These impassioned words had burned themselves on Margaret’s memory, and in the light of later events seemed to have a peculiar force and significance. A society of universal brotherhood! How beautiful it seemed in theory; how easily, even on the basis of an eighteen-hundred-years-old truth, the theory might be evolved into established fact. Yet that mighty and eternal truth had been all these years, through innumerable persecutions and conflicts, vainly seeking its perfect flower and fruit. Where lay the difficulty? Why were its life-giving branches so persistently lopped, its trunk gashed and riven, its healing leaves stripped and torn, and its fruition hindered and obstructed? Margaret pondered long over the puzzling questions. It was a fundamental truth that mankind was seeking happiness and had the same general nature and desires. What, then, made the great divergence? The casuist and sophist might find deep within the logic of history and the philosophy of man a more lofty reason; but Margaret’s primitive nature saw only the main truth that men had departed from the underlying principle on which Christ had founded His church of the living gospel. Primitive ideas had been ignored, scoffed at, trampled in the dust, and yet the great Master had made those ideas the whole sum and substance of life when He enjoined upon man to love God and his neighbor, live soberly and righteously, visit the fatherless and widows in affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world. Setting aside the divine emanation of such laws, they were the truest interpretation of natural law, for what is vicious is injurious. The divine virtues of truth and equity are the bulwarks of society; if they are transgressed, the whole body politic suffers, even as the transgression of natural law causes disease and dissolution. Surely, here “the steps are not straightened and he that runneth stumbleth not.”
To Gilbert, Margaret communicated all her doubts and fears as well as hopes upon this theme, and with the eagerness with which an awakened spirit seizes upon ideas, he followed her reasoning to a conclusion which would have been remarkable in one so young, if it had not been the logical result of Margaret’s training and practice.
“I can only work on the plan you outline by first finding out how those I desire to reach are striving for the happiness that is their aim. It will be a long and laborious effort, for I must truly prove myself the friend of every man. No thief, thug, criminal, outcast, or harlot must be too vile and degraded to receive the warm clasp of my hand and the hearty utterance of my good-will. Am I equal to it?” Gilbert buried his head in his hands with a sob that was wrung from the consciousness of a life-long sacrifice. Margaret knelt beside his chair and softly slipped an arm around his neck.
“A second Jean Valjean!” she whispered.
“It is at most an experiment,” said Gilbert later, “and even in the event of failure must do more good than harm. I will try it.”
The loss of Elsie’s abundant wages had been a trying matter to the little household. Gilbert’s attendance at the manual-training school had been perforce curtailed, and the question of subsistence became a serious one. Herbert had begged to be allowed to supply their needs, since his indiscretion had been the cause of their loss, but the ingrained independence of both sisters rebelled at the suggestion.
“No,” exclaimed Elsie emphatically, “not until I say ‘yes’ at the altar—and that day is still so remote as to be almost nebulous—shall I permit any expenditure of your money on my behalf.”
“Not even for this?” and Herbert drew from his pocket a small velvet case and flashed a brilliant diamond ring before Elsie’s eyes. She took it, flushing with pleasure over its beauty, and held it up over her head to watch the play of translucent light on its polished surface.
“Oh, what beautiful things God makes in His laboratory!” she cried, “and how I do love beauty! But take it back, Herbert; it would be out of place on the hand of a working girl.”
“I’m tempted to quarrel with you all the time,” said Herbert petulantly. “What shall I get you—an iron ring?”