Hot tears ran down Jean's cheeks. Her head was aching, and her hand throbbing and burning painfully. Her landlady's words seemed the last straw. Never in all her life, had the fact of her being without any near relations so come home to her.
"Hospital will be my portion and strange nurses, and I shall be a 'number' and a 'case.' I haven't a single friend in town. Not one that would prevent me from such a fate! I have prayed and prayed. I have been willing to do and be what God wills. Is this His will for me now? Or has He never heard me, and are my prayers in vain?"
It is in the hours of weakness, that the tempter exerts all his power. Jean realised this now, but she cried again to the One who was now testing her faith.
"Help me to be like Job. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.' If it is Thy will that I should die in hospital without any one knowing where I am, or what has become of me, yet come so close Thyself and wrap me so tightly in Thy arms, that I shall feel and care for nothing else."
And as she prayed a deep, restful peace stole into her soul.
She forgot that she was at her last penny; that sickness and want had stricken her down, and that even her landlady was wanting to get rid of her. A verse that had comforted her during these dark days came with fresh force into her mind:
"The eternal God is thy refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms."
And Jean had a wonderful realisation that she was in those wonderful arms, and that she could leave herself there without any fear.
Mrs. Sykes, downstairs, was now answering a sharp ring at the door. Opening it, she was confronted by a sweet, fresh-faced young woman who had her portmanteau on a cab outside.
"If you please, does Miss Desmond live here? She is ill, is she not? May I see her? I have come to nurse her."