A happy woman
much as possible, but you have never time to take me: our motor lies
idle, we hardly ever use it."
"Well," said Graham, cheerfully, "we will go out to-morrow afternoon. I
will come home to luncheon if it is fine. We will have a spin together,
before it gets dark."
At this moment, the parlourmaid knocked at the door, and wanted to know
if Graham had dined.
"No, indeed I have not," he said; "and I had no time for lunch, so I am
pretty hungry."
He went off to his dressing-room, and soon returned to his wife.
"Now I'm going downstairs for a short time. Won't you go to bed? I'll
send your maid to you. What is her name? I never can remember. Halkin,
is it?"
"Yes. Please don't be long. I feel so nervous to-night. And I hardly
touched my dinner."
"Then you must have a snack of something now. I will send you up
something, and you must promise me to eat it."
He went downstairs to the empty dining-room and consumed his dinner in
haste. Then he went into his study. His blazing fire and easy-chair
looked inviting. He longed to sit down and smoke a pipe and have a
quiet time to think out various problems that were simmering in his
brain, but he resolutely turned away from the fire. He took up the
evening newspaper and went upstairs to spend the rest of the evening
with his wife.
This was a sample of many evenings in Graham's life. As he looked back
upon his hasty engagement, and marriage, he wondered now if he had done
well for Eva. She had been in delicate health for some time, and then
some friend in town persuaded her to go to a heart specialist. This was
a man who believed in telling his patients the truth about themselves,
and he told Eva that her heart was diseased, and that he feared she had
not two years of life left to her. It was a tremendous shock. She sent
for Graham, and then in her extremity she poured out her soul before
him, telling him that she had loved him for years, and imploring him to
help and comfort her.
"I am absolutely alone," she said. "I have two years of suffering in
front of me, and then death. Nobody wants me. Nobody cares for me. I
shall get some chloroform and end my life now! How can I live on day
after day, dragging myself nearer and nearer the grave, without a soul
to speak to? Oh, Graham, pity me! What can I do?"
And then, tortured by her deep distress, and by her avowal of love for
him, he felt that he could offer her a home with him, for those two
short years. His heart had always been open to women in their need and
weakness, and he knew that he could in a measure soften the dark days
coming upon her. But Eva bound him to secrecy about the state of her
health, not even his mother was to be told. He had faithfully kept the
promise he made to her.
As it often happens, when Eva had got the desire of her heart, it
seemed to turn to ashes. Graham was of too quiet and grave a nature to
cheer her in her times of depression. He was attention itself, but his
attentions were given with great gravity. He showed her sympathy, and
tenderness, and patience, every day of her life. But Eva longed to be
cheered by a gay laugh and a bright word; and this she felt she would
never get from Graham. She did not realize the strain of his business
life, and the ceaseless thought and toil it gave him.
And Graham's heart had received a blow from which it could not recover.
He, like Eva, was tempted to ask himself sometimes what incentive he
had to live. It was a blank grey world to him without Sara. He had
had so little sunshine in his life that her presence in the house had
been an ideal experience for him. Now she was gone; and he had no hope
of ever seeing or speaking to her again. It was no wonder he found it
difficult to be cheerful.
Eva herself had altered greatly. Her sweet pensive smiles and little
graceful speeches were things of the past. She was up against a black
horror which never left her night or day, and she rebelled frantically
against her fate. Now she felt that marriage had not brought her the
ease and comfort she expected; she had really thought that Graham would
act exactly as a trained nurse would, and she resented everything that
took him away from her.
They went for a motor ride the next afternoon. Eva was soothed and
refreshed by it at first, but upon their return, they encountered
a crowd of colliers who had just come up from the pits, and were
congregated around one man who was addressing them in fiery language.
The motor had to slow down, for there was hardly room to pass, and
Graham was instantly recognized.
Some lads began to hoot and hiss. And one hot-tempered little man
sprang to the side of the car and shook his first in Eva's face,
shouting—
"Ye willna ride us doon, you pampered lass of his'n. A fine lot he
cares for them which work to stow money into his pocket. He'd better'n
be in the office preparin' for the day when the pits shut down. They're
surely comin'!"
The chauffeur quietly glided through the crowd, and Graham said
nothing, though silence was much against the grain. He knew that
agitation might be fatal to his wife, and, as it was, she was in a
panic of fright.
"They're savages!" she panted, when they had passed. "Graham, why do
you put up with such insolence? I shall never dare to come out again.
Oh, do take me abroad! Leave this filthy, smoky town, and let us go to
the Riviera before the winter sets in. I feel I should have a fresh
lease of life there."
This idea seized hold of her; she never gave him any peace day or
night till he had half promised to take her. And then before their
arrangements could be completed, she had another very bad heart attack,
and her doctor refused to let her move.
"She would never get there alive," he said. "She is wearing herself out
by her fright and agitation about herself. It is a pity she has not a
more placid disposition; she would give herself a better chance then."
But this nobody could give the sick woman; and Graham looking ahead
could see no ray of light on the path she would have to travel.
One evening, after a specially trying day, when she had at last gone to
bed, and sunk into an exhausted sleep, Colonel Fleming came to see his
friend. Graham saw him in the smoking-room, and gripped his hand with
real pleasure.
"We are becoming strangers!" Graham said. "I haven't set eyes on you
for ages. It's being married men, I suppose."
"So it is! But you're much more married than I am. Ina, bless her
little soul! is as happy as a sandboy alone. She's sent me to look you
up to-night. I've been down town. It's my club night, you know. Lucky
thing your strike didn't come off. But it was touch and go, wasn't it?
I heard that it was you who saved the situation. You got the masters to
give way a bit, didn't you? Well, how's your wife? She's in a poor way,
I hear. I met your doctor just now. He was seeing a chap who got hurt
in the pits, and I was there inquiring for him. We walked a bit of the
way here together. He told me it was serious, and that she couldn't go
abroad. I was glad to hear it. Sick people are best at home, don't you
think so?"
Graham did not answer. He pulled aside the window curtain and looked
out. Then he turned and faced his friend.
"Jack, I feel I must have a whiff of pure wholesome air. Will you let
me walk home with you? I must have a turn on the moor. Will you take
anything first?"
"Not a sip. Come on, we'll start at once. Ripping it will be. The stars
are out, and there's a touch of frost in the air, but there's no wind.
A pity you don't live up our way!"
They went out of the house together, and talked on various subjects
till they reached the open moor. Graham drew in a breath of the keen
pungent air with relief and pleasure.
"I never shall get accustomed to this town life. I have a hankering for
our hills at Felstone Corner."
Then he said abruptly—
"Look here, Jack, I know at bottom you're a religious chap. What can
be said to smooth my poor wife's path in front of her? Her days are
numbered and she knows it. And she's fighting with her fate, and is
terrified at the prospect of death. She won't see the vicar; she has an
idea it is only dying people who send for parsons, and she won't allow
to herself that she's anything like bad enough for a pastoral visit
just at present. What can you tell her?"
The Colonel stopped short in growing excitement—
"Why, man alive, the best of all news—that death is only a dark door
into light! One step will take her through. I should like to have a
talk with her. You must know that our Lord died to take away the sting
of death! Does she read her Bible?"
"No. I don't think so. But I was thinking of reading to her a verse
or two in the evenings. Women always get comfort from it, don't they?
Honestly I don't know what part to read to her."
"Read the Gospel of St. John," said Colonel Fleming, quickly. "That
will give you and your wife all you want."
They walked on in silence. Then Colonel Fleming took Graham's arm.
"I say, old fellow, you've a rare chance of helping a soul through the
valley. What do you—what don't you believe?"
"Oh, I don't know." Graham's tone was weary. "I have never formulated
my belief in my own mind. The shadow of death in our home makes things
different. I believe in God. I went to church last Sunday, and I tested
myself with the Creed. I think I do believe all the statements in it."
"Capital! I always knew you were sounder than you made out! The
forgiveness of sins brings us to the resurrection of the body and the
life everlasting, doesn't it?"
"That's how it winds up."
"Well, get your wife to pray. A few words will be enough. Our Master is
quick to hear and quick to save. He'll blot out her sins, and take her
hand through the River if she asks Him. Nothing could be easier. Don't
trouble her head with doctrines. Get her to speak to the One Who can
help her. He's the only One Who can."
"It sounds simple. I'll have a try. I should like her to get some
comfort and peace of mind. She won't see my mother."
They were silent again. Presently Colonel Fleming stopped and said—
"Look up, old chap! Did you ever see such magnificent heavens stretched
out before us? Doesn't it give you an idea of infinity and glory and
power?"
Graham looked up and heaved a sigh.
"Yes, yes," he said. "It's bringing conviction to me that all things
are easy to our Creator. But I'm—I'm a poor hand with women, Jack, and
that's a fact!"
It was an hour later that he returned home, but hope and fresh courage
were with him. And before he went to bed that night, he took hold of a
Bible and read the whole of the Gospel of St. John through to himself.
He shut up the Book with a lightened heart.
"I believe I have got hold of the cure," he said to himself.
And he went to sleep for the first time since his marriage with peace
and hope creeping into his heart.
The next evening, he suggested reading to his wife, and she, after a
little hesitation, consented to listen. Every night after that, he read
about fifteen to twenty verses of the Gospel of St. John.
Eva never made any remarks. But once she looked at her husband
curiously.
"You read it as if your life depended on it," she said, with a little
funny laugh.
He looked up at her with earnest eyes. "Your life does depend upon it,"
he said. "I mean the life that matters, the life of your soul."
She was dumb; the arrow had sped home and pierced the crust of selfish
indifference and distaste to unseen things.
She said nothing, but he felt she listened in a different spirit
afterwards.
And then one night she woke him up with a frightened cry—
"Oh, Graham, I want to get right with God. But I've never properly
served Him. What can I do? I can't sleep. Do comfort me."