"Will you remain in the parlor until I return, Jane?" he asked. "I will come home as quickly as possible."
"No, John, I find it is better for me to go to
sleep early. Indeed, as you are leaving me, I will go to my room now. Good night, dear!"
He said good night but his voice was cold, and his heart anxious and dissatisfied. And after Jane had left the room he sat down again, irresolute and miserable. "Why should I go to the Club?" he asked himself. "Why should I care about its small ways and regulations? I have something far more important to think of. I will not go out tonight."
He sat still thinking for half an hour, then he looked again at his watch and found that it was yet possible to be at the Club in time. So with a great sigh he obeyed that urging of duty, which even in society matters he could not neglect and be at rest.
There was no light in Jane's room when he returned home and he spent the night miserably. Waking he felt as if walking through the valley of the shadows of loss and intolerable wrong. Phantoms created by his own sorrow and fear pressed him hard and dreams from incalculable depths troubled and terrified his soul. In sleep it was no better. He was then the prisoner of darkness, fettered with the bonds of a long night and exiled for a space from the eternal Providence.
At length, however, the sun rose and John awoke and brought the terror to an end by the calling on One Name and by casting himself on the care and mercy of that One, who is "a very present help in time of trouble." That was all John needed. He
did not expect to escape trouble. All he asked was that God would be to him "a very present help" in it.
Slowly and thoughtfully he dressed, wondering the while from what depths of awful and forgotten experiences such dreams came. He was yet awestruck and his spirit quailed when he thought of the eternity behind him. Meanwhile his trouble with Jane had partly receded to the background of thought and feeling. He did not expect to see her at his breakfast table. That was now a long-time-ago pleasure and he thought that by dinner-time he would be more able to cope with the circumstances.
But when he reached the hall the wide door stood open, the morning sunshine flooded the broad white marble steps which led to the entrance and Jane was slowly ascending them. She had a little basket of fruit in her hand, she was most fittingly gowned, and she looked exquisitely lovely. As soon as John saw her, he ran down the steps to meet her, and she put her hand in his and he kissed it. Then they went to the breakfast-table together.