Live with them,
raise them with you."
She looked up, white; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for her
natural food of love.
"Is it my work?"
"It is your work. Listen to me, Margret," softly. "Who cares
for you? You stand alone to-night. There is not a single human
heart that calls you nearest and best. Shiver, if you will,--it
is true. The man you wasted your soul on left you in the night
and cold to go to his bride,--is sitting by her now, holding her
hand in his."
He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she should
understand.
"Do you think you deserved this of God? I know that yonder on the
muddy road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just; that
you had done right, and this was your reward. I know that for
these two years you have trusted in the Christ you worship to
make it right, to give you your heart's desire. Did He do it?
Did He hear your prayer? Does He care for your weak love, when
the nations of the earth are going down? What is your poor hope
to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will
be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God?
O Christ!--if there be a Christ,--help me to save it!"
He looked up,--his face white with pain. After a time he said to
her,--
"Help me, Margret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard.
Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me,
this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to this
work.
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