The One Woman Part 18

CHAPTER XI

AN ANSWER TO PRAYER

When Gordon reached his study and locked the door, he turned the bundle of cards over nervously, afraid to look at them.

He untied the package, read the first, and ran rapidly through the pile. The total subscriptions reached only twenty thousand dollars.

He had asked for a million.

A sickening sense of failure crushed him. How weak and puerile the eloquence of words or the beat of the human heart against that mysterious force gleaming at him through Van Meter's black eyes!

He sat brooding over the power wielded by a dozen men whose names were linked with the Deacon's in Wall Street. This group of men had personal fortunes of more than eight hundred millions and controlled as much more. He believed that they dictated the policy of railroads, banks, trade, the State, the Nation, and that no king or emperor of the world wielded such despotism over men as these uncrowned monarchs of money. He felt as though he had collided with the stars in their courses and been crushed to dust.

An Answer to Prayer 129

In the middle of the pile of cards he found one signed by Kate Ransom. She had written across the printed form in her smooth, flowing hand:

"Please call after the service and let me know the result. I will send you my subscription to-morrow."

He knew that she would make a liberal gift, but her fortune could not be more than a million, perhaps not half so large. Her generosity could not save the day even if she gave half of all she possessed, a supposition of course preposterous.

He could not summon courage to go in the bitterness of his defeat.

He scrawled a note and sent it by the s.e.xton.

"Feeling too blue to call. Failure complete and pitiful. The subscriptions reach only twenty thousand dollars. GORDON."

There was but one forlorn hope left. He had written personal letters to several millionaires he knew in town. They might respond.

He sat in his study in the afternoon, dull, stupid and sick, feeling an iron band around his brain. He could not think. Ho gave up the work on his evening sermon and determined to repeat an old one.

As he sat in an aching stupor the s.e.xton announced a gentleman who insisted on seeing him on important business.

"I told him you would see no one at this hour, but he says he must see you."

"Show him in," Gordon said, with a frown.

The man entered, gazed at the preacher with curious interest, and stood with his silk hat in hand, smiling.

"This is Doctor Gordon?"

"Leave off the doctor and you have it right."

"I am the bearer of good news. A client of mine has instructed me to call and say that the sum of one million dollars will be placed to your credit in the Garfield National Bank within two years, and that you will be its sole trustee for the building of your projected Temple. One-third of it will be available within three months. I am sorry, I am forbidden to disclose the name."

Gordon sprang to his feet, pale as death, overwhelmed with awe. To have the answer of his prayers, the agonising of his soul for years, answered in the hour of utter defeat thrilled him with a sense of solemnity he had never felt. The man was not a man. He was the messenger swift and beautiful from the courts of heaven, for whose coming his eyes had long strained and his ears listened. Not a doubt of its truth shadowed his mind. He knew it was true. It was the fulfilment of life. It had been ordained from eternity. He had seen it always. Now he saw with his eyes. A paean of exaltation welled within him.

With dimmed eyes he grasped the lawyer's hand and fairly crushed it in his iron grip.

"My friend, your face will always be beautiful to me, and your name a song of joy. You have come to lift me from the gulf of despair and renew my faith."

"With all my heart I congratulate you," he warmly responded.

He left his card, and Gordon locked his door, walked back to his desk and fell on his knees. In transports of childlike grat.i.tude he poured out his soul. All the old faith in prayer was in him again, the breath he breathed. He talked to G.o.d as to a loving father, promising in broken accents to cleanse his heart of every selfish thought and consecrate anew every energy to his work.

And then he caught the perfume of flowers, and saw the face of a woman, and she was not the wife of his youth or the mother of his children.

"G.o.d forgive me for the drifting of the past," he cried. "I will tear this madness out of my heart and love only Thee. I will be true to the vows taken at Thy altar. I have been wayward and sinned in Thy sight in heart and thought. Wash me in Thy love and I shall be clean, and though my sins be as scarlet they shall be like wool."

He rose from his knees determined to go immediately to Kate Ransom, tell her the news, make a clean breast of his love for her, beg her to put the ocean between them, and for all time end their dangerous relations.h.i.+p.

She greeted him with reserve, and seemed embarra.s.sed.

With impetuous rush he told her the tidings.

"I've been lifted from the depths of Sheol to the highest heaven.

Every hope and dream of my struggle is a living reality. An unknown millionaire has given the whole sum needed--a million dollars--and our Temple will rise in grandeur!"

She smiled timidly, and said: "I knew it would be so. You were glorious this morning."

He felt her embarra.s.sment and wondered if she could have divined his grim purpose of separation.

"You do not seem so glad as I thought you would be," he said, with something of reproach in his voice.

"Some joys are too intense for speech. The scene this morning and your burning message went too deep for words."

"I understand," he said softly.

"I wonder if you do?" she asked, dropping her eyes.

"Yes, and I have come to the hardest task of my life, one of the bitterest and one of the sweetest," he said, with deliberation.

She glanced at him quickly and began to tremble.

"Not another hour must pa.s.s without a confession to you."

He moved across the room and sat down as if by an effort to put distance between them.

"What is it?" she asked, colouring.

He was silent a moment and then said with low, deliberate tenderness:

"I love you."