"Whatever do you mean?" and Phebe, in spite of her heartache, was obliged to smile at Bessie's dramatic att.i.tude.

"Mother thinks I am soundly asleep under the blankets by now. But how could I sleep without one sight of you?--haven't caught a glimpse of you all day. Mother will lock the door at ten o'clock, and if I am not in before then I shall have to sleep on the clothes line in the back yard.

It is all up ready."

CHAPTER VII

THE LAME SHEPHERD

Late the next evening Stephen Collins called on Phebe again, still hoping his offer of help would be accepted.

They were alone together in the back parlour. "I do hope, Mrs. Waring, you will not think me too interfering, but for old friendship's sake I could not keep from coming. It grieves me so to think you are placed as you are and that you will not allow me to help you." He looked her steadily in the face, and she returned his gaze long enough to be quite sure he was not one of those who condemned her. Yet, in spite of that, her woman's heart craved for the a.s.surance of word as well as look.

"But why should you trouble, Mr. Collins? There are plenty of people who will say it serves me right, and that I must have been to blame"--the words seemed as if they would not come--"that I was not--that it was not an easy thing to live with me--to get on with me."

Stephen Collins rose from his chair with an impetuous movement, and went and stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelpiece. "Of course," he exclaimed, "the world will talk, but any one who knows you would fling back that accusation as a lie!"

They wore both silent for a minute. Phebe was feeling a relief and gladness no words she could think of would match. At last she said: "It makes a difference, too, if it is known that I could have gone with him if I had chosen. Ralph spoke to me about going two months ago."

"It would have been very difficult for Ralph to have taken you and the children with him, seeing he had no home prepared to take you to."

"Yes, that is so; but still he wanted us to go."

Stephen was looking intently into the fire, evidently weighing some thought over.

"Perhaps I had better tell you, Ralph secured his berth to Sydney three months ago."

"One berth?"

"Yes."

"May I ask how you know?"

"I made inquiries, as I thought it would rest your mind to know exactly where he had gone."

"And you think----" began Phebe.

"I think," interrupted Stephen, anxious to save her all the pain he could, "that it was not his intention to take you with him." Only G.o.d knew what it cost that man to say those words; it seemed to him that he was giving this crushed woman an extra stab, but it was only to save her all he could of future pain. He wanted to keep her from building on the hope that her husband would send for her, for he believed in his heart that Ralph was only too glad to be relieved from the responsibility of providing for wife and children.

"Perhaps it was much better he should go with a free hand," was all Phebe said. She wanted very much to ask Stephen to tell her all he knew, all he thought, but dared not do so; something held her back--something which told her there was a wound in that man's heart she might not touch nor look upon.

"He will send for me some day," she said, after another pause; but still Stephen did not answer. It was such a hard struggle to keep himself well in hand--so hard to keep from cursing the man who had stolen his love from him, and who, because she had not brought him the dowry he had hoped for, had basely deserted her!

Phebe thought he was busy turning over ways and means as to how she was to run the business; instead of that he was praying for strength and calmness.

She got up from her seat and, standing by him, put her hand on his arm and said gently, "Stephen!"--that was how she used to call him--"you must not trouble about me. I shall battle through all right. G.o.d will help me. See these beautiful words I came across yesterday," and she picked up the Bible and read the words over again.

He took the Bible and looked at the page, but the words were all in a mist. "There is not the slightest doubt but that He will help you," he managed to say.

"My heart is not perfect," she continued, "but He knows I want it to be."

"But don't forget, Phebe--Mrs. Waring," he said, turning towards her, as they both stood facing the fire, "that G.o.d works through human agents--very often does so."

"I know He does," she replied, "and I think He prompted my sister last night to offer me the use of her money. I would have said 'Yes' at once, only I know it would vex father. Still, if no other way opens I shall accept her kind offer. So you see things will shape themselves--no, be shapened--all right. Reynolds is such a good 'stay-by' for me, and a commercial this morning let me order a lot of things, although I could not pay his account."

"Oh, yes," he answered; "I know very well you will be a downright successful woman of business. Only, you know," with a smile, "I wanted to have a share in the success!"

"And so you will have," she exclaimed. "Do you think it can ever go for nothing to have a friend like you--some one who believes in me?"

He took her hand in both of his, and, in a voice full of emotion, said: "Phebe, you were always wise and far-sighted--that was why you always won in the games we played together. Your plan is the wise one. It would not do for us to be in any way connected--not even in business matters.

But promise me if ever you should want my help you will send for me!"

"I promise," she said, in a low voice; and then they parted: he to go right out, apparently, from her life for years; and yet, though she was long in learning it, never a week pa.s.sed by but in some way or other his life touched hers.

After he had gone it came upon the lonely woman with overwhelming force the sense of what she had lost, but with a bravery only a pure heart could know she put the thought of it from her and turned resolutely to her ledgers.

Stephen Collins' way home led past Mrs. Colston's cottage. It was the desire for a little bit of human sympathy which led him to knock at her door. He could not unburden his heart to his mother--not that she would be unable or unwilling to understand and comfort, but because he was too chivalrous to burden her with any fresh trouble. He hardly realised it was sympathy he was wanting. Perhaps he might have resented such an idea if it had been presented to him in words, feeling that such a sorrow as his was too sacred for human sympathy; but at least there was the desire to talk over some of it with somebody, and to feel the nearness of sympathy. It surely was this same desire which bade Jesus so earnestly to request the three disciples to watch with him under the shadow of the olives!

Mrs. Colston was busy at her work as usual. A big lad was turning the handle of the mangle, but she sent him home when she saw who her visitor was. Work at once entirely ceased, and the two sat together by the fire, each strangely silent. Mrs. Colston seemed to feel that there was something on his mind which he wished to unburden to her, but knew no way in which she could help him to begin. At last she hit upon an idea.

"I don't suppose, Mr. Collins, you have had your supper," she exclaimed, rising from her chair with a kind of jump. "The idea of me not thinking of that before! and I've got the loveliest pork pie you ever tasted,"

and in a few minutes there was the refreshing fragrance of coffee in the room and a dainty supper laid on the little round table. Mrs. Colston had always a strong belief in keeping the body well nourished because of its great influence on the mind and heart. "So had the Lord Jesus," she often used to say; "don't you remember how He gave the plain hint to those parents that the girl would need food, and to the disciples about the crowd! And it was just lovely what He said to those fishermen on that early morning when they were cold and wet: 'Come and have something to eat.' Why, when the Lord wanted to give us a bright bit about Heaven He had to bring in a supper party."

For all that, Stephen did not eat much, though there is no doubt the fact of a meal being about does help conversation, and to a certain extent raises the spirits.

At last Stephen got near the secret of his visit. "Mrs. Colston"--his face was turned towards the fire--"suppose a shepherd out walking, who had become lame--could only walk on crutches--should come across on a dark night a lost lamb--a lamb he had loved dearly. What could he do? If he put the crutches down he could not carry it to its home? If you met a man like that what would you tell him to do?"

"I should tell him to speak a few love-words to the lamb, and then hurry away to the nearest cottage and ask the man there to return with him to the lamb and get the man to carry it home." The answer was given straight off, with all a woman's ready tact.

"And if he came to your house?" Stephen turned towards her eagerly.

"I might not be able to carry the lamb," she said, with a little laugh, "but I would certainly help the poor man all I could, and, at least, I'd try to carry it." Then she added: "Mr. Collins, you are the shepherd; but I don't know who the lamb is. Tell me all about it. I know you trust me or you wouldn't have come to me; and you know I'll do all I can for you."

"I know you will," and for the second time that evening he stretched out his hand to grasp another in a close grip. "The lamb is not on any hillside, but in a back parlour."

"Whose parlour?"

"A draper's."

"You don't mean to say it's my Miss Phebe?" bending anxiously towards him, trying to read all she could from his face.

"Yes."

"Is she ill?--I must go to her at once."

"Not ill in body, but heartsick, and in monetary difficulties."