But Harold wouldn't—the play must be finished, he said, and he must take his part. Harold's face was resolute, his father said, his words full of determination, when he avowed his purpose to stay till his work was done. And really—it was one of the most amusing sides of my husband's character I ever saw—when Gordon told me this his face fairly shone with pride. "The lad wouldn't forsake his duty," he said, as proudly as if Harold had been a foreign missionary instead of a play-actor; it was too funny to hear Gordon, with the views I knew him to hold about the theatre, belauding Harold because he wouldn't leave his post even at such a time as that.
So his father came back and resumed his place beside me. No word escaped his lips, but his eyes spoke the language of Everlasting Life as they were fixed a moment on my own. Uncle gazed at him—I suppose everybody did—but he knew that question or answer had no place in an hour such as this. And the curtain rolled up again—ah, me! how different now—and my hand was once more in Gordon's; but now I could feel the strain of gratitude and gladness that his happy heart was chanting. Our eyes were fixed on Harold only; I heard his voice amid that closing revelry—and my wild heart leaped in my bosom as though my son were born to me anew.
We were home at last. In the hotel, I mean, in Gordon's room and mine—for uncle had gone to rest. Only a little tiny bit of a room it was—but it was home; for we had Harold—and Dorothy was asleep in an adjoining room.
Gordon went out for a little. He said he wanted to enquire about trains—but I knew why he left us alone together. Gordon was an eloquent minister—but I was Harold's mother. And there are queens and priestesses, as well as kings and priests, unto God. Which Gordon knew.
It was while he and I were still alone with each other that Harold broke out with bitter plaint of penitence, so full of gusty sorrow, of self-reproach, of broken vows and purposes. I shall not, must not, write it down. It was all holy to me, and shall ever be; for the breath of spring was in it, and I knew then that God had brought him back, all back, the broken heart sick of the sin and shame that he now hated and deplored. My son was alive again, I knew in that moment; lost had he been indeed—but God had kept aglow his memory of the Home-light that never had gone out.
"I couldn't tell this to anybody else," the faltering voice said as his face was hidden on my bosom—"not even to father—what I'm going to tell you now. But I'm going to——"
"Tell it to God, my son," and I kissed the quivering lips.
Gordon came back just after that. I think he must have known our souls had come close to each other and to Him. For a great peace was on his face—and yet it shone with a kind of human happiness that I thought was truly spiritual. He simply didn't seem to think there was anything that needed reproach, or explanation, or forgiveness. He talked with Harold about his old friends, his old games, his old pursuits; and about what we would do, and see, before we returned to Hertford. Then pretty soon he said it was time we were all in bed, and, in the most natural way, that we would have worship before we separated. So he took the Bible. But, before he opened it, he started one of the old familiar psalms, just as we had always done at home.
"We'll sing the one hundred and twenty-sixth," he said, with something of grandeur in his manner that reminded me of Harold's grandfather; for that is one of the sublimities of the Scottish race. I have heard both Gordon and his father declare that something could be found in the psalms to suit every occasion, no matter what. But I wondered what could express the emotion of such a time as this. "We'll sing the one hundred and twenty-sixth," Gordon repeated, already pitching the key to the "grave sweet melody" of a tune that bore the happy name of St. Andrew's. And we sat in silence as he sang
"When Zion's bondage God turned back
As men that dreamed were we;
Then filled with laughter was our mouth
Our tongue with melody."