And Pattie had known of no remedy, no saving power, till she knew Tom, and Tom had said, "Pray for her, my girl. Christ can save her!"
So Pattie had prayed, not understanding how help could come, but because Tom believed in it, and, strange answer as it seemed, an illness had fallen upon her mother and she had been taken away to the Workhouse Infirmary.
Pattie remembered to this day the very saucepan she was washing when she realized that this was the answer to her prayer, that her poor mother had been saved from herself, and taken to a place where she would be cared for, and kept from the terrible snare of drink.
"And now," Tom had said when she told him, "we must teach her about the love of Jesus."
So month after month since then, Tom had gone regularly to the Infirmary and read the gospel's message to Pattie's mother, for she was still there and never likely to come out, and the poor woman had come to look for him and to love him as her own son. Pattie wondered sometimes whether he still went, but on the one occasion that she had seen her mother since she gave Tom up, she had been too proud to ask.
Pattie never saw a woman come out of a public-house without an involuntary shiver at her heart, and now here, before her very eyes, came Tom's own sister, Jim Adams's wife!
Pattie recognised her in an instant, and she recognised Pattie, and though Pattie would only too willingly have passed on, Jane stood in her path and barred the way.
"Well! Pattie Paul," said she insolently. "I want to know what you mean by it."
"I don't know what you mean," said Pattie, trying to pass her, but Jane dodged her.
"Oh don't you?" she cried. "What do you mean by using my brother like you have, letting him dangle after you, and pretending you was going to marry him, and getting presents out of him?"