Then came the impulse to get the Bible and read it for herself. "The impulse!" whence did it come?
When Edith felt so orphaned and alone, forgotten even of God, then the Divine Father was nearest his child. When, in her bitter extremity, at this lonely midnight hour she realized her need and helplessness as never before, her great Elder Brother was waiting beside her.
The impulse was divine. The Spirit of God was leading her as He is seeking to lead so many. It only remained for her to follow these gentle impulses, not to be pushed into the black gulf that despairing Laura dreaded, but to be led into the deep peace of a loving faith.
She went down into the parlor to get the Bible that in her hands had revealed the falseness and baseness of Gus Elliot, and the thought flashed through her mind like a good omen, "This book stood between me and evil once before." She took it to the light and rapidly turned its pages, trying to find some clew, some place of hope, for she was sadly unfamiliar with it.
Was it her trembling fingers alone that turned the pages? No; He who inspired the guide she consulted guided her, for soon her eyes fell upon the sentence—
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
The words came with such vivid power and meaning that she was startled, and looked around as if some one had spoken to her. They so perfectly met her need that it seemed they must be addressed directly to her.
"Who was it that said these words, and what right had he to say them?" she queried eagerly, and keeping her finger on the passage as if it might be a clew out of some fatal labyrinth, she turned the leaves backward and read more of Him with the breathless interest that some poor burdened soul might have felt eighteen centuries ago in listening to a rumor of the great Prophet who had suddenly appeared with signs and wonders in Palestine. Then she turned and read again and again the sweet words that first arrested her attention. They seemed more luminous and hope-inspiring every moment, as their significance dawned upon her like the coming of day after night.
Her clear, positive mind could never take a vague, dubious impression of anything, and with a long-drawn breath she said, with the emphasis of perfect conviction:
"If He were a mere man, as I have been taught to believe, He had no right to say these words. It would be a bitter, wicked mockery for man or angel to speak them. Oh, can it be that it was God Himself in human guise? I could trust such a God."