University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
“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 even lost his earthly ambition, and became
mere driftwood on the tide of time. But a sweet,
true maiden, all vital with life and faith, was doing
a work for him like Elsie for Prince Henry in
the Golden Legend. A consciousness of power to
again take up his burdens 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 the fear that when Annie came to
know the worst about him, and how he had plotted
against her, she would shrink from him, and by manner
if not words tell him that he had “sinned away

his day of grace.” 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 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. 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 skeptical tendencies, but to
her guileless nature and inexperience of the world
this might not mean anything very bad. But in the
secret of his own soul 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's 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 am to deal. Things at which society
shrugs its shoulder 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 Annie

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 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 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 vailed 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 nor expect any such thing. The Bible, I believe,
teaches 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, and on Monday bid
his entertainers a courteous farewell, 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
the brink of a precipice. That warm little hand that
charmed away my headache so gently, cannot write
Dante's inscription over my `Inferno,' 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, whom
no man could bind. A strong but evil-mastered man
was coming to her as that poor wretch came to Jesus,
terrible, revolting, helpless, yet in such pitiable need
of Him.

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 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 would seem 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
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 shrank
and cowered with the instinctive wish to hide which
the guilty millions of the world will feel on the final
day of history.

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 so spirit-like and rapt, that for a moment
it seemed as if she might take wings and join
the angelic throng around the throne.

“Thus they will look on the Judgment Day,”
thought Gregory, “while I tremble even at its picture.
Oh, 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.

The impression grew almost to certainty in his
mind that sin and the sinner were one, and that he
would dwell forevermore under the blighting frown
of God.

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

vailed 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 each other 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?” (he did not mean his ma); and
the boy replied that the sick 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
every-day life, lurks any hint of the `wrath of a just
and holy God'?”

And then the old Pastor, who a little before had

seemed an antitype 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 was raised in denunciation and
in threatening a doom that would appal the heart
of courage itself, was given to Gregory in warm and
cordial grasp. The man he had trembled before,
now seemed the embodiment of sweet - tempered
human kindness. The contrast was so sharp that it
seemed to Gregory that either what he saw or what
he heard must be an utter illusion.

As they were driving home, he suddenly broke
his 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.”

Annie looked at him wistfully. The sermon had
not been what she would have wished, but she
hoped 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 will 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 high as heaven between us,”
he exclaimed bitterly. “How can such as I approach
her just and holy God? Even Christ said
to some men, `Woe unto you,' and spoke of their
`greater damnation.' 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 saw that he was
much depressed, and judged correctly that it was
because he had only seen 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. She feared that his dejection
might pass into discouragement and despair.
She did not hold, as many seem to, with the old colored
exhorter, that the right method was to “fust
make 'em feel drefful bad, and next make 'em feel
drefful good, and you've got 'em.” 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 nor
complications of Gregory's moral infirmity. Still
she was a safe adviser, for she did not purpose to
cure him herself, nor recommend any human nostrums.
But she wished to rally and cheer him, to
inspire hope, and 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, seemingly, 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,
sprang 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 preaching.
If the leaf you hold is your text, 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
text 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's a very good world—a much better one
than we deserve. And now look closely and justly
at your leaf-text's connection, as every sermonizer
should, 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 all 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. When a king
exchanges old and worn apparel, even though regal,
for new and more royal robes, would we sigh over
the old cast-offs, as if the king were dead, when in a
few hours he will be upon his throne grander than
ever. All these bright but falling leaves and fading
flowers are but Queen Nature's cast-offs, her mere

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.”

“Oh, 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 and
laying her hand upon his arm in her earnestness,
“that I make such allusions to pain you, and to
work merely on your feelings, 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 farther 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 specially 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 even
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 nor
does place make hell, though both are distinct and
separate places, but something we carry in our own
bosoms.”

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
thought into words I see that it is true. I carry hell
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.
Christ, who is God, came to earth for that very purpose.
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 would be only too glad to have Him save me,
but whether He will or no 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 never had before. She was rapidly realizing
the difference between being the spiritual guide
of the girls in her Bible class, and the adviser of this

strong-minded but 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 commence, 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 never before. Had it not been for your
graceful tact, I should have made a fool of myself by
being angry. If you knew 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 as perhaps the demon-possessed did, but I
do evil and think evil continually, and I fear I always
will.

“No, listen to me to the end,” he continued, as
Annie 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
are your faults 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
the pale of 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 so
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, `You
have sinned away your day of grace.' 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 clue back to the Divine life. Is it
strange that God saves men through other men, and
that he carries on his work through our weak hands?
Even He himself best served man in human guise.
It is because Christians pass by on the other side
that many perish by the way.

Annie trembled at the responsibility that now
suddenly burdened her as she saw this trembling
spirit clinging to her as the one frail support from
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, as 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 appeared to grow vindictive against
himself. 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
demon-haunted 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, intrepreted her wrongly. Standing
above 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'm not even a decent
devil. 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 seemingly 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 sprang up, and laying restraining hands upon
his arm, sobbed:

“No—no. Why don't—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
heaving bosom meant sympathy for him?

She soon controlled herself, and looking up at
him through her tears, but with a light in her eyes
that shone through them 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
as a captive might who had just received life and
liberty.

“See, I do not shrink from you,” she continued,
placing her hand with a light caress upon his bowed
head. “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 for 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 leniency or indulgence on all the
horrible evil you 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 of 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!
I will use what little faith I have, and pray God for
more. 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 anyway, for you
have done all and more than I could hope.”

“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 to
even 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?”

“There is nothing like common sense,” she
replied, “in religion as in everything else.”

And so they passed in out of the purple twilight,
Annie's heart thrilling with something of the joy
of heaven over the repentant sinner, 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 scratched his head
perplexedly as he soliloquized:

“Mister Hunting, he guv me ten dollars to watch
and see. I'se seed too much for his good dis yer
day.”

Jeff gave the scene just described a very different
meaning from its real character.