The Prospector Part 53

The Don went in to Shock, sent the nurse out for a walk, shut the door, and then, returning to the bed, threw himself on his knees.

"Oh, Shock," he said, "this is too much. What can I say?"

"Nothing at all, old chap. Don't say anything What is that between us?

We have been through too many things together to have this bother us."

"Shock! Shock!" continued The Don, "I have been an awful fool, a blank, cursed fool!"

"Don't swear, old chap," said Shock.

"No, no, I won't, but I curse myself. I have been waiting for this chance to tell you. I don't want you to think too badly of me. This thing began in Hickey's saloon some days before that night. He was playing some fellows from the camp a skin game. I called him down and he challenged me. I took him up, and cleaned him out easily enough. You know my old weakness. The fever came back upon me, and I got going for some days. That night I was called to visit a sick girl at Nancy's. The gang came in, found me there, and throwing down their money dared me to play. Well, I knew it was play or fight. I took of my coat and went for them. They cleaned me out, I can't tell how. I could not get on to their trick. Then, determined to find out, I put up that--that other money, you know--and I was losing it fast, too, when you came in."

As Shock listened to The Don's story his face grew brighter and brighter.

"My dear fellow," he said in a tone of relief, "is that all? Is that the whole thing? Tell me, as G.o.d hears you!"

"That's the whole story, as G.o.d hears me!" said The Don solemnly.

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" said Shock. "I thought--I was afraid--" He paused, unable to go on.

"What! You thought I had forgotten," cried The Don. "Well, I confess things did look bad. But I want to tell you I am clean, and may G.o.d kill me before I can forget! No, no woman shall ever touch my lips while I live. Do you believe me, Shock?"

Shock put out his hand. He was still too much moved to speak.

At length he said: "Nothing else matters, Don. I could not bear the other thing."

For some minutes the friends sat in silence.

"But, Don," said Shock at length, "you can not go on this way. Your whole life is being ruined. You cannot draw off from G.o.d. You have been keeping Him at arm's length. This will not do."

"It is no use, Shock," said The Don bitterly. "My head is all right. I believe with you. But I cannot get over the feeling I have for that--"

He broke off suddenly.

"I know, I know. I feel it, too, old chap, but after all, it is not worth while. And besides, Don, forgive me saying this--if it had not been true about you he could not have hurt you, could he?"

The Don winced.

"I am not excusing him, nor blaming you," continued Shock eagerly, "but a man has got to be honest. Isn't that right?"

"Oh, yes, it is true enough, Shock. I was a beast, as you know, at that time in my life, but I had put it all past me, and I believed that G.o.d had forgiven me. And then those two raked it all up again, and broke my darling's heart, and drove me away, an outcast. He is a minister of the gospel, and she is a member of the Christian Church."

"Don," said Shock gravely, "that won't do. You are not fair."

The door opened quietly, and the nurse came in and sat down out of Shock's sight behind the bed.

"Now, Don, I want you to read for me that tale of the Pharisee and the woman who was a sinner. For my sake, mind you, as well as for yours, for I was wrong, too, on this matter. I confess I hated him, for I cannot help thinking that he has done me a great wrongs and I have found it hard enough to say the Lord's Prayer. Perhaps you had better read this letter so that you may understand."

He took from under his pillow Mrs. Fairbanks' letter and gave it to The Don, who read it in silence. Poor Shock! He was opening up wounds that none had ever seen, or even suspected, and the mere uncovering of them brought him keen anguish and humiliation.

As The Don read the letter he began to swear deep oaths.

"Stop, Don. You mustn't swear. Now listen to me. I think she has a perfect right to do as she has been doing. But--Lloyd"--Shock seemed to get the name out with difficulty,--"was my friend, and I think he has not been fair."

"Fair!" burst out The Don. "The low down villain!"

"But listen. The question with me has been how to forgive him, for I must forgive him or keep far from Him who has forgiven me, and that I cannot afford to do. Now read." And The Don took up the Bible from the little table beside Shock's bed, and read that most touching of all tales told of the Saviour of the sinful.

"'Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.'"

As The Don finished reading, a sound of sobbing broke the silence in the room.

"Who is that? Is that you, Nell?" said Shock. "What is the matter, Nell? That is for you, too. Now we will have Don read it again." And once more, with great difficulty, The Don read the words, so exquisitely delicate, so divinely tender.

"That is for you, too, Nell," said Shock.

"For me?" she cried. "Oh, no, not for me!"

"Yes, Nell, my sister, it is for you."

"Oh," she cried, with a tempest of sobs, "don't call me that. It cannot be. I can never be clean again."

"Yes, Nell, He says it Himself. 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven,' and He can make you clean as the angels. We all need to be made clean, and He has undertaken to cleanse us."

It was a very humble and chastened man that went out from Shock's presence that evening. Through the days of the week that followed The Don went about his work speaking little, but giving himself with earnestness and in a new spirit, more gentle, more sympathetic, to his ministry to the sick in the camps and shacks round about. But still the gloom was unlifted from his heart. Day by day, however, in response to Shock's request he would read something of the story of that great loving ministration to the poor, and sick, and needy, and of infinite compa.s.sion for the sinful and outcast, till one day, when Shock had been allowed for the first time to sit in his chair, and The Don was about to read, Shock asked for the story of the debtors, and after The Don had finished he took from his pocket Brown's letter and said:

"Now, Don, forgive me. I am going to read something that will make you understand that story," and he read from Brown's letter the words that described Betty's last hour.

The Don sat white and rigid until Shock came to the words, "G.o.d forgives us all, and we must forgive," when his self-control gave way and he abandoned himself to the full indulgence of his great sorrow.

"It was not to grieve you, Don," said Shock, after his friend's pa.s.sion of grief had subsided. "It was not to grieve you, you know, but to show you what is worth while seeing--the manner of G.o.d's forgiveness; for as she forgave and took you to her pure heart again without fear or shrinking, so G.o.d forgives us. And, Don, it is not worth while, in the face of so great a forgiveness, to do anything else but forgive, and it is a cruel thing, and a wicked thing, to keep at a distance such love as that."

"No, no," said The Don, "it is not worth while. It is wicked, and it is folly. I will go back. I will forgive."

XIX

THE REGIONS BEYOND

The visit of the Superintendent to a mission field varied according to the nature of the field and the character of the work done, between an inquisitorial process and a triumphal march. Nothing escaped his keen eye. It needed no questioning on his part to become possessed of almost all the facts necessary to his full information about the field, the work, the financial condition, and the general efficiency of the missionary. One or two points he was sure to make inquiry about. One of these was the care the missionary had taken of the outlying points. He had the eye of an explorer, which always rests on the horizon. The results of his investigations could easily be read in his joy or his grief, his hope or his disappointment, his genuine pride in his missionary or his blazing, scorching rebuke. The one consideration with the Superintendent was the progress of the work. The work first, the work last, the work always.

The announcement to Shock through his Convener, that the Superintendent purposed making a visit in the spring, filled him with more or less anxiety. He remembered only too well his failure at the Fort; he thought of that postscript in the Superintendent's letter to his Convener; he knew that even in Loon Lake and in the Pa.s.s his church organization was not anything to boast of; and altogether he considered that the results he had to show for his year's labour were few and meagre.

The winter had been long and severe. In the Pa.s.s there had been a great deal of sickness, both among the miners and among the lumbermen. The terrible sufferings these men had to endure from the cold and exposure, for which they were all too inadequately prepared, brought not only physical evils upon them, but reacted in orgies unspeakably degrading.

The hospital was full. Nell had been retained by The Don as nurse, and although for a time this meant constant humiliation and trial to her, she bore herself with such gentle humility, and did her work with such sweet and untiring patience, that the men began to regard her with that entire respect and courteous consideration that men of their cla.s.s never fail to give to pure and high-minded women.