“Go on!” shouted Allan Murray eagerly.
“Well, they herded me over to Mrs. Summers’ again and sent me up to bed. There wasn’t a second’s chance to get away all that time without arousing the town, so I decided to wait till my hostess was asleep. But I made the mistake of lying down on the softest bed I ever touched, and boy! I was tired! And the next thing I knew they were calling me down to breakfast, and Mr. Harper was down there in his car waiting to take me to the bank.
“All day long they kept it up—for days. Never left me alone a second. I expected you to turn up every half hour, and I was worn to a thread with trying to keep up my part. At first I thought I’d stay till I got my first week’s pay, but afterwards I decided that as I had no name of my own I dared use, and as yours didn’t seem to be needed by any one, here was a perfectly good name and job, and I couldn’t hide anywhere better than by taking another person’s identity. So I settled down to be almost content in a condition like that! I was used to taking chances in anything that came along, and I suppose I just fell into it naturally.
“Then, one day they did a dreadful thing. They made me president of the State Society, Christian Endeavor, you know. They say you know all about that.”
Allan Murray’s eyes lighted with keen appreciation of the situation in which his double was placed.
“I didn’t know what it was like from a Polo Club, so when they made a great ado about it, I said all right. But when I got to that state convention and saw what I was up against I decided to beat it while they were singing the first hymn. And brother, I got the door sighted and my foot stretched out to take the first step toward it when God met me! Somehow He got it across to me that it was He, and I was a poor wretch of a sinner! And He wouldn’t let me get out of that building! They were singing a hymn about hiding, and I was trying to hide; and right there, just as God stopped me, they asked me to make the opening prayer! Perhaps you wouldn’t realize what that was like, being asked to pray before hundreds of people when you hadn’t ever opened your mouth or your soul in prayer in your life! But I had to get up. And there I was facing God! I forgot all about the audience and just talked to God. I told him what a wretch I was. I knew it then. I’d never known it before, but I knew then. And when I sat down God talked with me: All that blessed convention He was talking with me! Sometimes it was in a prayer He spoke, sometimes in a Bible reading, or somebody’s speech, but it came right home to me, and I found out I was a lost sinner, and only Jesus Christ could save me. I’d seen something about being born again, before I knew what it meant, and I’d wished I could begin life over with a new name and all, but I didn’t know how, see? But somehow I’ve found out, and everything is different. I made a clean breast of everything this morning in church, and then I found your letter to Mrs. Summers. It got put up in my room by mistake while I was away, you see. So as soon as we could we came to hunt you up. Now, Mr. Murray, can you see your way clear to forgive the rotten deal I gave you? I’ve done my best to square things up, and if there’s anything else you’d like me to do I’m ready. I belong to a new family now, and I hope I’m going to honor it more than I did the first one. I’ve heard ever since I’ve been in Marlborough what a great Christian you are, and I’m going to try all my life to be like you, to make up for the rotten way I masqueraded as you before I knew the Lord. Can you forgive me?”
Allan Murray reached out a long thin hand and grasped the warm firm one of Murray.
“I’ll forgive you all right, brother, and from all I can see, you put over a pretty good effort at being me. Now you better try one better. Follow Christ, not me! I’ve found out the last few weeks that I hadn’t as much religion as I thought I had. When everybody seemed to desert me and the good prospect I had was lost, and I seemed to be lying on the very verge of the grave, I lost hope, and began to doubt the Lord. It was pretty tough lying here not knowing what was going on anywhere, and thinking nobody cared. But I guess you’ve begun to make me see what it was all for. I must have been through testing, and I didn’t stand it so very well either. I can see now. But if it’s helped to bring a fellow like you to the light it’s worth all the suffering!”
Murray grasped both the other man’s hands, and held them.
“You’re the right stuff, all right,” he said. “Some fellows I know would have been too sore to speak to me for what I had done. But say, you’re all wrong about nobody thinking about you. There’s one. There’s a girl. She wanted to know how you were. Her name is Anita. I don’t know the rest of it. She went to school with your sister, and she was interested enough to ask me to find out about you and let her know. She’ll be down to see you some day, or I’ll miss my guess. And say, she’s a good sport! She knew I wasn’t you all the time. She remembered you had red hair. And she never told.”