University of Virginia Library

49. CHAPTER XLIX.
SUSIE WINTHROP.

Waiting with multitudes of others, Christine and Dennis
at last received an army biscuit (hard tack in the soldier's
vernacular) and a tin-cup of what resembled coffee.
To him it was very touching to see how eagerly she
received this coarse fare, proving that she was indeed
almost famished. Too weak to stand, they sat down near
the door on the sidewalk. A kind lady presently came and
said:

“If you have no place to go you will find it more comfortable
in the church.”

They gladly availed themselves of her permission, as
the thronged street was anything but pleasant.

“Mr. Fleet,” said Christine, “I am now going to take
care of you in return for your care last night,” and she led
him up to a secluded part of the church by the organ,
arranged some cushions on a seat, and then continued,
“As I have obeyed you, so you must now be equally
docile. Don't you dare move from that place till I call
you,” and she left him.

He was indeed wearied beyond expression, and most
grateful for a chance to rest. This refuge and the way it

was secured seemed almost a heavenly experience, and he
thought with deepest longing, “If we could always take
care of each other, I should be perhaps too well satisfied
with this earthly life.”

When after a little time Christine returned he was sleeping
as heavily as before upon the beach, but the smile his
last thought occasioned still rested on his face. For some
little time she also sat near and rested, and her eyes sought
his face as if a story were written there she never could
finish. Then she went to make inquiries after her father.
But no one to whom she spoke knew anything about him.

Bread and provisions were constantly arriving, but not
fast enough to meet the needs of famishing thousands.
Though not feeling very strong she offered her services,
and was soon busily engaged. All present were strangers
to her, but when they learned from the inquiries for her
father that she was Miss Ludolph, she was treated with
deference and sympathy. But she assumed nothing, and
as her strength permitted, during the day, she was ready
for any task, even the humblest. She handed food around
among the hungry, eager applicants with such a sweet and
pitying face, that she heard many a murmured blessing.
Her efforts were all the more appreciated as all saw that
she too had passed through the fire and had suffered deeply.
At last a kind motherly lady said:

“My dear, you look ready to drop. Here, take this,”
and she poured out a glass of wine and gave her a sandwich,
“now go and find some quiet nook and rest. It's
your duty.”

“I have a friend who has suffered almost everything in
saving me. He is asleep now, but he has had scarcely
anything to eat for nearly three days, and I know he will be
very hungry when he wakes.”

“Sakes alive! nothing to eat for three days! why you

must take him a whole loaf, and this, and this,” cried the
good lady, about to provision Dennis for a month.

“Oh, no,” said Christine with a smile, “so much would
not be good for him. If you will give me three or four
sandwiches, and let me come for some coffee when he wakes,
it will be sufficient,” and she carried what now seemed
treasures to where Dennis was sleeping, and sat down with
a happy look on her face.

The day had been full of sweet trustful thoughts. She
was conscious of a presence within her heart and all around
that she knew was Divine, and in spite of her anxiety about
her father, and the uncertainty of the future, she had a rest
and contentment of mind that she had never experienced
before. Then she felt such a genuine sympathy for the
sufferers about her, and found, when she spoke to them
gently and kindly, they seemed so grateful, she wondered
she had never discovered the joy of ministering to others
before. She was entering a new world, and though there
might be suffering in it, the antidote was ever near, and its
pleasures promised to grow richer, fuller, more satisfying,
till they developed into the perfect happiness of heaven.
But every Christian joy that was like a sweet surprise; every
thrilling hope that pointed to endless progress in all that is
best and noblest in life, instead of the sudden blank and
nothingness that threatened but yesterday; and chief of
all, the thrilling consciousness of the Divine love which
kept her murmuring, “My Saviour, my good, kind Heavenly
Father,” all reminded her of him who had been instrumental
of the wondrous change. Often during the day she
would go and look at him, and could Dennis only have
opened, his eyes at such a moment, and caught her expression,
no words would have been needed to assure him of
his happiness.

The low afternoon sun shone in gold and crimson on

his brow and face through the stained windows before he
gave signs of waking, and then she hurried away to get the
coffee hot from the urn.

She had hardly gone before he arose greatly refreshed
and strengthened, but so famished that a roast ox would
have seemed but a comfortable meal. His eye at once
caught the sandwiches placed temptingly near.

“That is Miss Ludolph's work,” he said; “I wonder if
she has saved any for herself.” He was about to go and
seek her when she met him with the coffee.

“Go back,” she said; “how dare you disobey orders?”

“I was coming to find you.”

“Well, that is the best excuse you could have made,
but I am here; so sit down and drink this coffee and
devour these sandwiches.”

“Not unless you share them with me.”

“Insubordinate! See here,” and she took out her
more dainty provision from behind a seat and sat down
opposite, in such a pretty companionable way that he in
his admiration and pleasure forgot his sandwiches.

“What is the matter?” she asked. “You are to eat
the sandwiches, not me.”

“A very proper hint, Miss Ludolph; one might well
be inclined to make the mistake.”

“Now that is a compliment worthy of the king of the
Cannibal Islands.”

“Miss Ludolph,” said Dennis, looking at her earnestly,
“you do indeed seem happy.”

A ray of light slanting through a yellow diamond of
glass fell with a sudden glory upon her face, and in a tone
of almost ecstasy she said:

“Oh, I am so glad and grateful, when I realize what
might have been, and what is. It seems that I have lost
so little in this fire in comparison with what I have gained.

And but for you I might have lost everything. How rich
this first day of life, real, true life, has been! My Heavenly
Father has been so kind to me I cannot express it. And
then to think how I have wronged Him all these years.”

“You have indeed learned the secret of true eternal
happiness, Miss Ludolph.”

“I believe it—I feel sure of it. All trouble, all pain
will one day pass away forever; and sometimes I feel as if
I must sing for joy. I do so long to see my father and tell
him. I fear he won't believe it at first, but I can pray as
you did, and it seems as if my Saviour would not deny me
anything. And now, Mr. Fleet, when you have finished
your lunch, I am going to ask one more favor, and then
will dub you truest knight that ever served defenceless
woman. You will find my father for me, for I believe you
can do anything.”

Even in the shadow where he sat, she caught the
pained expression of his face.

She sprang up and grasped his arm.

“You know something,” she said; then added: “Do
not be afraid to find my father now. When he knows
what services you have rendered me, all estrangement, if
any existed, will pass away.”

But he averted his face, and she saw tears gathering in
his eyes.

“Mr. Fleet,” she gasped, “do you know anything I do
not?”

He could hide the truth no longer. Indeed it was time
she should learn it.

Turning and taking her trembling hand, he looked at
her so sadly and kindly, that she at once knew her father
was dead.

“Oh, my father,” she cried in a tone of anguish that he
could never forget, “you will never, never know. All

day I have been longing to prove to you the truth of Christianity
by my loving patient tenderness, but you have died,
and will never know,” she moaned shudderingly.

He still held her hand—indeed she clung to it as
something that might help sustain her in the dark, bitter
hour.

“Poor, poor father!” she cried, “I never treated him
as I ought, and now he will never know the wealth of love
I was hoping to lavish on him.” Then looking at Dennis
almost reproachfully, she said, “Could you not save him?
You saved so many others.”

“Indeed I could not, Miss Ludolph; I tried, and nearly
lost my life in the effort. The great hotel back of the store
fell and crushed all in a moment.”

She shuddered, but at last whispered:

“Why have you kept this so long from me?”

“How could I tell you when the blow would have been
death? Even now you can scarcely bear it.”

“My little beginning of faith is sorely tried. Heavenly
spirit,” she cried, “guide me through this darkness, and
let not doubt and unbelief cloud my mind again.”

“Amen,” said Dennis in a deep low tone.

They sat in the twilight in silence. He still held her
hand, and she was sobbing more gently and quietly. Suddenly
she asked:

“Is it wrong thus to grieve over the breaking of an
earthly tie?”

“No, not if you will say as did your Lord in His agony:
“`Oh, my Father, Thy will be done.'”

“I will try,” she said softly, “but it is hard.”

“He is a merciful and faithful High Priest. For in
that He himself suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor
them that are tempted.”

“Do you know that I think my change in feeling makes

me grieve all the more deeply. Until to-day I never loved
my father as I ought. It is the curse of unbelief to deaden
everything good in the heart. Oh, I do feel such a great
unspeakable pity for him.”

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him:”

“Is that in the Bible?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It is very sweet. He indeed must be my refuge now,
for I am alone in the world.”

“He has said, `I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee.' I have passed through this sorrow so recently myself
that I can sympathize with you as a fellow-sufferer.”

“True, true, so you have,” she answered. “Is that
the reason that Christ suffered with us that we might know
He sympathized with us?”

“Yes.”

“How unspeakably comforting is such sympathy, both
human and divine. Tell me about your mother.”

“I fear I cannot without being unmanned. She was
one of heaven's favorites, and I owe everything to her. I
can tell you one thing though, she prayed for you continually—even
with her dying lips, when my faith had
broken down.”

This touched Christine very deeply. At last she said:
“I shall see her some day.”

“I wish you had seen her,” he continued very sadly,
looking as if at a scene far away.

“You cannot wish it more than I. Indeed I would
have called on her, had it not been for an unfortunate
accident.”

He looked at her with some surprise as if not understanding
her remark, but said:

“She greatly wished to see you before she died.”

“Oh, I wish I had known it.”

“Did you not know it?” he asked in a startled manner.

“No, but I felt grateful to her, for I understood that
she offered to take care of me in case I had the small-pox.
I wanted to visit her very much, and at last thought I
would venture to do so, but just then I sprained my ankle.
I sent my maid to inquire, but fear she didn't do my
errand very well,” added Christine, looking down.

“She never came, Miss Ludolph.” Then he continued
eagerly: “I fear I have done you a great wrong.
A little time before my mother died, she wrote you a line
saying that she was dying and would like to see you. I
did not know you could not come—I thought you would
not.”

Crimson with shame and humiliation, Christine buried
her burning cheeks in her hands and murmured, “I never
received it.”

“And did you send the exquisite flowers and fruit?” he
asked. “Ah, I see that you did. I am so glad—so very
glad that I was mistaken. I sincerely ask your pardon
for my unjust thoughts.”

“It is I who should ask pardon, and for a long time I
have earnestly wished that I might find opportunity to do
so. My conduct has been simply monstrous, but of late
it has seemed worse than the truth. Everything has been
against me. If you only knew—but—” (and her head
bowed lower.) Then she added hastily: “My maid has
been false, and I must have appeared more heartless than
ever.” But, with bitter shame and sorrow, she remembered
who must have been the inspirer of the treachery,
and though she never spoke of it again, she feared that
Dennis suspected it also. It was one of those painful
things that must be buried, even as the grave closes over
the frail perishing body.

Let those who are tempted to a wicked, dishonorable
deed remember that even after they are gone, the knowledge
of it may come to those who loved them, like an
incurable wound.

Dennis' resolution not to speak till Christine should
be no longer dependent on him was fast melting away, as
he learned that she had not been so callous and forgetful
as she seemed. But before he could add another word,
a wild, sweet, mournful voice was heard singing:

In awed, startled tones they both exclaimed: “Susie
Winthrop!”