In League with Israel Part 18

"See what a hopeless hope," said Cragmore, as he closed the book. "And yet do you know, Frank, I am becoming more and more sure that Israel has some great part to play in the conversion of humanity? Any one must see that nothing short of Divine power could have kept them intact as a race, and Divine power is never aimlessly exerted. There must be some great reason for such a miraculous preservation. What missionaries of the cross these people would make! What torch-bearers they have been!

They have carried the altar-fires of Jehovah to every alien sh.o.r.e they have touched."

Cragmore stood up in his earnestness, his eyes alight with something akin to prophetic fire.

"The old th.o.r.n.y stem of Judaism shall yet bud and blossom into the perfect flower of Christianity!" he cried. "And when it does, O when it does, the 'chosen people' will become a veritable tree of life, whose leaves will be 'for the healing of the nations.'"

CHAPTER XII.

DR. TRENT.

IT was a cold, bleak night in November. There was a blazing wood-fire on the library hearth. Bethany sat in a low chair in front of it, with a large, flat book in her lap, which she was using as a desk for her long-neglected letter-writing. An appetizing smell of pop-corn and boiling mola.s.ses found its way in from the cozy kitchen, where the sisters were treating Jack to an old-fas.h.i.+oned candy-pulling. The occasional gusts that rattled the windows made Bethany draw closer to the fire, with a grateful sense of warmth and comfort. She thoroughly appreciated her luxurious surroundings, and was glad she had the long, quiet evening ahead of her.

For half an hour the steady trail of her pen along the paper, and the singing of the kettle on the crane, was all that was audible.

Then Jack came wheeling himself in, with a radiant, sticky face, and a plate of candy.

"O, we're having such lots of fun!" he cried. "We're going to make some chocolate creams now. Do come and help, sister?"

She pointed to the pile of unanswered letters on the table. "I must get these out of the way first," she said. "Then I'll join you."

"I guess you can eat and write at the same time," he answered, holding out the plate.

He waited only long enough for her to taste his wares, and hurried back to the kitchen to report her opinion of their skill as confectioners.

Just as the dining-room door banged behind him, she thought she heard some one coming up on the front porch with slow, uncertain steps. She paused in the act of dipping her pen into the ink, and listened. Some one certainly tried the bell, but it did not ring. Then the outside door opened and shut. She started up slightly alarmed, and half way across the room stopped again to listen. There was a momentary rustling in the hall. She heard something drop on the hat-rack. Then there was a low knock at the library door. She opened it a little way, and saw Dr. Trent standing there.

"O, Uncle Doctor!" she cried, throwing the door wide open. "I never once thought of its being you. I took you for a burglar."

Then she stopped, seeing the worn, haggard look on his face. He seemed to have grown ten years older since the last time she had seen him.

Without noticing her proffered hand, he pushed slowly past her, and stood s.h.i.+vering before the fire. He had taken off his overcoat in the hall. He was bent and careworn, as if some unusual weight had been laid upon his patient shoulders, already bowed to the limit of their strength.

Bethany knew from his firmly set lips and stern face that he was in sore need of comfort.

"What is it, Uncle Doctor?" she asked, following him to the fire, and laying her hand lightly on his trembling arm. She felt that something dreadful must have happened to unnerve him so. "What can I do for you?"

she asked with a tremble of distress in her voice.

He dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. When he raised his head his eyes were blurred, and he had that helpless, childish look that comes with premature age.

"I have been with Isabel all day," he said, huskily.

Although Bethany had never heard Mrs. Trent's given name before, she knew that he was speaking of his wife.

There was a long pause, which she finally broke by saying, "Don't you see her every day? I thought you were in the habit of going out to her that often."

"O, I have gone there," he answered wearily, "day after day, and day after day, all these long years; but I have never seen Isabel. It has only been a poor, mad creature, who never recognized me. She was always calling for me. The way she used to rave, and pray to be sent back to her husband, would have touched a heart of flint; yet she never knew me when I came. She would grow quiet when I put my arm around her, but she would sit and stare at me in a dumb, confused way that was pitiful. I always hoped that some day she might recognize me. I would sing her old songs to her, and talk about our old home, although the thought of its shattered happiness broke my heart. I tried in every way to bring her to herself. She would listen awhile, and look up at me with a recognition almost dawning in her eyes. Then the tears would begin to roll down her cheeks, and she would beg me to go and find her husband. Yesterday she knew me!" His voice broke. "She came back to me for the first time in eight years,--my own little Isabel! I knew it was only because the frail body was worn out with its terrible struggle, and I could not keep her long. O, such a day as this has been! I have held her in my arms every moment, with her poor, tired head against my heart. She was so glad and happy to find herself with me at last, but the happiness was over so soon."

He buried his face in his hands as before, with a groan. When he spoke again, it was in a dull, mechanical way.

"She died at sundown!"

The tears were running down Bethany's face. She had been standing behind his chair. Now she bent over him, lightly pa.s.sing her hand over his gray hair, with a comforting caress.

"If I could only do something," she exclaimed, in a voice tremulous with sympathy.

"You can," he answered. "That is why I came. None of her relatives are living. Only my most intimate friends know that she did not die eight years ago, when she was taken away to a sanitarium. I want--" he stopped with a choking in his throat. "The attendants have been very kind, but I want some woman of her own station--some woman who would have been her friend--to put flowers about her--and--smooth her hair, as she would have wanted it done--and--and--see that everything is all fine and beautiful when she is dressed for her last sleep."

He tried to keep his voice steady as he talked; but his face was working pitifully, and the tears were rolling down his face.

"She would have wished it so. She knew Richard Hallam. He was my best friend. I do not know any one I could ask to do this for my little Isabel, but Richard Hallam's daughter."

She leaned over and touched his forehead with her lips.

"Then let her have a daughter's place in helping you bear this," she said. "Let her serve her father's dear, old friend as she would have served that father."

He reached up and mutely took her hand, resting his face against it a moment, as if the touch of its sympathy strengthened him. Then he rose, saying, "I shall send for you in the morning."

"O, are you going home so soon?" she exclaimed. "You have hardly been here long enough to get thoroughly warm."

"No, not home, but back to Isabel. It will be only a few hours longer that I can sit beside her. I have staid away now longer than I intended, but I had to come in town to see that Lee was all right."

"O, does he know?" asked Bethany.

"No, he was only two years old when they were separated. She has always been dead to him. Poor, little fellow! Why should I shadow his life with such a grief?"

Bethany helped him on with his overcoat, turned up the collar, and b.u.t.toned it securely. Then she gave him his gloves; but instead of putting them on, he stood snapping the clasps in an absent-minded way.

"I suppose Richard told you about that debt I have been wrestling with so long," he said, finally. "I got that all paid off last week, the last wretched cent. And now that Isabel is gone, I seem to have lost all my old vigor and ambition. If it were not for Lee, it would be so good to stop, and not try to take another step. I should like to lie down and go to sleep, too."

He opened the door. A raw, cold wind, laden with snow, rushed in.

Bethany watched him out of sight, then went s.h.i.+vering back to the fire.

A deep snowstorm kept Jack at home next day, so no one questioned, or no one knew why Bethany was excused from the office during the morning.

She carried out Dr. Trent's wishes faithfully. She stood beside him in the dreary cemetery till the white snow was laid back over the newly-made mound. Then she rode silently back to town with him. He sat with his hands over his eyes all the way, never speaking until the carriage stopped at the office, and the driver opened the door for Bethany to alight.

Next day she saw him drive past on his usual round of professional visits. No one else noticed any difference in him, except that he seemed a little graver, and, if possible, more tender and thoughtful in his ministrations, than he had been before.

To Bethany there was something very pathetic in the sudden aging of this man, who had borne his burden so silently and bravely that few had ever suspected he had one.

He was making a stern effort to keep on in the same old way. His profession had brought him in contact with so much of the world's sorrow and suffering that he would not lay even the shadow of his burden on other lives, if he could help it.

Only Bethany noticed that his hair was fast growing white, that he stooped more, and that he climbed slowly and heavily into the buggy, instead of springing in as he used to, with a quick, elastic step. She ministered to his comfort in all the little ways in her power, but it was not much that any one could do.

It must have been nearly two weeks before he came again to the house.