They were but a quarter of a mile from home, but the distance seemed interminable to Rhoda as she sped on to the house. The familiar way appeared to lengthen as she ran; and when at last her hand touched the latch of the garden gate, her firmness suddenly broke down. She tottered as she reached the door, and then fell into John’s arms, crying out that Helen was coming.
The farmer sat in his large arm-chair. The Bible lay open on the table before him, for he had been gathering the old strength and sweetness from its pages. He had not guessed that the strength would so soon be needed. But it was his way to lay up stores for days of sorrow, and there was a look of quiet power in his face that helped those around him.
They carried Helen upstairs, and laid her on her bed. The lilac silk was dusty and blood-stained, the fragile lace soiled and torn. With tender hands Rhoda unclasped her glittering necklace and bracelets; the rings, too, slipped easily from the slight fingers. When those gay trinkets were out of sight, Rhoda’s heart was more at ease. Helen was their own Helen without them; the jewels had done their best to make her like a stranger. There was little to do then but to wait until the doctor arrived.
As it will be with the day of the Lord, so it often is with the day of trouble. It comes “as a snare.” Frequently, like the stag in the fable, we are looking for it in the very quarter from which it never proceeds. It steals upon us from another direction—suddenly, swiftly, “as a thief in the night.”
But the children of the kingdom are “not in darkness, that that day should overtake them as a thief.” They sleep, but their hearts wake; and there is light in their dwellings. Let the angels of death or of sorrow come when they will, they are ready to meet them. To the watchful and sober souls the Master’s messengers are never messengers of wrath. Ay, though they come with dark garments and veiled faces, they bring some token of Him who sends them. The garments “smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia;” the glory of celestial love shines through the veil.
When Helen opened her eyes and looked round upon them all, they knew that there was death in her face. They knew it even before the doctor arrived, and told them the hard truth. She might linger a day or two perhaps, just long enough for a leave-taking, and then she must set forth on her lonely journey. But how were they to tell her that she must go?
“What did the doctor say?” she asked, faintly, after a long, long silence. The day was breaking then, but they were still gathered round her bed—still waiting and watching with that new, calm patience that is born of great sorrow.
“Nelly,” said the farmer, bending his head down to hers, “‘The Master is come, and calleth for thee.’ The call is sudden, my dear, very sudden. But it’s the Master’s voice that speaks.”
First there was a startled, distressed look, but it passed away like a cloud. The brown eyes were full of eager inquiry.
“Must it be?” she whispered. “Ah, I see it must! Oh, I’m not ready—not nearly ready. There’s so much to be forgiven; if I could only know that He forgives me, I wouldn’t want to stay.”