"Yes," replied Duncan, smiling.
"Then maybe you know Jesus?"
"Yes," a little doubtfully this time.
"The lady your mother has told me about Him, and she always prays to Him, and I thought maybe you had learned how. I pray a little when I am alone, but I don't know how very well, and I am so weak it tires me to think of the words. I guess He hears me, though; but when she prays, it seems as if Jesus came and stood right by us, and that's the reason I wanted her. Call you pray?"
"Not like her," answered Duncan.
"I'm sorry," said the boy, so sadly that his visitor grew sad and sorrowful likewise.
"I should think you'd learn," continued Davy. "I have learned a little myself, but I want some one that knows Him better than I do to ask Jesus to receive me when I go."
"But my mother will probably be able to come and see you in a day or two."
"I don't think I shall be here. The doctor says I may die suddenly. It will be all right, I suppose. I can trust Him. But—don't you think you could speak to Him?"
Duncan's thoughts were in a perfect tumult. What could he do? Whatever possessed him to come here? He might have known better. Could he resist the pleading voice and eyes of the sufferer? But should he dare to pray now and here, when he had not prayed in his closet for weeks! Only last Thursday evening, at the young people's meeting, he had declined to lead in prayer, saying to the leader, "I can't tonight;" and saying to himself, "I'm a miserable hypocrite: I call myself a Christian, and yet I don't dare to pray."