"If He had taken Himself to His shining throne in Heaven, what right had she or this concourse of people to conjure Him to come down?"
Instead of the submissive attitude of one desiring to make a "complete sacrifice," a wild, unreasoning rebellion arose within her; but a stoical calm covered every emotion. But she was not yet to be let off the rack; the worst was to follow. The sermon was devoted to the work and needs of missions, and the pastor made a strong appeal for funds with which to carry on the Master's work. After the sermon the first lines of song rang out with a pleasing melody:
"I have read of a beautiful City,
Far away in the Kingdom of God:
I have read how its walls are of jasper,
How its streets are all golden and broad."
Mrs. Thorpe's sense of humor, which sometimes leaped suddenly into life and overmastered all her troubled thoughts and melancholy broodings, now came near finishing the tragedy of the service hour. Those "Streets all golden and broad--" If it was gold the world needed--and her husband had told them so emphatically that it was--why just a section of the street up there--only think what could be accomplished with a block--"all golden!"
But perhaps her humor was not of a healthy sort this morning; for her heart was cold as ice, and she feared that she might shriek aloud in fiendish glee.
During the weeks that followed she found her work difficult to perform; all her tasks were irksome. But with a desperate courage, and a resolution born of her will, she held herself to the minutest details of every task that came to her. As the weeks slipped by a peculiar strained look grew upon her face. Her husband noticed that the bloom was fading from her cheeks and an unattractive pallor taking its place, and the thought came to him that perhaps his wife was burdened with too many cares.
"Are you not so well as usual, Evelyn?" he asked her one day.
A nervous flush covered, for the time, the tired look on her face.
"Not so well, perhaps, just of late," she replied. She raised her eyes to his, and he noticed a strange expression in their depths.
But with a sort of supreme despair she clung to her work, and devoted herself to her various duties. Yet she found herself little by little obliged to give up much that she had undertaken, for there were days when pain and physical weakness overcame her.