"I do, indeed, believe that your son intends to do right, and I also believe that the Lord intends to help him—which is of far greater consequence," said Dr. Marks. "I will now bid you good-night, as to-morrow is the Sabbath; and let me entreat you, my dear madam, in parting, to further by your prayer and sympathy the good work which the Lord has begun."
Haldane insisted on seeing the old gentleman safely back to his study. Their ride was a rather quiet one, each being busy with his own thoughts. The good man had found his enthusiasm strangely quenched in the atmosphere in which Mrs. Haldane dwelt, and found that, in spite of himself, he was sharing in her doubts and fears as to the future course of the erratic and impulsive youth at his side. He blamed himself for this, and tried to put doubt resolutely away. By a few earnest words he sought to show the young man that only as the grace of God was daily asked for and daily received could he hope to maintain the Christian life.
He now began to realize what a difficult problem was before the youth. Society would be slow to give him credit for changed motives and character, and as proof would take only patient continuance in well-doing. The good doctor now more than suspected that in his own home Haldane would find much that was depressing and enervating. Worse than all, he would have to contend with an excitable and ungoverned nature, already sadly warped and biased wrongly. "What will be the final result?" sighed the old gentleman to himself. But he soon fell back hopefully on his belief that the Lord had begun a good work and would finish it.
Haldane listened attentively and gratefully to all that his old friend had to say, and felt sure that he could and would follow the advice given. Never before had right living seemed so attractive, and the path of duty so luminous. But the thought that chiefly filled him with joy was that henceforth he would not be compelled to plod forward as a weary pilgrim. He felt that he had wings; some of the divine strength had been given him. He believed himself changed, renewed, transformed; he was confident that his old self had perished and passed away, and that, as a new creature, ennobling tendencies would control him completely. He felt that prayer would henceforth be as natural as breathing, and praise and worship, the strong and abiding instincts of his heart.
CHAPTER XXXIX
VOTARIES OF THE WORLD
When Haldane returned he found that his sisters had retired. He was not sorry, for he wished a long and unrestrained talk with his mother; but that lady pleaded that the events of the evening had so unnerved her, and that there was so much to be considered, that she must have quiet. In the morning they would try to realize their situation, and decide upon the best course to be pursued.
Even in his exaltation the last suggestion struck Haldane unpleasantly. Might not his mother mark out, and take as a test of his sincerity, some course that would accord with her ideas of right, but not with his? But the present hour was so full of mystical and inexplicable happiness that he gave himself up to it, believing that the divine hands, in which he believed himself to be, would provide for him as a helpless child is cared for.
The mill-people among whom he had worked the previous week would scarcely have recognized him as he came down to breakfast the following morning, dressed with taste and elegance. It was evident that his sisters could endure him with better grace than when clad in his coarse, working garb, redolent with the hitherto unimagined odors pertaining to well-oiled machinery. They, with his mother, greeted him, however, with the air of those who are in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, but who hope they see a coming ray of light.
With their sincere but conventional ideas of life he was, in truth, a difficult problem. Nor can they be very greatly blamed. This youth, who might have been their natural protector against every scandalous and contemptuous word, and whose arm it would have been their pride to take before the world, had now such a reputation that only an affection all-absorbing and unselfish would be willing to brave the curious and scornful stare that follows one who had been so disgraced. Mrs. Haldane and her daughters were not without natural affection, but they were morbidly sensitive to public opinion. Like many who live somewhat secluded from the world, they imagined that vague and dreaded entity was giving them much more attention than it did. "What will people say?" was a terrible question to them.