“Will you not go on with your reading? I should like to hear it. I really should.”
She was a little taken aback, but she looked inquiringly at her husband, who bowed silently.
“I was just beginning the fifty-ninth psalm. We have been reading the book through. Mr. Harley finds great comfort in it,” she explained.
Her eyes fell to the printed page and her clear, sweet voice took up the ancient tale of vengeance.
“Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men.
“For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.
“Thou, therefore, O Lord God of Hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah.”
Ridgway glanced across in surprise at the strong old man lying on the lounge. His hands were locked in front of him, and his gaze rested peacefully on the fair face of the child reading. His foe’s mind swept up the insatiable cruel years that lay behind this man, and he marveled that with such a past he could still hold fast to that simple faith of David. He wondered whether this ruthless spoiler went back to the Old Testament for the justification of his life, or whether his credo had given the impulse to his career. One thing he no longer doubted: Simon Harley believed his Bible implicitly and literally, and not only the New Testament.
“For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.
“Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth.”