"Never mind why—you shall see. Kneel down, Angus."
He knelt, wondering still; she removed his hat with her now ungloved hands and threw it on the grass.
"Darling, I love you," she said, "and I know you are good and true. And I was so proud this morning when you were to be ordained to God's holy service—and it must not be broken off like this. Oh, Angus, when I saw your face this morning, I feared so that your whole soul would turn to bitterness and give itself up to hatred of that man. But it must not be."
"Margaret, stop! Surely you must know——"
"Be still, Angus—it must not be. All this anguish must break in blessing. Sorrow such as yours will be either a curse or a blessing—and it must not be a curse. God's love can turn it into blessing—and so can mine. We shall take up our cross together and shall see it blossom yet. Oh, Angus, if I can forgive him, you can, for you are dearer to me than to anybody else." Her hands were now upon his head:—"Angus Strachan, I ordain you to suffer and to wait. I ordain you to God's service in the name of love and sorrow and God—and they're all the same name—and I love you so—and you are an elder now. Oh, dear Lord, take care of our love and make us true—and patient. And bless our sorrow and make it sweet and keep us near the Man of Sorrows. Amen."
The white dimpled hands rested long upon the auburn locks of the still bended head, and her compassion flowed through them to the more than orphaned heart. It was the same head, she thought, and the same heart, as had once been blessed by a mother's anguished hand, doomed, as that mother knew, to the world's unreasoning scorn.
Her own peace seemed to pass into his troubled soul; the anointed head bowed lower and the yoke was laid upon him, never to be withdrawn. But its bitterness was gone, purged from it by those white dimpled hands, and the fragrance of a soul's sweeter life was there instead. For there had come to him that great moment when secret rebellion turns to secret prayer, craving blessing from the very hand that had smitten him with lameness; and Angus was making his ordination vows to God.
Upon that grassy knoll, under heaven's tender sky, with unmoving lips and broken heart he made the great surrender. Patience he promised God; and in return he begged the forgiving heart, the strength to bear his lifelong load, and the aid which might enable him to attain that miracle of grace when he yet should pray for the man whose sin had foreclothed his life in shame.
"Let us go back," said Margaret, at length, for the sun was westering.
"Yes, we will go back," said he, for in the gentle words he heard the bugle call; "we will go back." But first he kissed the ordaining hands, anointed as they had been to cast out evil from the heart and to bind up its brokenness.