The Gold of Chickaree Part 37

Unless?yes, that might fit well enough: she might stand for "the wicked" in the eighth verse. For studying the s.h.i.+ning words that went before, there had come to her a feeling of soil, a sense of degradation, all new, and utterly painful.

'No use to consider that now,' she said, knotting her hands together as she went back to her seat. 'I want help. And I begin to think how much I want it, I shall lose my wits.'?Was there nothing for her?

Again the promises ran on as before, with new images, fresh wording. There were angels enough keeping watch over Morton Hollow to-night!?was there no spare one to come to Chickaree??Hazel put her head down and sobbed like a child in her loneliness and desolation.

Next day she tried another plan, and began at the end of her psalm, pa.s.sing over the promise of long life as not just now of much interest. And honour,?she did not want that; nor deliverance, where no devil was at hand. But this!?

"I will be with him" ?

"I will answer him" ?

Was it for her??To whom was it said?

"He shall call upon me,"?ah, that she had done a great many times!?this was not the whole description. Who was it then who should be heard??She ran back over the words rapidly, fastening then upon these few:

"Because he hath set his love upon me"!?and Hazel knew she had set her love upon some one else.

It was very bitter: the struggle was sharp and long: and duty and possibility, and wrong and right, fought each other and fired upon their own men.

She could not take back her love: that was impossible. She might die, but that she could not do. And now with a certain gleam of comfort, Hazel remembered that Dane had not withdrawn his.

How had he managed then? After all, it did not touch the question much,?he was a man, dependent of no one: she was a girl, with nothing in the world but him. Yet she wanted more. A strength above his, a love even more sure: "the things which cannot be shaken."

So, slowly, she went back over the verses, laying hold still of but that one thing in her way:

"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him."

Yes, it must be meant for her. And Hazel tried to shut her eyes to the character that went with the promise. People like _that_, she argued, would need nothing,?it _must_ be for her. But oh she had called so very often!?Far back in the psalm, that is, close at the beginning, another word flamed up before her in a sudden illumination: a word she had read and reread, but now it stopped her short. Another three words, that is:

"I will say."

?Something that seemed to head the long list of blessings, something for her. But it was something for her to do. What, then?

"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my G.o.d; in him will I trust."

"I will say."?But close upon that followed "Surely."

_Could_ she say it? Was she ready for that absolute choice? The words came to her as she had heard Dr. Maryland read them:

"You do now declare and avouch the Lord Jehovah to be your G.o.d; and Jesus Christ to be your Saviour; and the Holy Spirit to be your sanctifier.

"You do solemnly give yourself away, in a covenant to be revoked, to be his willing servant forever."

She had noticed the words so often, half putting them to herself in imagination, that now they came back to her with clear distinctness. _This_ was what the psalm meant; nothing less. "A willing servant?" Could she promise it? she, who hated control and loved so dearly her own pleasure? But it all came to that:

"I will say of the Lord, He is my G.o.d."?

Back and forth, back and forth, went thoughts and will and purpose: sometimes almost persuaded, sometimes all up in arms.

Something gentler than need was lacking, something stronger than fear must work. Slowly and sadly she turned over the leaves, far on and on, to the other marked point: seeing them then, those common words of print that she had read so often, seeing them then in letters of flas.h.i.+ng light.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."?2 Cor. 5. 14, 15.

Hazel laid her face down upon the open page, and said from her heart,

"I will."

CHAPTER XVIII.

SETTLEMENTS.

To go back a little.

When Mr. Falkirk came to dinner that first day, he was very taciturn and grumpy indeed until soup and fish and third course were disposed of. Then when he got a chance with Dingee out of the room, Mr. Falkirk opened his mouth for the discussion of somewhat besides grapes and peaches.

'So I understand, Miss Hazel, you have arranged with your other guardian to dispense with my services.'

Wych Hazel was not in a mood even for blus.h.i.+ng, that day.

Thoughts were too deeply and abstractedly busy, and spirits were under too great a weight, for the usual quick play of lights and colours to which Mr. Falkirk was accustomed. A faint little extra tinge was all that came with the grave answer,

'May I ask who has been talking about me, sir?'

'Your future guardian, Miss Hazel; no less. Stopped at my door last night, on horseback, to say in three minutes what would have been more fittingly talked of in three hours.'

Slowly at first, then quick and vivid, the roses stirred and flamed up in the thoughtful face, but she said nothing. Only pushed away her plate, as if peaches and _that_ could not go on together.

'I would like to know from you whether it is a thing fixed and settled and unalterable; absolutely done? I suppose it is, or he would not have said it.'

She darted a look at him.

'Do you found suppositions upon such slight circ.u.mstantial evidence, Mr. Falkirk?'

'Sometimes, Miss Hazel, when the thing happens to be particularly difficult of belief.'

'Unalterable?' Hazel repeated, half to herself,?'few things are that.

Suppose your supposition were a mistake, Mr. Falkirk,?what then?'

'Can you tell me that it is?' he said, looking across the table to her with a gaze that would find the truth.

'Would you be glad?' she answered. 'And will you tell me why?'

Then Dingee came in with coffee, and a bouquet; and Hazel sat playing idly with the flowers while Dingee set out the cups, the scent of heliotrope and geranium filling the room. While Dingee was near, Mr. Falkirk was silent; but eyeing the girl however, the flowers, her action, with a glance that took it all in and lost no item; not a graceful movement nor a tint of the picture.

'Yes,' he said firmly when the boy was gone, 'I should be glad. You are just fit for the play you are playing now; it is not played out, and should not be, for some time to come. You are young, and ought to be free; and you are rich, Miss Hazel, and ought not to marry somebody who will ruin you.'

For a minute Hazel spoke not for surprise, and then she let a prudent pause lap on to that. For she had no mind just then to get up a tirade for Mr. Rollo's benefit, and all the same she felt her blood stirring.

'Is this all I am fit for?' she said: but the laugh was a little nervous.