Part 27 (1/2)

”I'm afraid--I'm afraid he's going to take me away from here!”

”Take you away?” Helen said, surprised. ”Why? Is the work too hard?”

”No--no ma'am,” Alfaretta answered, choking.

”I'll go and see him at once,” Helen said.

”Oh, no!” Alfaretta cried, catching her mistress's skirt with grimy hands, ”don't go; 't won't do any good.”

”Don't be foolish,” Helen remonstrated, smiling; ”of course I must speak to him. If your father thinks there is too much work, he must tell me, and I will arrange it differently.”

She stooped, and took the hem of her cambric gown from between the girl's fingers, and then went quickly into the house.

She rapped lightly at the study door. ”John, I must come in a moment, please.”

She heard a chair pushed back, and John's footstep upon the floor. He opened the door, and stood looking at her with strange, unseeing eyes.

”Go away, Helen,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, without waiting for her to speak, for she was dumb with astonishment at his face,--”go away, my darling.”

He put out one hand as if to push her back, and closed the door, and she heard the bolt pushed. She stood a moment staring at the blank of the locked door. What could it mean? Alfaretta's misery and morals were forgotten; something troubled John,--she had no thought for anything else. She turned away as though in a dream, and began absently to take off her garden hat. John was in some distress. She went up-stairs to her bedroom, and tried to keep busy with sewing until she could go to him, but she was almost unconscious of what she did. How long, how very long, the morning was!

John had looked up from his writing to see Mr. Dean standing in the doorway.

”Good-morning,” he said cordially, as he rose to give his hand to his elder. ”I am glad to see you. How have things gone since I have been away?”

But Mr. Dean seemed to have nothing special to report, and let the preacher tell him of General a.s.sembly, while, embarra.s.sed and very uncomfortable, he sat twisting his hat round and round in his big, rough hands.

A bar of suns.h.i.+ne from the south window crept across the floor, and touched the low dish of violets on the table, and then John's face, making a sudden golden glint in his gentle dark eyes.

”Mr. Ward,” the elder said, at last, opening his mouth once or twice before he began to speak, ”I have a distress on my mind. I think the Spirit of the Lord's driven me to tell you of it.”

”Are you in any trouble, my friend?” The tired look which had fallen upon John's face as he put down his pen was gone in a moment. ”I am glad, then, I was not away any longer. I trust sickness has not come to your family?”

”No, sir,” answered the other solemnly, ”not sickness of body. What does the Good Book say to the Christian? 'He shall give his angels charge over thee.' No, I'm mercifully preserved from sickness; for, as for me and my house, we serve the Lord. My lumbago was bad while you was away; but it's better, I'm thankful to say. Sickness of the soul, Mr. Ward,--that is what is truly awful.”

”I hope you are not feeling the power of Satan in doubts?” John said anxiously. ”Such sickness of the soul is indeed worse than any which can come to the body.”

”No,” replied the elder, ”no, my feet are fixed. I know whom I have believed. I have entered into the hidden things of G.o.d. I am not afraid of doubt, ever. Yet what a fearful thing doubt is, Brother Ward!”

”It is, indeed,” John replied humbly. ”Through the mercy of G.o.d, I have never known its temptation. He has kept me from ever questioning truth.”

”What a terrible thing it would be,” said Mr. Dean, beginning to forget his awkwardness, ”if doubt was to grow up in any heart, or in any family, or in any church! I've sometimes wondered if, of late, you had given us enough sound doctrine in the pulpit, sir? The milk of the Word we can get out of the Bible for ourselves, but doctrines, they ain't to be found in Holy Writ as they'd ought to be preached.”

John looked troubled. He knew the rebuke was merited. ”I have feared my sermons were, as you say, scarcely doctrinal enough. Yet I have instructed you these six years in points of faith, and I felt it was perhaps wiser to turn more to the tenderness of G.o.d as it is in Christ.

And I cannot agree with you that the doctrines are not in the Bible, Mr.

Dean.”

”Well,” the elder admitted, ”of course. But not so he that runs may read, or that the wayfaring man will not err therein. There is some folks as would take 'G.o.d is love' out of the Good Book, and forget 'Our G.o.d is a consuming fire.'”