As Franks and his companion passed the church, the soft moonlight lay like a silvery robe on the graveyard, throwing deep shadows from the tombstones over the mossy mounds. Nancy heaved a low sigh;—in that quiet spot lay the remains of her only son.
"Life is a bitter thing," she murmured.
"It would be if this life were our all," said Franks.
The sentence was short but suggestive; Nancy knew that the world had been her all; that she had thought little of, and cared less for, anything beyond the cares and pleasures of this life. She knew that what shed radiance on the home of Persis was not merely the domestic love and peace within it, but the hope of a better home beyond earth, and that such hope, like the moon, could beautify and brighten, not only the cheerful cottage, but even the silent grave.
Franks was more pleased with the quiet, subdued manner in which Nancy bade him good-night at the door of her dwelling, than he had been with her lively conversation in his own. Never had Mrs. Sands felt more disgusted with the untidy aspect of her parlor than when she entered it on that night. How unlike it was to that which she had quitted! What a different wife she had been from Persis! Nancy thought of what she heard at church about a broad way and a narrow way. She had a terrible consciousness that the broad was that which she herself was pursuing; she knew that it must—not only according to Scripture, but the natural course of events—end in destruction, and she felt more keenly than ever that the way of transgressors is hard.
Nancy Sands was very low in spirits,—a reaction after excitement,—and she also, no doubt, missed the stimulant to which she had been accustomed. But for Persis having carried away the gin, which had not been replaced, the clerk's unhappy wife would certainly have all at once drowned uneasy thoughts by indulging in her fatal habit. Happily, however, on this night no supply of spirits was at hand, and perfectly sober, but deeply sad, Nancy Sands retired to rest.
But the enemy, who goeth about as a lion seeking whom he may devour, will not lightly leave hold of a victim on whom his deadly gripe has once been laid. While the Frankses were thankful for success of their first attempt to win Nancy from her course of misery and sin, they felt how utterly unable they were in themselves to work any effectual change. Fervent were their prayers to Him who willeth not that any should perish, that he, by the might of his Spirit, would rescue the tempted one from Satan and from herself.