Somewhere in the watches of the night a memory came to him of the covenant he had made that day and a vague wistful reaching of his heart after the Christ to whom he was supposed to have surrendered his life. He wondered if a Christ such as the stranger had claimed He had, would take an interest in the affairs of Ruth Macdonald. Surely, such a flower of a girl would be protected if there was protection for anyone! And somehow he managed a queer little prayer for her, the first he had tried to put up. It helped him a little, and toward morning he fell asleep.
A few days later in glancing through his newly acquired Testament he came upon a verse which greatly troubled him for a time. His eye had caught it at random and somehow it lodged in his mind:
“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
Somehow the principle of that verse did not fit with his proud spirit. He thought instantly of Wainwright’s distasteful face and form. It seemed to loom before him with a smug triumphal sneer. His enmity toward the fellow had been of years standing, and had been deepened many times by unforgetable acts. There was nothing about Wainwright to make one forgive him. There was everything about him to make one want to punish him. When the verse first confronted Cameron he felt a rising indignation that there had been so much as a connection in his thoughts with his quarrel with Wainwright. Why, anybody that knew him knew Wainwright was wrong. God must think so, too. That verse might apply to little quarrels but not to his feeling about the way Wainwright had treated him ever since they were children. That was not to be borne, of course. Those words he had called Cameron’s father! How they made his blood boil even now! No, he would not forbear nor forgive Wainwright. God would not want him to do so. It was right he should be against him forever! Thus he dismissed the suggestion and turned to the beginning of his testament, having determined to find the Christ of whom the stranger had set him in search.
On the flyleaf of the little book the stranger had written a few words:
“And ye shall find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”—Jeremiah xxix: 13.
That meant no half-way business. He could understand that. Well, he was willing to put himself into the search fully. He understood that it was worth a whole-hearted search if one were really to find a God as a reward.
That night he wrote a letter to the minister in Bryne Haven asking for an interview when next he was able to get leave from camp. In the meantime he kept out of the way of Wainwright most adroitly, and found many ways to avoid a meeting.
There had been three awful days when his “peach of a captain” about whom he had spoken to Ruth, had been called away on some military errand and Wainwright had been the commanding officer. They had been days of gall and wormwood to Cameron, for his proud spirit could not bend to salute the man whom he considered a scoundrel, and Wainwright took a fine delight in using his power over his enemy to the limit. If it had not been for the unexpected return of the captain a day earlier than planned, Cameron might have had to suffer humiliations far greater than he did.
The bitterness between the two grew stronger, and Cameron went about with his soul boiling with rage and rebellion. It was only when Ruth’s letters came that he forgot it all for a few minutes and lifted his thoughts to higher things.