Margie's venture

by Mary E. Ropes

It is a strange fact, even among habitually prayerful and devout Christians, that they are generally much surprised when their prayers are answered. So few of us have faith enough to believe that God can and will grant us anything and everything that is good for us. And although the aunt and half-sister prayed earnestly for their truant's return, it could hardly be said that they expected it, and indeed they often spoke of her as of one really lost to them.

But one day there came a telegram which seemed to break with startling suddenness the long silence. It ran thus:—

"Am in the greatest trouble. May I come home to you, auntie?—MABEL."

And the answer that went flashing back along the wires was this:—

"Come, and welcome. Only love and sympathy await you from all.—AUNTIE."

But could this thin, white-faced woman, with dim, hollow eyes and a careworn stoop in her shoulders, be indeed the splendid girl who, in all the pride of her beauty, had gone from them only so short a time before?

This was the question that Margie mutely asked herself when Mabel stepped from the cab and with faltering feet once more crossed the threshold of the home where she had spent most of her life. But greater still was Margie's surprise when Mabel pushed open the morning-room door, and staggering across the floor, threw herself down at her aunt's feet in a passion of grief and repentance.

"Oh, auntie, auntie dear, can you ever, ever forgive me?" she cried, sobbing. "God has sent me shame and sorrow, and now—oh, now at last I know what your pain must have been—the pain you suffered through me—through my wickedness, my ingratitude! And Margery too;" for, as Mabel turned, she saw the girl standing near. "Oh, Margery, I did you a grievous wrong, and God knows I have been sorely punished. I tried to deceive, and I have been deceived. I treated you with cruelty and insult, and cruelty and insult have come to me too, but not more than I deserve."

And then followed a story of wrong done and pain suffered; a sad story, which we will give only in outline. After about three months of touring, Mabel had received an offer of marriage from an actor in the same company. The man was handsome, gentlemanly, a star in his profession, and seemed devoted to her; so she accepted his offer, and they were married after a very brief engagement. They continued with Mr. Digby until he returned to London, where he dismissed them with the rest of the company; and Mabel and her husband, Victor Cunliffe, took lodgings in one of the London suburbs, there to wait until they could obtain another engagement.

But one night Victor did not come home, and in the course of the next day or two, poor Mabel heard news of him that convinced her that she had married a false and heartless man, and that he had deserted her, leaving her penniless and alone in a strange place. And later on, through a mutual acquaintance, came the tidings that Mabel had no right to her married name, for Victor Cunliffe had a wife already in the United States, and thither he had just returned.