The Hundredth Chance

by Ethel M. Dell

Life at Uncle Edward's was as he had predicted a very quiet affair indeed, but Maud slipped into it very easily, with a sense of comfort at her heart. It had a healing effect upon her. It stilled the fevered unrest of her spirit. It was all so well-ordered, so methodical. It soothed her, gave her a sense of normality and peace. Her physical strength came back to her with a rapidity that surprised herself, and with its return she found herself beginning to look upon the world with new eyes, found herself able to thrust dark thoughts and problems into the background, found herself at rest.

At Uncle Edward's suggestion, she wrote once a week to Jake. It was not easy to write, but when her uncle remarked that the young man would probably come tearing hell-for-leather across England to find out what was the matter if she didn't, she deemed it the wiser course to follow. Her letters were very brief, very formal, and the letters she received in reply were equally so. She was sure that they were penned in that cheerless little den of his that faced north and overlooked the stable-yard.

Bunny's letters were very few and far between. He was completely engrossed with the thought of the new life at school upon which he was about to enter, and it was very plain to Maud that he missed her not at all. The fact had ceased to hurt her as poignantly as when she first discovered it. Empty though her life was, she had learned by degrees to do without him. She was learning day by day to endure that emptiness with patience, for by some secret instinct she knew that it would not be her portion for ever.

Not far from her uncle's house, at the corner of a busy street, there stood an old grey church. The doors were always open, and one day she dropped in to rest.

It was the first visit of many. The place was infinitely peaceful, full of silence and soft shadows. A red light burned ever before the altar, and there were always beautiful flowers upon it, white lilies that never seemed to fade. She loved to draw near and smell the incense of those flowers, to gaze upon their shining purity, to feel with awe that the ground beneath her feet was holy.

She did not often turn her eyes upon the lamp that burned so still and red. It was always the flowers that drew her, the fragrance of them that comforted her soul.

Once, on a golden afternoon in mid-September, she came in late and stayed for the evening service; and then it was that, sitting in the body of the church, she found herself gazing, gazing, not at the flowers, but at the red, mystic flame that burned unflickering before the altar. It reminded her of something, that still red flame,--something that made her want to flee away and hide. It came between her and her prayers. It lay in wait for her in her dreams.

And yet when Sunday evening came and Uncle Edward prepared to sally forth alone, she put forward a tentative suggestion that she should accompany him.

He was delighted with the proposal, and as they fared forth together, his horny old hand was on her arm, making her glad that she was with him.

They sat near the door, and she was secretly relieved. In the glare of many lights all down the body of the church, the gleam of that one red light was swallowed up and she saw only the flowers. It was a beautiful service--a harmonious whole in which no individual note was struck. The man who officiated was young and very quiet, and not till he ascended the pulpit was she aware of anything out of the ordinary in his personality. It came to her then instantaneously, like a flash-light piercing her soul. He struck no attitudes, made no visible attempt to gain the attention of his audience; but it was fully his from the moment he began to speak. He preached, not as one delivering a discourse, but with the absolute simplicity of a man who speaks from his heart. "Let your lights be burning," were the words he first uttered, and then without preamble he began to talk of Love--Love Divine, Unconquerable, Eternal--Love that stoops but is never small--Love that soars, but is never out of reach. He spoke of the great warfare of the spirit, of the thousand difficulties holding back the soul. And he declared that Love was the one great weapon to meet and overcome them all. "We do not know the power of Love," he said. "We only know that it is invincible and undying--the very Essence of God." He spoke of spiritual blindness, and swept it aside as nought. "We may not all of us be able to believe; but we can all have Love. Nothing counts in the same way. However blind we may be, we can keep that one lamp burning in the darkness, burning in the desert, giving light to the outcast, and guiding the feet of the wanderers."