“I am not your enemy, Mrs. Farrar,” he said. “I never shall be. Whatever happens you shall have sympathy and friendship, both from my mother and from me, and such help and comfort as we may be permitted to give to you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Westgate! You and your mother have always been good to us.”
“And we shall continue to be to the best of our ability. Good-bye!”
When Westgate had gone she turned again to her husband and demanded that he tell her what had happened. He did so. He told her plainly of the request for his resignation, and of his refusal to consider it.
“Oh, why didn’t you do what they asked of you?” she wailed. “It would have been so much better than keeping up this horrid fight. I am so sick and tired of it. If we could only get away from this dreadful place!”
“It’s a splendid place, Alice. It’s the field of Armageddon for us. The Lord’s battle is on. Would you have me branded as a deserter?”
“I don’t know, Robert. I only know that I’m so miserable. If we could only live somewhere, in any little place, at peace, and let some one else do the fighting. You said, one day, that I shouldn’t have married a minister. It hurt me then, but I’ve thought a good deal about it since,—and now I know it’s true. I’m such a hopeless drag on you.”
“You’re a very great comfort to me, dear.”
It was not true, and he knew in his heart that it was not true; but he could say no less and be a Christian gentleman.
“Thank you, Robert! And I’ve thought a good many times since then that if you only had a wife like Ruth Tracy, what a help and blessing she’d be to you.”