"Disgrace!" repeated Mrs. Grey, "what care I for disgrace? It is sin against God that makes me shudder; the bare suspicion that my boy has wounded my Master." And now, as if the mention of that sacred name was a gigantic power, her passing weakness disappeared, and the prompt, resolute, strong woman stood equipped for her journey.
And on the way to her son, her prayers rushed like the engine that bore her to his presence, straight to their end, and she began to reproach herself for her want of faith.
"Am I to fancy that my children can break through the hedge my prayers have built about them?" she asked herself. "Suppose Frank has been sorely tempted, am I to forget that he belongs to a covenant-keeping God?"
Day and night they flew on; at one station they were joined by Cyril Heath.
"Belle thought I should intercept you," he said, cheerily. "I hope this miserable business is not weighing upon you, mother," tenderly using this word for the first time.
"The shock has been terrible," she replied; "I never could have believed I so little knew what trouble meant."
"You do not mean to say that you have the slightest suspicion that these rumors have any foundation in truth? I have none, nor has Belle."
"I am afraid my faith in human nature is not as strong as it was twenty years ago. But I ought to have faith in God as a Hearer of prayer, and thought I had."