The Witness Part 26

A cold disappointment settled down upon him. She had not understood. He looked at her, troubled, disappointed, baffled. It was not possible, then, for him to bring her this knowledge that he wished so much for her to have. It was a thing that one could tell about to one's friends, but could not give to them. It was something they must take for themselves, must feel and see by themselves! With new illumination he turned to her and said in a voice wonderfully tender for a man so young:

"Listen, Gila! I have been clumsy in telling you! You cannot see it just from my poor story. But He will come to _you_ and you shall see Him for yourself! I will ask Him to come to you as He has to me!"

Again that piercing scream, and with a quick, lithe movement, almost like a serpent, she slid from his side and stood quivering in the middle of the room, her eyes flashing, her body shrinking, both little hands clenched at her throat.

"Stop!" she cried. "Stop!" and screamed again, stamping her foot. "I won't hear such horrible things! I _won't have_ any spirits coming around me! I _won't see_ them! Do you understand? I _hate_ that Presence, and _I hate you_ when you talk like that!"

She had worked herself into a fine tantrum, but there was behind it all a horrible fear and shrinking from the Christ he had described, the shrinking of the naked soul in the garden from its G.o.d. The drooping, child-like eyes were wide with horror now; the sweet, innocent mouth was trembling with emotion. She was anything but Solveig-like. If Courtland caught a glimpse of the real Gila through it all he laid it to his own clumsy way of handling the delicate mystery of a girl's shy nature. He saw she was wrought up beyond her own control, and he was so far under the illusion that he blamed himself only, and set himself to calm her.

He coaxed her to sit down again, put his strong hand on her quivering one, marveling in tenderness at its smallness and softness. He talked to her in quiet, soothing tones, grave and rea.s.suring. He promised he would talk no more about the Presence till she was ready to hear. He was leaning toward her in his strength, his arm behind her, his hand on her shoulder, with a sheltering, comforting touch when he told her this, as one would treat a little child in trouble, and, suddenly, like the sun flashing out from behind the clouds, she lifted up her teary face and smiled, nestling toward him, her head falling down on his shoulder with a sigh like a tired, satisfied child, her face lifted temptingly so close, so very close to his.

It was then that he did the thing that bound him to what followed. He stooped and laid his lips upon her warm little trembling ones and kissed her. The thrill that shot through him was like the click of shackles snapping shut about one's wrist; like the turning of the key in a prison-house; the shooting of the bolt to one's dark cell. He held her there and touched her soft hair with his finger-tips; touched her cool little forehead with his lips; touched her warm, soft lips again and felt the thrill; but something was the matter. He felt the surging forces within him rise and batter at the gate of his self-control. He wanted to say, "Gila, I love you!" but the words stuck in his throat.

What had he done? Whence came this sense of defeat and loss? The Presence! Where was the Presence? Yes--there--but withdrawn, standing apart in sadness, while he sat comforting and caressing one who had just said she hated Him! But that was because she had not seen Him yet! She was frightened because she did not understand! He would yet be able to make her see! He would implore the Presence to come to her; to break down her prejudice; to let her have the vision also!

So he sat and comforted her, yet longed to get away and think it out.

This sense of depression and bitter disappointment hung about him like a burden; now, of all times, when he should be happy if ever he was to be!

But Gila was nestling close, patting his sleeve, talking little, sweet nonsensical words as if she had really been the little child she seemed.

He looked down at her and smiled. How small she was, and child-like. He must remember that she was very young, and probably had never had much bringing-up. Serious things frightened her! He must go gently and lead her! It made him feel old and responsible to look at her--tender, beautiful girl!--enveloped as she was in the garment of his ideal of womanhood.

Yet there was something about it all that drove him from her. He must think it out and come to some clear understanding with himself. As it was, it seemed to him as if he were trying to take peace within himself while before him lay a lot of his own broken vows. He had vowed to himself to bring her to the Christ and he had not accomplished it.

Instead she had declared she hated him and the Presence both; yet here he sat making love to her and ignoring it all! He felt a distinct weakness in himself, but did not know how to remedy it.

When he finally got away from Gila and walked feverishly toward the university, he felt as if his soul was crying out within him for a solution of the perplexities in which he was involved. By his side walked a Friend, but there seemed to be a veil between them. Ever mingling with his thoughts came the sweet, tear-wet face of Gila, with its Solveig-look, pleading up at him from the mist of the evening, luring him as it were to forget the Christ. He pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his eyes, told himself that he had been through a good deal that evening and his nerves were not as strong as they used to be since the fire.

He was surprised to find that it was still early when he got back to his room, barely half past nine. Yet it had seemed as if it must be near midnight, so much had happened.

What he would have thought if he could have known that at that very minute Tennelly was seated in the chair in the library that he had so lately vacated, and Gila, posing bewitchingly in the firelight, merrily talking him over, is hard to say.

Not that they were saying anything against him--of course not! Tennelly would never have stood for that, and Gila knew better. But Gila had no intention of giving Tennelly any idea how far matters had gone between herself and Courtland. As for Tennelly, he would have been the most amazed of the three if he could have known all. He had been Courtland's intimate friend for so many years--years count like ages when one is in college--that he thought he knew him perfectly. He would have sworn to it that Courtland's friendship with Gila had not progressed further than a mere first stage of friendship. He admitted that Gila had an influence over his friend, but that it had really gone heart-deep seemed impossible. Courtland was a man of too much force, even young as he was, and too much maturity of thought, to be permanently entangled with a girl like Gila. That was what Tennelly thought before Gila had turned her eyes toward him and flung a few of her silver gossamer threads about his soul. For always in those first days of his visits to Gila it had been in Courtland's behalf; first, to see if she was good enough for a friend of his friend, and next to get her partnership in the scheme of turning Courtland's thoughts away from "morbid" things.

But that night for the first time Tennelly saw the Solveig in Gila, and was stirred on his own account. The childish blue frock and the simple frilled 'kerchief did their work with his high soul as well; and he sat, charmed, and watched her. After all, there was more to her than he had thought, or else she was a consummate actress! So Tennelly sat late before the fire, till Gila knew that he would turn aside again often to see her for himself, and then she let him go.

CHAPTER XXV

Gila took herself off to a house-party the very next day, with only a tinted, perfumed note, like a flutter of painted wings, to explain that the b.u.t.terfly had melted into the pleasant sunshine to taste honey in other flowers for a time.

In a way her going was a relief to Courtland. He didn't understand himself. There was something wrong, and he wanted to find out what before he saw her again.

It was while he was in this troubled state that he stumbled upon the Bible as something that might possibly bring light.

He had studied it before in his biblical literature cla.s.ses, and found it much like other books, a literary cla.s.sic, a wonderful gem of beauty in its way, a rare collection of legends, proverbs, allegories, and the like. But looking at it now, with the possible hypothesis that it was the Word of G.o.d, all was changed.

He remembered once seeing a tray of gems in an exhibit, and among them one that looked like a common pebble. The man who had charge of the exhibit took the little pebble and held it in the palm of his hand for a moment, when it suddenly began to glow and sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow and rival all the other gems. The man explained that only the warmth of the human hand could cause this marvelous change. You might lay the stone under the direct rays of a summer sun, yet it would have no effect until you took it in your hand, when it would give forth its beauty once more.

It was like this when he began to read the Bible with the idea that it was the Word of G.o.d. Things flashed out at him that fairly dazzled his thoughts; living, palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and came to see that unbelief was something a man was responsible for, not a condition which settled down upon him, and he could not help. Belief was a deliberate act of the will. It was not a theory, nor an intellectual affirmation; it was a position taken, which necessarily must pa.s.s into action of some kind. He began to see that without this deliberate belief it was impossible for man to know the things which are purely spiritual. It was the condition necessary for revelation. He was fascinated with the pursuit of this new study.

Wittemore came to his room one evening, his face grayer, more strained and horse-like than ever. Wittemore's mother had made another partial recovery and insisted on his return to college. He was plodding patiently, breathlessly along in his cla.s.ses, trying to catch up again.

He had paid Courtland back part of the money he borrowed, and was gradually paying the rest in small instalments. Courtland hated to take it, but saw that it would hurt him to refuse it; so he had fallen into a habit of stopping now and then to talk about his settlement work, just to show a little friendly interest in him. Wittemore had responded with a quiet wistfulness and a patient hovering in the background that touched the other man's heart deeply.

"I've just come from my rounds," said Wittemore, sitting down, apologetically, on the edge of a chair. "That old lady you carried the medicine to--she's been telling me how you made tea and toast!" He paused and looked embarra.s.sed.

"Yes," smiled Courtland. "How's she getting on? Any better?"

"No," said Wittemore, the hopeless gray look settling about his sensitive mouth. "She'll never be any better. She's dying!"

"Well," said Courtland, "that'll be a pleasant change for her, I guess."

Wittemore winced. Death had no pleasant a.s.sociations for him. "She told me you prayed for her! She wants you to do it again!"

It was plain he thought the praying had been a sort of joke with Courtland.

Courtland looked up, the color rising slowly in his face. He saw the accusation in Wittemore's sad eyes.

"Of course I know what you think of such things. I've heard you in the cla.s.s. I don't believe in them any more myself, either, now."

Wittemore's voice had a trail of hopelessness in it. "But somehow I couldn't quite bring myself to make a mockery of prayer, even to please that old woman. You see _my mother still believes in prayer_!" He spoke apologetically, as of a dear one who had lacked advantages.

"But _I do_ believe in prayer!" said Courtland, earnestly. "What you heard me say in cla.s.s was before I understood."

"Before you understood?" Wittemore looked puzzled.

"Listen, Wittemore. Things are all different now. I've met Jesus Christ and I've got my eyes open. I was blind before, but since I've felt the Presence everything has been different."

And then he told the story of his experience. He did not make a long story of it. He gave brief facts, and when it was finished Wittemore dropped his face into his hands and groaned:

"I'd give anything if I could believe all that again," came from between his long bony fingers. "It's breaking my mother's heart to have me leave the faith!"

The slick hay-like hair fell in wisps over his hands, his high, bony shoulders were hunched despairingly over Courtland's study table. He was a great, pitiful object.

"Why don't you, then?" said Courtland, getting up and going to the closet for his overcoat. "It's up to you, you know. You _can_! G.o.d can't do it for you, and of course there's nothing doing till you've taken that step. I found that out!"

"But how do you reconcile things, calamities, disasters, war, suffering, that poor old woman lying on her attic bed alone? How do you reconcile that with the goodness of G.o.d?"

"I don't reconcile it. It isn't my business. I leave that to G.o.d. If I understood all the whys and wherefores of how this universe is run I'd be great enough to be a G.o.d myself."

"But if G.o.d is omniscient I can't see how He can let some things go on!

He must be limited in power or He'd never let some things happen if He's a good G.o.d!" Wittemore's voice had a plaintive sound.

"Well, how do you know that? In the first place, how can you be sure what is a calamity? And say, did it ever strike you that some of the things we blame on G.o.d are really up to us? He's handed over His power for us to do things, and we haven't seen it that way; so the things go undone and G.o.d is charged with the consequences."

"I wish I could believe that!" said Wittemore.

"You can! When you really want to, enough, you will! Come on, let's get that prayer down to the old lady! I'm sort of an amateur yet, but I'll do my best."