An Unwilling Guest (9 page)

The answer was ready. "Will you ask him to make you willing to be his? Are you willing to be made willing? Can you ask him that?"

"Do you mean, will I just say those
words, 'Make me willing to belong to—Christ’
?" she said with a slow
hesitation, like a child uncer
tainly learning its lesson. It was all so new to her.

"Yes," he said eagerly, "ask Jesus Christ that every day. Will you? And try with all your heart to realize as much as you can that you are talking to a real, living being, and try to want what you are asking?"

The
silence was a long one this time
, broken occasionally by a little explanatory word from the young man, who fairly held his breath for her answer. He knew she was considering it by the drooped eyelashes and the nervous fingers in the fringe. He prayed in his heart with longing that would not be denied.

They were nearing the village when at
last she raised her eyes in an
swer to his low, "Won't you do it?" spok
en for the fifth t
ime
with wist
ful beseeching.

"I will try," she said, in a tone that none of her New York friends would have recognized.

"Thank God!" was the immediate, joyous response.

They neither of them said any more, but the glow on his face told, as from time to time she stole a glance at him, but that he was deeply and truly glad. Just why she could not understand. Her promise seemed to her to mean so little, and yet she hesitated about making it because it had seemed to mean so much to him that it troubled and embarrassed her.

They drove up to the door with a quiet gravity in their demeanor. The glow of the setting sun illumined
their faces and a glow of some
thing even more beautiful uplifted their hearts.

Allison, as she watched them, decided that it had been very wrong for her to stay at home that afternoon. They had only had more chance to draw closer together.

As
Maurice Grey unharnessed the horse and closed the stable door he was planning how he might help this soul into a knowledge of Jesus Christ He thanked God for giving him the opportunity, and man-like planned what he would say and do in the days that were to follow. He hoped it would be possible for him to prolong his visit into ten days or two weeks. He had written the busy
physician, whose partner and as
sistant he was about to become, saying that he would like to do so if he was not immediately needed. He smiled to think how well things were happening, and what a wonderful plan was God's to allow his children to do such great work for him. There were one or two little books he would like to read aloud to Miss Rut
herford if she was willing. Per
haps tomorrow would afford opport
unity. Allison would enjoy hear
ing them too, though if he were alone with Miss Rutherford he might be able to help out with explanations which would fit her case, which perhaps might be embarrassing to her if another person were present. By the way, he must ask his sister to pray for their guest. Allison could be a great help. She was a grand sister for a man to have. She understood and had sympathy.

Poor Allison, at that moment cutting the bread with firmly closed lips and eyes that held the burning tears back by main force! If she could but have known what her brother was thinking in his heart.

Then the young man went in to find on the hall table a telegram just arrived. He tore it open in haste, and with that slight premonition of evil which always comes with those yellow missives. No matter how used we may be to them, or how much we may expect them, there is always that dread possibility of what they may contain.

"I am called abroad on urgent business. Sail tomorrow. Can you come at once? Wire answer."

Thus the telegram read, and the name signed below was that of the great doctor whose partner he was about to become. There was no getting away from that call. It was Duty, stern and plain and spelled with a capital letter. And yet he had thought but a moment before that a higher call had bidden him here to
a work for which he was all ea
gerness. He felt a rebellious stirring
in h
is heart, and then began to wonder if there was not some selfishness in his desire to stay as well as eagerness to do God's will. Supposing he should answer, "I cannot come." What would happen? The world would go on just the same. Doctor Atlee would do something. Ah, but what would become of the cases that none but he and Doctor Atlee understood? What foolishness was he thinking? Of course he must go.

Then he went to the supper table
with a grave face to match Alli
son's. He tried to be cheery and keep the news of his departure to himself until the meal was over, but he soon saw that his mother and the guest had noticed his abstraction. He must explain.

Disappointment and dismay fell upon the little group; the father, because he had planned a good talk with long discussions on various topics with this dear son, who was almost a stranger now; the mother, forgetting her own heart in sorrow for Allison, who she knew would keenly feel her brother's hasty departure; and Allison herself, because she was suddenly overwhelmed with grief at her own conduct, and saw before her
her
punishment: her brother gone, and the few short hours she might have enjoyed in his society lost because she would not share them with another.

As for the guest, blank desolation settled upon the town of
Hillcroft
, and she was again in a waste and barren land. Besides, how was she to know how to carry out that remarkable promise which she had but just made?

The fact being accepted, supper was no longer considered to be of importance. The time-table took a prominent position on the table, and a discussion about trains arose and was settled. In the midst of this the traveler discovered that it was growing late and rushed upstairs to
make his few hasty preparations. Downstairs they sat about and waited, no one seeming to know what to do. Allison tried to clear off the table, but the hot tears blinded her,
and she finally gave up the at
tempt and went to see if she could not help her brother.

Maurice was just snapping his gripsack together as she tapped on his door and entered. He turned to her with a loving smile.

"Allison dear, I am sorry you did no
t have the lovely drive this af
ternoon. It was too bad for you to miss it," he said.

She hastened to offer her assistance, and so kept
away from the sub
ject of the drive. She would not now have him guess her true reason for staying at home for anything. To have
her dear brother know the fool
ishness, wickedness, and pride of her h
eart would be too great a humil
iation, so she said:

"Isn't there something I can do to help you?"

"No, Allison, I have everything in, I think, unless—oh yes, I am glad I remembered that. Allison, I wish
you would pray for Miss Ruther
ford—not in any ordinary way you know. Let us claim that promise, sister mine, as we have so many times before, 'If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them.' Now it is time for me to go. Good-bye, dear."

There was a shadow by the door where Allison stood so that he could not see the expression that crossed her face as he stooped to kiss her. Miss Rutherford again! How strangely she had
come into every
thing, even this good-bye to her brother! The tears blinded her so that she stumbled and almost fell as she followed the unsuspecting brother downstairs.

It was all over
in
such a very few minutes and the household were left standing where he had
bade them good-bye, recalling h
is last words and looking at the place where he had sat and stood a moment before.

One word the young man had had with the guest alone before he left. She stood in the half-lighted parlor looking out upon the moonlit world and feeling a sudden homesickness. He stepped into the room and she turned. Taking her hand he said:

"Miss Rutherford, I cannot tell you how glad I am that I found you
here. You will remember your promi
se? Perhaps you will also remem
ber now and then that I am praying too? And, Miss Rutherford, my
sister Allison lives very near to Jesus. Maybe she might be of help to you. And there are ways in which you can help her if you will."

The others coming in just then there was no chance for her to reply.

She went to her room almost immediately after he left. She felt that the family was depressed by his sudden going away. She was so herself and did not wish them to see it. She bade them good-night in a sweeter way than she had done before; they could not help but notice it. It was as if the winning way she had used with the young man had descended to them. Mrs. Grey pondered what it
might mean. Allison, in a soft
ened and reproachful mood, saw but one more reason for blaming herself for her impulsive prejudices.

Evelyn sat down in her room and let her whole acquaintance with the young man just gone sweep over her, culminating in the strange talk they had had that day and the ride and her promise. Why had she made such a promise? She began to see as the day drew toward its end that this promise was going to be a troublesome thing. Perhaps she would forget it. She half hoped she would. And yet—if she should meet him again? Oh, no. She would n
ot like to tell him she had for
gotten. She liked being faithful to what she had said to him even though he should never know. He was that kind of a man. One could not help admiring him and one must be true all the way through to him. And where was the fascination? Why should she, so differently brought up, with higher social standing, and believing herself to be worth the interest of any man living, feel in the presence of this man that she was humble as the dust at his feet and he almost a god?

He was like his family. It was a sort of fanaticism, this talk and this unnatural goodness. It was the kind
of thing that she had always de
spised and sneered at. Was it possible that she had at last seen more than this in it? Yes, she admitted to herself, she could but see the effect that religion had on the lives of this one family, and that they seemed to be sweet and natural about their goodness and not overpoweringly egotistical and disagreeable with their
oughts
and ought-
nots
, like a few other religionists she had known. There was Allison. How sweetly
she had
seemed to give up that charmi
ng drive. And yet one could eas
ily see that she loved her brother almost to idolizing him. She had seen the look that overspread her face on
his arrival, and had been an un
seen witness of his parting kiss to her and saw her turn away sobbing when he was gone. It must have been a great disappointment to give up the afternoon all for that fussy, little, dried-up old maid with a headache.

She herself never could have done it. She was sure she did not want to be made into a person who would always have to be thinking of others' comforts and forgetting herself in order to do disagreeable thi
ngs for other peo
ple. What was that he had asked her?

"Are you willing to be made willing to be his?" Then he had known she was not willing, not ready, to give up her wishes and be this other thing that he and Christ—she thought the word reverently, for since the vision she had been given on the hilltop she would never think the name of Christ carelessly again—wished her to be. And he had asked her to pray against herself; to ask to be made willing, to be made to want something she did not want to want. She had promised to try to ask this. She had not realized how much that meant

How could she ask it? She must
ask to be made like—Allison per
haps, or like Mrs. Grey, who cared not for her world, and she did not want to be like them, though she looked at them with wonder and a certain amount of dawning appreciation. They were good and there was no pleasure
in
goodness.
Why should she do this thing in response to a stranger whom she had met b
ut three times, and who was dom
inated by fanatical views? She could not finish. The power of the stranger over her was so great that she admitted s
he would do what he had asked in
spite of all her feelings.

And then her heart, accustomed always to questioning itself of these things, inquired why there was this power and this fascination, this desire to please a man who might never in this world even know of it? Was she in love with him? She had often asked herself that question about other young men whose friendship and attentions were hers if she chose to take them. Sometimes the answer had Been, "I do not know," sometimes, "I like him," or perhaps, "I might care for him,"
but more often. "No, I do not love him," as these other men passed before her in review. Now as she asked this question of her heart it
seemed a profanation. He had not offered her his love. Perhaps he had none left for earthly beings, except his own family of course, aside from the love of saving them, but she felt her heart throb with a strange new joy that he had cared for the saving of her soul. He was not in the least the kind of a man she had expected herself to love when the time came, and it was not a question of love now. It was something infinitely higher and greater, and she supposed better than any earthly love. It was a question of the love of this Christ which was offered her. She impatiently put that other question aside as improper even to think of now. She would not demean herself longer in her own eyes by classing this man with all the other men she knew. Her soul had recognized the true and the good, and for once she would shake off all prejudices and desires and do this one thing he had asked. She would not ask herself if she wished to appear well in his eyes again. Of course she did, but in
what measure it did not matter. That she would stand very well with him if he knew her true self she had no hope. His ideal was his sister Allison. That w
as what he would like her to be
come. Had he not told her to go to her for an example? Well, there was no use in trying to be such a person, for she never could and did not want to if she could. Besides, her life would not admit o
f it. When she was back again in
New York with Mr. Worthington and her other friends she would forget all about this uncomfortable conscience which seemed to be developing within her, or this strange fancy, but now she must do as she had promised, and the sooner the better, to have it over with. Then she would search her trunk for the very most exciting novel she could find, and read for an hour or two and forget all about the wearisome little town in which she was immured.

She turned the gas out and knelt down by the bay-window seat to pray for the first time in her life, for she had not been taught to pray as a child. It came to her as she knelt thus with a real intention to pray. Once a plain-faced woman who had come to be her nurse tried to make her pray, but she stamped her foot and declared she wouldn't, and the woman very soon afterward
had been dismissed by the house
keeper because she threatened to tell of something the housekeeper
was doing behind the master's back. She had actually been the only bit of religious life that had touched Evelyn's childhood intimately, and Evelyn had not liked her because she sat by the window and cried at night when her little charge was going to sleep. Weeping in a woman always irritated Evelyn. She rarely wept herself unless she was very angry, and then only when every other way of expressing emotion failed.