“I know, sir, how many difficulties my presumption must put you in.”
“Not another word about it, Tom. You are blameless. I wish I were. If we only act as God would have us, other considerations may look after themselves—or, rather, He will look after them. The world will never be right till the mind of God is the measure of things, and the will of God the law of things. In the kingdom of Heaven nothing else is acknowledged. And till that kingdom come, the mind and will of God must, with those that look for that kingdom, over-ride every other way of thinking, feeling, and judging. I see it more plainly than ever I did. Take my sister, in God’s name, Tom, and be good to her.”
Tom went to find Martha, and I to find Ethelwyn.
“It is all right,” I said, “even to the shame I feel at having needed your reproof.”
“Don’t think of that. God gives us all time to come to our right minds, you know,” answered my wife.
“But how did you get on so far a-head of me, wifie?”
Ethelwyn laughed.
“Why,” she said, “I only told you back again what you have been telling me for the last seven or eight years.”
So to me the message had come first, but my wife had answered first with the deed.
And now I have had my revenge on her.