"Of course not, at least I should hope not; it is the absurdity of their professions, in view of such lives, to which I was trying to call your attention."
"Well, suppose we grant that their professions are absurd, what have you and I gained what has that to do with the personal question which rests between us and Christ?"
"Oh well," he said, sneering, "that is begging the question. Of course if the life is such an important one, the fruit ought to be worth noticing. Anyhow, I don't intend to swell the army of pretenders until they can make a better showing than they do now."
It was precisely in this way that he swung around the subject, always glancing away from a personal issue. You have doubtless heard them, these arguers, going over the same ground, again and again, exactly as though it had never been touched before. Louise was sore-hearted; she began to question, miserably, as to whether she had made a mistake. Was not this talk worse than profitless? Was he not even being strengthened in his own follies? She had so wanted to help him, and he really seemed farther away from her reach than when they had started on this walk. She was glad when they neared their own gate. John had relapsed into silence, whether sullen or otherwise she had no means of knowing. They had walked rapidly at last, and gained upon Dorothy and Lewis, who were now coming up the walk.
"Good-night," said Louise gently.
"Good-night," he answered. Then, hesitating, "I'm rather sorry, on your account, that I am such a good-for-nothing. Perhaps, if I had had a specimen of your sort about me earlier, it might have made a difference; but I'm soured now beyond even your reach. I'd advise you to let me go to decay as fast as possible;" and he pushed past her into the hall, up the stairs, leaving her standing in the doorway waiting for her husband.
Meantime, in silence and embarrassment, Lewis and Dorothy had trudged along. At least he was embarrassed; he had no means of knowing what she was feeling, save that the hand which rested on his arm trembled. This very fact disturbed him; why had she need to be afraid of him? Was he a monster, that she should shrink and tremble whenever he spoke to her? Still, conscience told him plainly that he had never exerted himself greatly to make her feel at ease with him. Then he fell to thinking over her emotionless weariness of a life. What was there for her anywhere in the future more than in the present? She would, probably, stagnate early, if the process were not already completed, and settle down into hopeless listlessness. Much he knew about life, especially the life of a girl not yet nearly out of her teens!
Still his view of it gave him a feeling of unutterable pity for the sister of whom he had hitherto thought but little connectedly, except to admit a general disappointment in her. Now he began to say to himself, "What if she should awaken to a new life in Christ? What a restful, hopeful life it might give her! She will never be able to do much for him, but what wonderful things he could do for her!" This was a new standpoint from which to look at it. Heretofore he had thought of her as one who would be nothing but a passive traveller to heaven, even if she were converted, and therefore not of much consequence! Was that it? Oh no; he shrank from that way of putting it. He had really not been so indifferent as he had been hopeless. If he had put the thought into words, he would have had to admit that there had not seemed to him enough of Dorothy for Christ to save! Something very like that, at least. Still he had honestly meant to try to say a word to her. Not so much for her sake, nor even for the Master's sake, but because of his wife's eager face and earnest voice. He had determined to talk pleasantly to her, to tell her some bright and interesting thing connected with his long absences from home, and then, when he got her self-forgetful and interested, drop just a word for Christ in a very faint and faithless sort of hope that it might, possibly some time, bear fruit.
He did nothing of the sort. Some feeling, new and masterful, took possession of him, made him have a desire for fruit; made him anxious, for the sake of this desolate outlook in her life, to brighten it with Christ. So the first words he spoke, and they were spoken very soon after the walk commenced, were,—
"Do you know, Dorothy, I can't help wishing with all my heart that you belonged to Christ!"