Gradually this keen-edged truth seemed to penetrate every fibre of her being. This very church, cobweb-trimmed, musty-smelling, was for the time being her individual working ground, to be preferred above her chief joy! Nay, the very red curtain that swayed back and forth, blown by the north wind which found its way through a hole in the window, and which she hated, became a faded bit of individual property for which she was, in a sense, responsible.
She walked home almost in silence. The girls about her chattered of the sermon; pronounced it splendid, and admitted that they would just a little rather hear Uncle Eben preach than anybody else, and it was no wonder that his people almost worshiped him, and had raised his salary only last month. Claire listened, or appeared to, and answered directly put questions with some show of knowledge as to what was being discussed; but for herself, Dr. Ansted had gone out of her thoughts. She liked his voice, and his manner, and his elocution, but the force behind all these had put them all aside, and the words which repeated themselves to her soul were these: "If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy!" What then? Why, then I am false to my covenant vows, and the possibilities are that I am none of His.
Mrs. Foster was in the hall when the party from the church arrived. Wide open as to eyes and mental vision, quiet as to voice and manner, she had staid at home and ministered to the victim of sick headache. She had been tender and low-voiced, and deft-handed, and untiring; but during the lulls when there had been comparative quiet, she had bowed her head and prayed that the sad-hearted young music-teacher might meet Christ in his temple that evening, and come home up-lifted. She did not know how it was to be done.
She knew nothing about the Ansted uncle save that he was an ambassador of Christ, and she knew that the Lord could use the shabbily-dressed ambassador of the morning as well as he; she did not rely on the instruments, except as they lay in the hand of God. She did not ask for any special thought to be given to Claire Benedict; faith left that, too, in the hand of the Lord. She only asked that she should be ministered unto, and strengthened for the work, whatever it was that he desired of her. And she needed not to question, to discover that her prayer, while she had yet been speaking, was answered. The music-teacher did not bring home the same thoughts that she had taken away with her.
She went swiftly to her room. The fire had been remembered, and was burning brightly.
The first thing she did was to feed its glowing coals with the letter that had been commenced to mamma and Dora during the afternoon. Not that there had been anything in it about her heaped-up sorrows, or her miserable surroundings, or her gloomy resolves, but in the light of the present revelation she did not like the tone of it.
She went to her knees, presently, but it would have been noticeable there that she said almost nothing about resolves, or failures. Her uttered words were brief; were, indeed, only these: "Dear Christ, it is true I needed less of self and more of thee. Myself has failed me utterly; Jesus, I come to thee."