer. What a misfortune to have existed!"
As Gregory gloomily uttered these bitter words, they stood looking at
the leaf that had suggested them. Annie's face brightened with a sudden
thought. She turned, and after a few rapid steps sprung lightly up and
caught the twig from which the leaf had fallen. Then turning to her
companion, who regarded with surprise and admiration the agile grace of
the act, she said, "Mr. Gregory, you need lessons in logic. If the leaf
you hold is your theme, as you gave me reason to believe, you don't
stick to it, and you draw from it conclusions that don't follow the
premise. Another thing, it is not right to develop a subject without
regard to its connection. Now from just this place," she continued,
pointing with her finger, "the leaf dropped. What do you see? What was
its connection?"
"Why, a little branch full of other leaves. These would soon have
dropped off and died also, if you had not hastened their fate."
"That's a superficial view, like the one you just took of this
'miserable world,' as you call it. I think it is a very good world--a
much better one than we deserve. And now look closely and justly at
your theme's connection, and tell me what you see. Look just here;" and
her finger rested on the little green spot where the stem of the leaf
had joined the spray.
"I see a very small bud," he said, intelligence of her meaning dawning
in his face.
"Which will develop next spring into other leaves and perhaps into a
new branch. All summer long your leaf has rustled and fluttered
joyously over the certainty that a richer and fuller life would come
after it, a life that it was providing for through the sunny days and
dewy nights. There is no death here, only change for the better. And so
with everything that has bloomed and flourished in this garden during
the past season, provision has been made for new and more abundant
life. All these bright but falling leaves and fading flowers are merely
Nature's robes, ornaments that she is throwing carelessly aside as she
withdraws for a little time from her regal state. Wait till she appears
again next spring, as young, fresh, and beautiful as when, like Eve,
she saw her first bright morning. Come and see her upon her throne next
June. Nature full of death! Why, Mr. Gregory, she speaks of nothing but
life to those who understand her language."
"O that you would teach it to me!" he said, with a deeper meaning than
she detected.
"Again," she continued, "our theology does not represent death as
making havoc anywhere. It is sin that makes the havoc, and death is
only one of its consequences. And even this enemy God compels to work
for the good of His friends. Do not think," she continued, coming a
step nearer in her earnestness, "that I make such allusions to pain
you, but only in my sincere wish to help you, and illustrate my meaning
by something you know so well. Did death make havoc in your mother's
case? Was it not rather a sombre-liveried janitor that opened for her
the gates of heaven?"
He was deeply touched, and turned away his face. After a moment he
continued his walk, that they might get further away from the house and
the danger of interruption.
He suddenly startled Annie by saying, in a tone of harsh and intense
bitterness, "Her death made 'havoc' for me. If she had lived I might
have been a good man instead of the wretch I am. If death as janitor
opens the gates of heaven, your religion teaches that it also opens the
gates of hell. How can I love a God who shuts up the sinful in an
inferno--in dungeons of many and varied tortures, and racks them
forever? Can I, just to escape all this, pretend that I love Him, when
in truth I fear and dread Him unspeakably? No, I'll never be a
hypocrite."
Tears glistened in Annie's eyes as he turned to look at her.
"You pity me," he said, more gently. "Your God does not. If He wanted
to be loved He should never have revealed a hell."
"Should He not in mercy, if it really existed? And does it not exist?
Will merely a beautiful place make heaven for anybody? Mr. Gregory,
look around this lovely autumn evening. See the crimson glory of those
clouds yonder in the west. See that brightness shading off into paler
and more exquisite tints. Look, how those many-hued leaves reflect the
glowing sky. The air is as sweet and balmy as that of Eden could have
been. The landscape is beautiful in itself, and especially attractive
to you. To our human eyes it hardly seems as if heaven could be more
perfect than this. And yet, standing in the one spot of all the earth
most beautiful to you, Mr. Gregory, pardon me for saying it, your face
expresses nothing but pain. There is not a trace of happiness in it.
You were not happy when you came here. I saw that the first day. All
the pleasant surroundings of your own home have not made you happy.
Have they given you even peace and quiet? Place does not make heaven,
but something we carry in our own bosoms," she concluded, leaving him
to supply the rest of her thought.
His face was white with fear, and there was terror in his tone as he
turned and said to her, in a low voice, "Miss Walton, that is what I
have been coming to see and dread, of late, and as you put the thoughts
into words I see that it is true. I carry perdition in my own heart.
When I am alone my imaginings frighten me; and when with others,
impulses arise to do the devil's own work."
"But it is the nature of God to save from all this. I am so sorry that
you do not understand Him better."
"He saves some," said Gregory, gloomily.
"But many will not let Him save them," urged Annie.
"I should be only too glad to have Him save me, but whether He will or
not is the point at issue, and my hope is very faint. Everything
to-day, but you, seems to confirm my fate. Miss Walton, won't you take
that little rustic seat there by the brook? I wish to tell you
something that will probably settle this question."
Annie wonderingly complied. This was an experience she had never had
before. She was rapidly realizing the difference between being the
spiritual guide of the girls in her Bible-class and being the adviser
of this strong-minded yet greatly perverted man. But she turned to him
a face full of sympathy and encouragement.
For a moment it seemed he did not know how to begin, and he paced
restlessly up and down before her. Then he said, "Miss Walton, you
remember that worm-infested chestnut through which you gave me such a
just lesson?"
"Please do not speak of my foolish words at that time," she replied,
eagerly.
"Pardon me, they were not foolish. They, with the illustration of my
own choice, revealed me to myself as nothing had ever done before. Had
it not been for your graceful tact, I should have made a fool of myself
by being angry. If you had known what I deserved then you would not
have let me off so easily. But it's true. That lonely, selfish
chestnut, with a worm in its kernel, was a good emblem of myself. Evil
is throned in my heart supreme and malignant. I suppose it's through my
own fault, but be that as it may, it's there, my master. I groan over
and curse the fact, but I do evil and think evil continually, and I
fear I always shall.
"No, listen to me to the end," he continued, as she was about to speak.
"When on that strange mountain expedition, you made the remark, 'What
congenial friends we might be!' Those words have echoed in my heart
ever since, like the refrain of a home-song to a captive. I would give
more than I can express for your friendship--for the privilege of
seeing you and speaking to you frankly on these subjects occasionally,
for you and you only have inspired a faint hope that I might become a
better man. You are making Christianity seem a reality and not a
fashion. Though possessing human weakness, you triumph over it, and you
say it is through prayer to God. I find it impossible not to believe
everything you say, for whatever your faults are you are truth itself.
Through your influence the thought has come that God might also hear
and help me, but I have the fear and almost the belief that I have
placed myself beyond His mercy. At any rate I have almost lost hope in
anything I can do by myself. I was in moral despair when I came here,
and might as well have been dead, but you have led me to a willingness
to make one more struggle, and a great one, if I can see in it any
chance of success. I fear I am deceiving myself, but when with you,
though you are immeasurably better than I, hope steals into my heart,
that before was paralyzed by despair. When you come to know me as I
know myself, I fear that you will shrink in just horror away, and that
I shall see reflected in your face the verdict of heaven. But you shall
know the worst--the very worst. I can never use deceit with you. If
afterward you ever take my stained hand again--"
He did not finish the sentence, but heaved a great sigh, as if of
longing and hope that words could not utter.
It was the old truth illustrated, that God must become human to gain
humanity. Abstract truth could not save this lost and guilty man, but
the wanderer hoped that in this sweet human life he had found the clew
back to the divine life.
Annie trembled at the responsibility that now suddenly burdened her as
she saw this trembling spirit clinging to her as the one frail barrier
between himself and the gulf of utter despair. She nerved herself, by
prayer and the exertion of all her will, to be equal to the emergency.
And yet it was a fearful ordeal that she was called to go through as
the remorseful and deeply agitated man, his face flushed with shame,
now with impassioned, more often with despairing gesture and accent,
poured out the story of his past life, and laid bare his evil heart,
while he paced up and down the little walk before her.
The transaction with Hunting he purposely passed over, speaking of it
merely as a business misfortune that had robbed him even of earthly
ambition. She saw a few sin-stained pages of that dreadful book of
human guilt which God must look at every day.
Gregory did not spare himself, and palliated nothing, softening and
brightening no harsh and dark lines. On the contrary, he was stern and
blunt, and it was strange indeed to hear him charging himself before a
pure, innocent young girl, whose good opinion was life to him, with
what she regarded as crimes. When he at last came to speak of his
designs against herself, of how he had purposed to take the bloom and
beauty from her character that he might laugh at goodness as a dream
and pretence, and despise her as he did himself, his eye flashed
angrily, and he grew vindictive as if denouncing an object of his hate.
He could not even look at her during the last of his confession, but
turned away his face, fearing to see Annie's expression of aversion and
disgust.
It was with a paling cheek and growing dread that she looked into that
dark and fearful place, a perverted human heart, and her every breath
was a prayer that God would enable her to see and act as Christ would
were some poor creature revealing to Him his desperate need.
Gregory suddenly paused in his low but passionate flow of words, and
put his hand to his head as if the pain were insupportable. In fact,
his anguish and the intense feeling of the day had again brought on one
of his old nervous headaches. Thus far he had scarcely noticed it, but
now the sharp, quivering pangs proved how a wronged physical nature
could retaliate; how much more the higher and more delicate moral
nature!
After the paroxysm had passed, he continued, in the hard, weary tone of
utter dejection (for he had dreaded even to look at Annie, and her
silence confirmed his worst fears), "Well, Miss Walton, you now know
the worst. On this peaceful Sabbath evening you have seen more of
perdition than you ever will again. You cannot even speak to me, and I
dare not look at your face. The expression of horror and disgust which
I know must be there would blast me and haunt me forever. It would be
worse than death, for I did have a faint hope--"
He was interrupted by an audible sob, and turning, saw Annie with her
face buried in her hands, weeping as if her heart would break. He was
puzzled for a moment, and then, in the despairing condition of his mind
interpreted her wrongly. Standing near her with clenched hands, he
said, in the same hard tones which seemed to have passed beyond the
expression of feeling, "I'm a brute and worse. I have been wounding you
as with blows by my vile story. I have been dragging your pure thoughts
through the mire of my wretched life."
Annie tried to speak, but apparently could not for excess of emotion.
"Why could I not have gone away and died by myself, like some unclean
beast?" he muttered. Then, in a tone which she never forgot, and with
the manner of one who was indeed leaving hope and life behind him, he
said, "Farewell, Miss Walton; you will be better after I am gone."
She sprung up, and laying restraining hands upon his arm, sobbed,
"No--no. Why don't you--you--understand me? My heart's--breaking for
you--wait till I can speak."
He placed her gently on the seat again. A great light was coming into
his eyes, and he stood bending toward her as if existence depended on
her next words. Could it be that her swelling throat and sobs meant
sympathy for him?
She soon controlled herself, and looking up at him, with a light in her
eyes that shone through her tears as sun-rays through the rain, said,
"Forgive me. I never realized before that so much sin and suffering
could exist in one unhappy life. I do pity you, as God does far more. I
will help you as He will."
Gregory knelt at her feet, and kissed her hand with the fervor of a
captive who had just received life and liberty.
"See, I do not shrink from you," she continued. "My Master would not.
Why should I? He came to save just such, and just such we all would be
but for His grace and shielding. I'm so--sorry for you."
He turned hastily away for a moment to hide his feelings, and said,
slowly, "I cannot trust myself--I cannot trust God yet; but I trust
you, and I believe you have saved a soul from death."
He stood looking toward the glowing west, and, for the first time in
years, hoped that his life might close in brightness.
"Mr. Gregory," said Annie, in a voice so changed that he started and
turned toward her hardly knowing what to expect. She stood beside him,
no longer a tender, compassionate woman grieving for him, as if his sin
were only misfortune, but her face was almost stern in its purity and
earnestness. "Mr. Gregory, the mercy which God shows, and which I
faintly reflect, is for _you_ in sharp distinction from your sin. Do
not for a moment think that I can look with any lenience or indulgence
on all the horrible evil you have laid before me. Do not think I can
excuse or pass lightly over it as something of little consequence. I
hate your sin as I hate my own. I can honestly feel and frankly show
the sympathy I have manifested, only in view of your penitence, and
your sincere purpose, with God's help, to root out the evil of your
life. This I am daily trying to do, and this you must do in the one and
only way in which there is any use in trying. It is only with this
clear understanding that I can give you my hand in the friendship of
mutual helpfulness, and in the confidence of respect."
He reverently took her hand and said, "Your conditions are just, Miss
Walton, and I accept your friendship as offered with a gratitude beyond
words. I can never use deceit where you are concerned, even in thought.
But please do not expect too much of me. I have formed the habit of
doubting. It may be very long before I have your simple, beautiful
faith. I will do just the best I can! It seems that if you will trust
me, help me, pray for me, I can succeed. If I am mistaken, I will carry
my wretchedness where the sight of it will not pain you. If I ever do
reach your Christian life, I will lavish a wealth of gratitude upon you
that cannot be expressed. Indeed, I will in any case, for you have done
all that I could hope and more."
"I will do all you ask," she said, heartily, giving at the same time
his hand a strong pressure with her warm, throbbing palm, that sent a
subtle current of hope and strength into his heart. Her face softened
into an expression of almost sisterly affection, and with a gleam of
her old mirthfulness she continued, "Take counsel of practical
common-sense, Mr. Gregory. Why talk so doubtfully of success, seeking
it as you purpose to? What right have you even to imagine that God will
bestow upon you the great distinction of making you the first one of
the race He refused to hear and answer? Be humble and believe that He
will treat you like other people."
He stopped in their slow walk toward the house and said, with glad
animation, "Miss Walton, do you know you have done more to strengthen
me in that little speech than by a long and labored argument?"
And so they passed in out of the purple twilight, Annie's heart
thrilling with something of the joy of heaven, and Gregory feeling as
if the dawn were coming after Egyptian night.
As they left the garden a dusky face peered out of some thick shrubbery
and looked cautiously around. Then Jeff appeared and attributed to the
scene just described a very different meaning from its real
significance.