The Angel of the Gila Part 8

"He was my first playfellow, and a fine one he was, too."

"How I envy him!"

"You mustn't interrupt me," she said demurely.

"I am penitent. Do proceed."

Then she told him, in brief, the story of her life, simple and sweet in the telling. She told him of the work done by her grandfather.

"He preaches, you tell me."

"Yes," she said, rambling on, "he is a graduate of Yale, and prepared to be a physician. But his heart drew him into the ministry, the place where he felt the Great Physician would have him be. Grandfather is a Friend, you know, a Quaker."

"So I understood."

"He had a liberal income, so it was possible for him to devote his entire time to the poor and distressed. He has been deeply interested in the Negro and American Indian, and in fact, in every one who is oppressed by his stronger brother."

"An unusual man."

"Very."

"How could you leave him? Did you not feel that your first duty was to him?"

"It _was_ hard to leave him," she said, while her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears; "but grandfather and I believe that opportunity to serve means obligation to serve. Besides, love is such a spiritual thing we can never be separated."

"Love is such a spiritual thing--" he repeated, and again, "Spiritual."

He was silent a moment, then he spoke abruptly.

"You have already been the salvation of at least one soul. I owe my soul to you."

"Oh, no, not to me," she protested. "That was G.o.d's gift to you from the beginning. It may have slumbered, but you had it all the while."

"What did your grandfather say to your coming to Gila?"

"When I told him of the call to come here, told him that within a radius of sixty miles there was no place of religious worship, he made no response, but sat with his head bowed. At last he looked up with the most beautiful smile you ever saw, and said, 'Go, my child, the Lord hath need of thee.'" Her voice trembled a little.

"He was right," said Kenneth earnestly. "The Lord has need of such as you everywhere. I have need of you. The people here have need of you.

Help us to make something of our lives yet, Miss Bright." There was no doubting his sincerity.

She had again risen to go.

"Don't go," he said. "I would like to tell you _my_ story, if you care to hear."

"I shall be glad to hear your story. I know it will not be as meager as mine."

"I wish," he said earnestly, "that I might measure up to your ideal of what a man should be. I cannot do that. But I can be honest and tell you the truth about myself.

"I belong to a proud, high-strung race of people. My father is like his forbears. He is a graduate of Cambridge; has marked literary ability.

"My mother is a society woman, once noted as a beauty at court. She craves admiration and must have it. That is all she cares for. She has never shown any affection for my father or me.

"I left England when I was twenty-two,--my senior year at Cambridge.

I've been in America eight years, and during that time I have received but two letters from home, and those were from my father."

"You must have felt starved."

"That's it," he said, "_starved_! I did feel starved. You see, Miss Bright, a fellow's home has much to do with his life and character.

What is done there influences him. Wine was served on our table. My parents partook freely of it; so did our guests. I have seen some guests intoxicated. We played cards, as all society people do. We played for stakes, also. You call that gambling. My mother's men admirers were mush-headed fools."

"Such conditions obtain in certain circles in this country, too. They are a menace to the American home," she said gravely.

"I was sent to Cambridge," he continued, "as my father and his father, and father's father before him, had been sent. I was a natural student and always did well in my work. But my drinking and gambling finally got me into trouble. I was fired. My father was so incensed at my dismissal he told me never to darken his doors again. He gave me money, and told me to leave at once for America.

"I went to my mother's room to bid her good-by. She stood before a mirror while her maid was giving the final touches to her toilet. She looked regal and beautiful as she stood there, and I felt proud of her. I told her what had happened, and that I had come to bid her good-by. She turned upon me pettishly, and asked me how I could mar her pleasure just as she was going to a ball. Her last words to me were, 'I hate to be disturbed with family matters!'"

"Did she bid you good-by?"

"No."

"Forget it," she urged. "All women are not like that. I hope you will find some rare woman who will be as a mother to you."

"Forget it!" he repeated bitterly. "I can't."

"But you will sometime. You came to America. What next?"

"Then I entered the School of Mines at Columbia, and took my degree the following year, after which I joined Mr. Clayton here. That was seven years ago."

"Did you know him in England?"

"Yes. During these intervening years I have frequented the saloons. I have drank some, gambled some, as I did at home. And I have mingled with disreputable men here, but not to lift them up. I have not cared, chiefly because I knew no one else cared."

His companion was silent.

"You despise me, Miss Bright," he continued. "I deserve your contempt, I know. But I would do anything in the power of man to do now, if I could undo the past, and have a life as blameless as your own."

He glanced at his companion.

"What a brute I have been," he exclaimed, "to pour my ugly story into your ears!"

"I am glad you told me," she a.s.sured him. She looked up with new sympathy and understanding. "You are going to live down your past now, Mr. Hastings. We'll begin here and now. You will not speak of this again unless it may be a relief to you. The matter will not cross my lips."

She flashed upon him a radiant smile. She believed in him. He could hardly comprehend it.

"You do not despise me? You forgive my past?" He looked into her face.

"It is G.o.d who forgives. Why should I despise whom G.o.d forgives?"

"If ever I find my way to G.o.d," he said in a low voice, "it will be through you."