Weeks rolled into months and Louis was still at 'The Willows.' His cynicism had come to have a strangely wistful ring. John Randolph's visits were frequent and they held long conversations together, these men, the one who had seized every opportunity and made the most of it, the other who had let his golden chances slip through his fingers one by one; then John Randolph would go bravely back to his life of toil, while Louis listened to Evadne's sweet voice as she sang in the gloaming, or watched his ring glisten as her deft fingers were busy with their deeds of love.
"How do you do it?" he exclaimed one evening when they were alone together. "You never rest! Your whole life seems to be centered in the lives of others, and there is nothing attractive about them, if there were I could understand. It looks like such drudgery to me. Tell me, little coz, what makes you give up all your ease to make these people happy?"
"When we love our Father it is our joy to do his will," she answered softly.
"If I could live like you and Randolph I should be perfectly satisfied.
I wish I had the courage to try."
"Mere outward living cannot save us, Louis. Nothing can but faith in the atoning blood and the name and the love of Christ. Then—when we believe, you know—all things become possible. We make an awful mistake when we think we know better than the Bible. Nicodemus lived a perfect outward life, yet Christ said to him, 'Except ye be born again—of the Word and the Spirit—ye cannot see the Kingdom of God.' We are running a terrible risk when we try to live without Jesus."
"That is what Randolph says. He is a one idea man, if ever there was one, and yet he is so many sided! He is the most uncompromising fellow I ever knew. I should as soon expect to see the stars fall from the sky as to see him do a shady thing. You would be amused, coz, to see the lady mother and Isabelle joining forces to lay siege to his affections."
What meant that sudden start and then the blush which flamed up over cheek and brow? Louis Hildreth closed his thin fingers over Evadne's ring with a long drawn sigh. He was beginning to realize that a hand, without a heart, is an empty thing.
Long after she had left him he lay motionless. This knowledge which had come to him so suddenly had a bitter taste.
* * * * *
"You ought to get well, Hildreth, and you ought to be a very happy man,"
John Randolph spoke the words suddenly as he rose to take his leave.