And Judge Burnham turned away sighing, patient with his wife, for he saw that she was too wildly frightened to talk or act like a reasonable being.
Among all the comers and goers there was one who did not come. That was Mrs. Judge Erskine. Not that she would not have willingly been there both day and night; but poor Ruth, who had never recovered in the least from her early discomfort concerning the woman, in this time of her frenzy felt the dislike increasing to almost hatred. She tortured herself at times with imagining the exclamations that the odious grandmother would make over the change in her darling, until at last it grew to be almost an insanity to her; and she fiercely ordered that no word of any sort should be taken to her home. “Father shall not be needlessly troubled,” was outward reason enough, for Judge Erskine was not strong this season; so, beyond the knowledge that the child was not very well, was teething, and kept Ruth closely at home, the two people left in the old Erskine homestead together knew nothing.
Slowly yet surely, the Shepherd was reaching after his stray sheep. By degrees her mood and her prayers changed; they lost their fierceness, but not one whit of their will-power. She began to feel herself in the hands of God. She gave up her defiance, and came to him as a suppliant. She sat alone in the shadows of a long night of watching, and looked over her life, and saw plainly her mistakes, her wanderings, her sins. Then she fell on her knees beside that crib, one watching eye and listening ear intent on every change of expression or breathing in the darling, and then and there she proceeded to make terms with God. If he would only give her back her darling, her boy, she would live, oh such a different life!—a life of entire consecration. All she had, and was, and hoped to be, her husband, her baby—everything should be consecrated, be held second to his love. Long she knelt there praying, but no answering voice spoke peace to her heart. And the struggle, though changed in its form, went on and on by degrees, and Ruth with her long preoccupied heart was very slow to learn the lesson. She was made to understand that God had never promised to compromise with his own, never promised to hear a prayer which began with an “if.” Entire consecration meant all the ifs thrown down at the feet of the Lord, for him to control as he would. Solemnly his voice spoke to her heart, spoke as plainly as though the sound of it had echoed in the silent room: “And if I take your darling into my arms of infinite love, and shield him for you in heaven, what then?” And Ruth realized with a shudder that then, her heart said it would only be infinite mercy that could keep her from hating God! But when she realized this solemn, this awful truth, which proved rebellion in the heart that had long professed allegiance, God be thanked that she did not get up from her kneeling and go away again with the burden. She knelt still, and, with the solemn light of the All-seeing Eye flashing down into her soul, she confessed it all—her rebellion, her selfish determination to hold her treasure whether God would or not, her selfish desire to compromise, her cowardly, pitiful subterfuge of promising him that which was already his by right, if he would submit to her plans. The long, sad, sinful story was laid bare before him, and then her torn heart said: “Oh, Christ, I can not help it; I hold to my darling, and I can not give him up, even when I would. Oh, thou Saviour of human souls, even in their sinfulness, what shall I do?” Did ever such heart-cry go up to the Saviour of souls in vain?
You do not need me to tell you that before the dawn of the coming morning filled the room a voice of power had spoken peace. The plans, and the subterfuges, and the rebellings, and the “ifs,” all were gone. “As thou wilt,” was the only voice left in that thoroughly bared and bleeding heart.
It was even then that the shadow fell the darkest. When the doctor came next morning, for the first time he shook his head.
“Things do not look so hopeful as they did, here,” he said.
And Judge Burnham, turning quickly toward his wife, looking to see her faint or lose her reason (he hardly knew which phase of despair to expect), saw the pale, changed face.
“Is there no hope, Doctor?” and her voice though low, was certainly calmer than it had been for days.
“Well,” said the Doctor, relieved at her method of receiving his warning, “I never like to say that. While there is life there is hope, you know; but the fact is, I am disappointed in the turn that the trouble has taken. I am a good deal afraid of results.”
Had Ruth spoken her thoughts, she would have said: “I have been awfully afraid of results for a week; but a voice of greater power than yours has spoken to me now. It rests with Him, not you; and I think he wants my darling.” What she did say was: