"Christ has done more," he said. "His love for you passes ours infinitely. Then if you have not wearied out ours, can you possibly exhaust his? He can stoop to you in all your misery and sinfulness, if you will but stretch out your hand toward Him. There is no sin He will not forgive, and none He cannot conquer, if you will but rouse yourself to work with Him. Against your own will He cannot save you."
"I will try," she murmured.
Yet time after time the same subject, almost in the same words, was renewed. Sophy's enfeebled brain could not long retain the thought of a divine love and power, which was ceaselessly though secretly striving to reclaim her. There was no opportunity for her to exert her own will, for she could not be tempted in her present circumstances, and the strength gained by such an exertion was impossible to her. Again and again, with untiring patience, did Mr. Chantrey give ear to her despairing utterances, and meet them with soothing arguments. But often he felt himself on the verge of despair, doubtful of the truths he was trying so earnestly to implant again in her heart. In the smooth happy days of old, both of them had believed them. But now he asked himself, Does God indeed care? Does He see and know? Is He near at hand, and not afar off?
Their vessel had entered the tropical seas, and a profound unbroken monotony reigned around them. They had not sighted land since the shores of England had sunk below the horizon. A waste of waters encircled them, and a dead calm prevailed. Through the sultry and hazy atmosphere no rain fell in cooling showers. Day after day the sea was of perfect stillness, and an oppressive silence, as of death, brooded over the low, regular heaving of the waters. The dry torrid heat was exhausting, and the ship with its idle sails made but little way across the quiet sea. Mr. Chantrey's weakened frame suffered greatly, and even Ann Holland's brave and cheery spirit almost sank into despondency.
"If it hadn't been for Mrs. Chantrey," she thought mournfully, "we should all have been at Upton now, as happy as the day's long. The summer's at its height there, and the harvest is being gathered in. How cool it would be under the chestnut-trees, or under the church walls! Mr. Chantrey's sinking, plain enough, and what is to become of us if he should die before we get to that foreign land? Dear, dear! whoever would go to sea if they could get only a place to lay their heads on land?"
[CHAPTER XVI.]
A LONG VOYAGE
It was a dreary and monotonous time. After the sun had gone down, red and sullen, through the haze, and when the ship left a long track of phosphorescent light sparkling behind it, Mr. Chantrey would pace up and down the deck, as he had often walked to and fro in the churchyard paths in the starlight. He had many things to think of. For his wife his hope was strengthening; a dim star shone before him in the future. Her brain was gradually regaining clearness, and her mind strength. Something of the old buoyancy and elasticity was returning to her, for she would play sometimes with her child merrily, and her laugh was like music to him. But how would it be in the hour of temptation, which must come? She said her craving for stimulants was passing away; but how would she bear being again able to procure them? He would watch over her and guard her as long as he lived, but what would become of her if he should die?
This last question was becoming every day more and more urgent. The exhausting oppressive heat and the protracted voyage were sapping his strength, and he knew it. The fresh sweet sea-breezes on which he had reckoned had failed him, and he was consciously nearer death than when he left England. He longed eagerly for life and health, that he might see his wife and child in happier circumstances before he died. To leave them thus seemed intolerable to him. What was he to do with his boy? He could not leave him in the care of a mother not yet delivered from the bondage of such a fatal sin. Yet to separate him harshly from her would almost certainly doom her to continue in it. If life might be spared to him only a few years longer, he would probably see her once more a fitting guardian for their child. The growing hope for her, the dim dread for himself—these two held alternate sway over him as he paced to and fro under the southern skies.