All these months this servant had known what Helen believed no one knew in Shannon, the minutest details of that last scene with her husband.
There are no secrets. We may give alms so privately that the twin right hand of our left hand remains blissfully ignorant of what we spent on these alms. Nothing is easier than to conceal a good deed, if you really wish to do so, because it is not our nature to suspect each other of secret goodness. It is hard enough to obtain credit when we stand on the street corner and proclaim our charity in a loud voice, or get the whole beautiful thing exploited in the public press. This is what we usually do, being in some mortal doubt whether, after all, the reward promised by our Heavenly Father will be conferred openly enough or soon enough to pay for the unnatural expense of secrecy. This is a mistake, of course, because, while we are duly credited, the smiling, cynical interpretation placed upon our motive takes the shine off the deed and the alms.
But let one of the best of us become involved in a doubtful deed, however innocently, and it is known. Witnesses spring from the very ground to swear to your guilt, even if you have gone into your closet to taste a pleasant fault. Even if, as in Helen’s case, the evidence is flimsy and circumstantial, there is always an eye that sees, an ear that hears, a tongue to tell what happened or what apparently happened. The deeper truth—the innocence of the wicked, the guilt of the saints—remains hidden save from the omniscience of the Almighty. This is why it seems to me highly probable that there really may be a super-record kept in a Book of Life far removed from the laws and judgments of this present world. We shall be graded accordingly, exalted or demoted, not so furiously condemned as our own heinous imaginations demand.
CHAPTER XX
The flamboyant display Helen made of her baby shocked Shannon and finally conquered the willful suspicions entertained by her neighbors. Her diffidence and reserve vanished. She was exalted. She glowed. She had passed into another state of being. This child had related her to everybody.
She would have Buck stop the car before the Shaw residence and summoned Mrs. Shaw forth to look at it and advise her about whether to keep stockings on it or not. Mrs. Shaw said she never did.
On the other hand, Mrs. Arnold said that would depend upon whether the baby was cutting her eye teeth. In that case she advised not only stockings, but a flannel band about the body. Did Mrs. Cutter know whether the little thing was approaching its second summer and stomach and eye teeth or not? This question was put very casually, but with a shrewd glance.
Helen said she would “see.” Whereupon she thrust an exploring finger into the squirming infant’s mouth, felt about in there, withdrew it, and announced that she could detect no heralding signs of these malignant teeth, but they might be coming. This was an unusually precocious baby! Therefore she would get the bands and keep the stockings on.