Red and Black

by Grace S. Richmond

She looked up, met such a glance as told her that the hour had come, and bent her head in assent.

“Church walls never meant so much to me as now,” he said, very low, as they entered, “now, when the Church has come into her own as never before. What does it mean when the people crowd like that into her doors? What did it mean when all those soldiers, as you told me, crowded into that war-ruined cathedral? Why, it must mean that the instinct to go where the Name of God is most deeply associated with every stone and window is something which is in every man who has ever heard song and prayer ascend from such a place. He can’t do without it—he can’t do without it.... And no more can we—now.”

He said no more, while he led her down the great nave, nearly deserted. People lingered here and there in famous corners, beside distinguished name on statue or tablet, but as Black had said, there was room for all in that vast space. And presently they had come to a spot behind a stone column where they were in sight of none, and all were far away. Black took Jane’s hand in his again, and himself drew off the glove.

“Jane,” he said, with that in his low tone which spoke his feeling, “it seemed to me that I must have our first prayer together in this place. I came to Westminster and this very spot, when our regiment was in London, more than a year ago. I knelt here, all alone, and asked God, as I had never asked before, that He would make Himself real to you. He has done it, as you have told me, and I wanted to bring you here and thank Him, on my knees. Because now, we can work together—all the rest of our lives—in His Name. Is it so—Jane?”

She could not look up. Great sobbing breaths caught her unawares and shook her from head to foot. She felt his arm come about her, felt his hand press her face against his shoulder, and there, for a few minutes, she cried her heart out. He held her silently, and with such a tender strength that it seemed to her that she had come into some wonderful refuge, such as she had never dreamed of. All the tension, all the weariness, all the heart-wrenching sights and sounds of the last year, had come back to her in one overwhelming flood at his words, as they had come many times before. But never, at such times, could she let go; always she had had to hold fast to her courage and her will, lest giving way weaken her for the pressing, unremitting tasks yet to be done. In the old, ruined cathedral a month before, she had had all she could do to keep control and not suffer a very hysteria of reaction, such as, alone among those hundreds of men, would have done both herself and them a harm. But now—she knew for the first time in her independent, resourceful life, what it might mean to lean upon an arm stronger than her own, and to feel, as she was momently feeling more sustainingly, that another life was tied so closely to her own that neither sorrow nor joy could ever shake her again that it should not shake that life too.

By and by the storm passed. No longer did she want to weep—a great peace came upon her. She stood still within the right arm which held her—the uninjured arm—she didn’t know that he could not lift that left arm yet nor use it beyond slight effort. Now, at last, he spoke.

“Will you kneel with me, here? No one will see—and if they did—everyone prays now.”

So they knelt, and Robert Black poured out his heart in a few low-spoken words which, if she had still been unbelieving that they could be heard, must have stirred her to the depths. As it was, convinced past all power of sceptic argument to shake, Jane’s own soul spoke with his to the God who had brought her where she was.

With the last words his hand came again upon her cheek and turned her face gently toward his. His lips sealed his betrothal to her with a reverent passion of pledging which told her, more plainly than any words could have done, that that life of his was now fully hers. It was the life of no pale saint, she well knew, but that of a man whose blood was red and swift-flowing, whose pulses beat as fast and humanly as her own. But he had chosen to devote that virile life to service in the Church, with the same ardour with which, during these months just past, he had given of his best to help defeat the enemies of that Church and all for which it stands. No fear for her now that service with him back on the old home grounds would be dull or tame or weak; it would call for the best she had to give. And she would give it, oh, but she would give it! She knew, at last, that no task of his in that service could seem to her uncongenial, if to him it was worth while.

As they walked slowly back up the long, quiet nave, it was as from some high rite. At the door Robert Black turned and looked back into the dim distance of the great vaulted interior. Then he looked down into Jane’s face.