CHAPTER XXXI

“Where He stands,—the Arch Fear In a visible form.”

“IT is absolutely necessary you should come to me at once. I am extremely ill.

“YOUR UNCLE.”

This brief but characteristic epistle rung in Muriel’s head as she left the club for the night. It was a trying time to leave the work. She had almost a settlement now of new helpers, men and women, all under her headship, devoted and earnest workers, but needing direction, and a firm, experienced hand. Cyril Johnstone had volunteered to come to her. Association with her having convinced him that she was neither light-minded nor superficial, and that in spite of his exalted office he still had something to learn from a woman. Captain Hurstly having withdrawn his liberal subscription, the club-work in his parish had fallen through, and the old, broad-minded, empty-headed vicar could jog on in peace to his grave with a sly chuckle or two at the fizzling out of modern efforts.

Meanwhile honest hard work and the buffeting experience of the working-man had opened the young curate’s mind and sobered his heart, and there is no such worker in any cause as the disciplined enthusiast.

Muriel was happier about her work than she had ever been. It was only right, according to her ethics, that as satisfaction dawned the new call should come. She did not know what her uncle’s illness meant, but she settled work for the next few weeks, had a final talk with her new associate, and putting on what she called her society dress drove off in a hansom to her uncle’s. She found him in the comfortable stage of a dressing-gown and hot chocolate. He closed his eyes as she entered the room.

“Muriel, is that you?”

“Yes, dear; I came at once.”

“If you had not come it would have been too late! Muriel shut the door!” Muriel shut the door. The room was very warm, and the bright winter sunshine lit up the gold in her hair, and brought out the smile which was always latent in her eyes. She sat down by him and took his hand.

“Have they made your chocolate nicely?” she asked.

“Never! Of course they haven’t. I am infamously neglected. My slightest wish is thwarted. I am not master in my own house, Muriel! That is why I sent for you. You at least, before you became so selfish and absorbed in your own pleasure, knew how to look after my comfort. The doctor says I must on no account move. I suffer agonies from my foot, and if anything was to upset me the gout might fly to my heart! Yet though I have spoken about it again and again, they _will_ leave skin on my hot milk!”

“Shall I make you some more chocolate, and boil the milk myself?” asked Muriel smiling. He growled an affirmative. And Muriel, chatting brightly about his favorite topics, made him fresh chocolate, and lightened the room by certain little readjustments of flowers, books and cushions that the eyes of the most diligent of servants always just miss over, as if to prove that self-help smiles after all.

Sir Arthur Dallerton had aged terribly. Death’s hand rested upon so much that was mortal. It is only in such cases that death is dreadful. Muriel, who had so often seen it, thought she had never seen it more sadly, for in his eyes was the haunting fear from which there is no escape. Later on in the evening he called her to him. She had been singing over some old Scotch airs. She came and sat on a footstool at his feet, with her head on his knee. He liked to stroke her hair and hold her hand; it gave him a sense of peace and security.

“Muriel,” he said, “do you think there is any chance of—anything happening to me?” The verb “to die” is terrible to some people. Sir Arthur Dallerton preferred the evasion of something happening.

“Why, no, dear; what should—happen?” said Muriel smiling. “Things—sad things might cease to happen for you; but that would be beautiful, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, Muriel, I don’t want to die! I am afraid! afraid!” His voice rose almost to a scream. She stroked his hand and soothed him as if he were a frightened child.

“There, there, dear heart! it won’t hurt you, see; there isn’t any death, or anything to be afraid of, surely! Only light, peace and rest, dear uncle, and all the beautiful, lovely things of earth quite free, and nothing to hurt any more!”

“Oh, Muriel, child, do you think I shall see people whom I’ve come across in life? Oh, it’s awful!” The poor, silly, selfish life, held hopelessly before his eyes by the Inexorable Reality, made him catch his breath. The girl’s heart sank, but she spoke with firm assurance.

“We shall meet nothing that we can’t bear—nothing that is too hard for us—for God is just as strong to save after death as before.”

“But if there isn’t any God, if there’s only an awful grave? Oh, Muriel, it’s a dreadful thing to be an old man!” He shivered from head to foot, and she nestled closer to his side.

“The body dies, and never feels anything; it’s just a sleep, and it will never dream, or wake, or fret and trouble any more, and we believe that the spirit is safer without it, and close to God,” she murmured.

“I’m not so sure of that,” said her uncle sharply. “Some spirits can’t help it. They’re no better than they should be, and what do you think happens to them?”

The blind cannot see. It is a scientific fact and a living reality; the nearest they can reach to sight is to feel that they do not see as much as they might see, and they dim that view by the cry of the eternally inadequate “I can’t help it.”

Muriel pressed her lips to the poor human hand.

“Dear uncle, such spirits must be made as well as they ought to be. We must trust God for the method, for we can’t know what is best; but I am quite sure God meant us all for His, and if we hold fast to that we shall grow like Him in time, and He will give us time, for there is all eternity for us to go on being good in if we have made the start.”

“You’ll never leave me, Muriel? Promise you will never leave me!” There was a moment’s pause, while she looked into the fire and watched the red-hot coal grow black and drop to ashes in the grate.

“I’ll never leave you, dear,” she said at last. “And you won’t be afraid any more?” she questioned. “I shall sleep right in the next room to you if you want me. You won’t be afraid?”

“No, child! It’s been very lonely without you, and they’re very thoughtless about my chocolate. But you don’t think there’s any—hell, do you?”

“Oh, no, dear; I am quite sure there’s not. Now don’t you think I’d better ring for Thomas to carry you to bed, and I’ll see that the cook does your broth nicely.”

“You may if you like,” he said grudgingly; “and mind you come to bed early, and come to me the moment I call you.”

“Yes, dear, I will,” and she kissed him gently.

“You’re a good child,” he murmured sleepily. Just as she closed the door he called her back. “Muriel!”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Are you sure about what you just mentioned, you know?”

“There’s nothing in all the world or out of it but God, be very sure,” she said with the passionate certainty of her faith.

He was not quite certain whether he liked that very much better either. But his broth was just as he wished that evening, and he did not call her in the night for he passed away peacefully in his sleep. And there was no dark left but his own soul, and even that with the hope of light in it passed into the eternal.