A Letter of Credit Part 111

"About Mrs. Busby, you shall do as you please. You do not know me yet, Rotha--my little Rotha! Do you think I would say to any woman what I said to you yesterday, and not know my own mind?"

"No--" Rotha said softly. "But I thought I was so unfit I do not know what I thought! only I knew I must speak to you."

"You are a brave girl," said he tenderly, "and my very darling." And he allowed himself the kisses now. "Was that all, Rotha?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"You have nothing else on your mind?"

"No."

"Then come to breakfast. It is always bad to go to breakfast with anything on your mind. It is only on _my_ mind that it is so long to next June!"

Rotha however was very willing it should be so. She wanted all these months, to study, to work, to think, to make herself as ready as she could be for what was before her.

The train could not take them until eleven o'clock. After breakfast Rotha sat for a time meditating, no longer on troublesome subjects, while Mr.

Southwode finished the letter he had begun earlier. As he began to fold up his paper, she came out with a question.

"Mr. Southwode, what do you think I had better specially study this winter?"

He did not smile, for if the question was put like a child, the work he knew would be done like a woman. He asked quietly,

"What is your object in going to school at all?"

The answer lingered, till his eyes looked up for it; then Rotha said, while a lovely flush covered the girl's face,--

"That you may not be ashamed of me."

"That contingency never came under my consideration," he said, commanding his gravity.

"But indeed it did under mine!"

"Allow me to ask a further question. After that, do you expect to make it the main business of your life to please me?"

"I suppose so," said Rotha, flus.h.i.+ng deeper but speaking frankly, as her manner was. "It would be nothing new."

"I should think that would come to be terribly monotonous!" he said with feigned dryness.

"On the contrary!" said Rotha. "That is just what saves life from monotony." And then her colour fairly flamed up; but she would not qualify her words.

"Right in principle," he said, smiling now, "but wrong in application."

"How, Mr. Digby?" said Rotha, a little abashed.

He threw his letter on one side, came and sat down by her, and putting his arm round her shoulders, answered first by one of those silent answers which--sometimes--say so much more than anything spoken.

"I should be a sorry fellow," he said, "if I did not estimate those words at their full value, which to me is beyond value. I know you of old, and how much they mean. But, Rotha, this is not to be the rule of your life,--nor of mine."

"Why not?" she asked shyly.

"Because we are both servants of another Master, whom we love even better than we love each other."

Did they? Did _she?_ Rotha leaned her head upon her hand and queried. Was she all right there? Or, as her heart was bounding back to the allegiance she had so delighted to give to Mr. Digby, might she be in danger of putting that allegiance first? He would not do the like. No, he would never make such a mistake; but she?--Mr. Southwode went on,

"That would put life at a lower figure than I want it to be, for you or for myself. No, Christ first; and his service, and his honour, and his pleasure and his will, first. After that, then nothing dearer, and nothing to which we owe more, than each of us to the other."

As she was silent, he asked gently, "What do you say to it, Rotha?"

"Of course you are right. Only--I am afraid I have not got so far as you have."

"You only began the other day. But we are settling principles. I want this one settled clearly and fully, so that we may regulate every footstep by it."

"Every footstep?" Rotha repeated, looking up for a glance.

"You do not understand that?"

"No."

"It is the rule of all my footsteps. I want it to be the rule of all yours. Let me ask you a question. In view of all that Christ has done for us, what do we owe him?"

"Why--of course--all," said Rotha looking up.

"What does 'all' mean? There is nothing like defining terms."

"What can 'all' mean _but_ all?"

"There is a general impression among many Christians that the whole does not include the parts."

"Among Christians?"

"Among many who are called so."

"But how do you mean?"

"Do you know there is such a thing as saying 'yes' in general, and 'no'

in particular? What in your understanding of it, does 'all' include?"

"Everything, of course."

"That is my understanding of it. Then we owe to our Master all we have?"

"Yes--" said Rotha with slight hesitation. Mr. Southwode smiled.

"That is certainly the Bible understanding of it. '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.'"

"But how much is involved in that 'living to him'?"

"Let us find out, if we can. Turn to Lev. xiv. and read at the 14th verse. These are the directions for the cleansing of a leper who has been healed of his leprosy." He gave her his Bible, and she read.