He was so frank and sincere and grave that Ruth could hardly help being sincere also.
“I need help,” she said, raising her eyes for an instant to his, “but I do not imagine that you, or any human being, can give it me. I shall have to get a victory over my own heart before anything can help me. I am ashamed of myself, and disheartened. Things that I mean to do I utterly fail in, and things that above all others I don’t intend to do I drop into, almost of necessity, it seems to me.”
What a pity that this man, who wanted to help, had not been familiar with the old-time cry of the sin-sick soul, “For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do.” But he was not familiar with that book of the law of the human heart. Still he essayed to comfort.
“I think you are too hard on yourself. I told you that your father had made a confidant of me, and among other things he has repeatedly told me what a help and strengthener you were to him. He said that he never would have been able to carry this hard matter through but for your strong, unselfish words. It was of you he thought most, and when you were unselfish he felt that he could be.”
Ruth needed this crumb of comfort and yet it had its bitter side, and brought another rush of tears.
“He will never speak such words again,” she said, and her voice trembled. “I have failed him utterly. To-night he asked me to go to the prayer-meeting, and I refused. I said I could never go out with them anywhere, and that we ought to stay at home and hide our shame.”
And having broken through the wall of reserve to this degree poor Ruth gave way utterly, and dropped into a chair, weeping bitterly. Presently she said:
“I would give the world to be able to take it back again; but I can’t. I should have gone to the meeting to-night—there was no excuse. I have dishonored my Saviour as well as my father.”
Judge Burnham looked down at her in perplexed dismay. No definite purpose had been in his mind, beyond a very strange sympathy for her, and a desire to show it. But he did not in the least know how to deal with tears, nor with trouble which reached to so deep and solemn a place in the heart as this. He was one of those reverent, correct moralists, professing to honor the Bible as a very wise and a very good book, professing to respect religion and honor the name of God; and knowing no more about any of these subjects than that profession indicates when it goes no farther. How was he to comfort one whose bitterest tears were being shed because she had dishonored the Lord? He waited irresolute for a moment, then, as if a sudden and very brilliant thought had struck him, his face brightened.
“If that prayer-meeting would really be a source of help to you, Miss Erskine,” and he tried not to have his tone appear incredulous, though at that very moment he was occupied in wondering what it could possibly do for her, “why not reconsider your decision and attend it? I will see you safely there with pleasure, and I presume your coming would gratify your father in his present mood.”