CHAPTER XXIV.

AT THE GRAVE.

THE autumn afternoon was closing in, and but that Gertrude had noticed some men filling in a new-made grave as she went down, she would have feared that she might find the gates shut.

She walked as fast as she could, taking one of the narrower paths, and was almost within sight of the upper gates when her attention was arrested by a figure crouching over that very new-made grave which she had seen.

Her quick steps took her past before she had realized that there was some one who was in great need.

But what was it to her that a mourner should be weeping there? Were not all those graves dear to some hearts? And was this not one among many?

Still she could not go on and leave the drooping figure. Somehow there was an abandonment in the grief that made Gertrude feel she "could" not "pass by on the other side."

One moment she hesitated—then advanced softly across the grass, which had already in the dusk lost its greenness, and was now nothing but a carpet of deep shade beneath her feet.

She sat down on the ground beside the weeping woman and touched her hand.

"You are in great trouble," she said gently.

A moan was the only answer.

"Have you lost your husband?" asked Gertrude tenderly.

A decisive shake of the head.

"Then perhaps it is a child?" asked the soft voice again.

The woman turned away with a sudden sort of pang, but after a moment she said, as if in spite of herself—"My only one!"

"That must be terrible," said Gertrude, thinking of Rose, and trying to match this woman's grief with what she knew of her sister's.

The woman raised herself a little, but only to cover her head in her shawl more effectually, out of which her voice sounded far-off and thick.

"Could you tell me?" said Gertrude tenderly, thinking about her Lord and Master, and trying to picture "His" great love and sympathy, so that she might copy Him.

"Why do you care for a stranger?" flashed this woman from the depths of the shawl.

"Because I love the Lord Jesus," answered Gertrude, "and He wept at the grave."

"At the grave?" questioned the woman. "Whose grave?"

But before Gertrude could answer, she had flung herself round again, and ended in burying her face in her hands on the girl's lap, where she shook with a paroxysm of grief such as Gertrude had never imagined could be.

It was impossible to leave her, and yet what about those closing gates and the growing darkness?

Then Gertrude noticed to her intense relief that some men were spreading gravel near the entrance, and were rolling it backwards and forwards without apparently any signs of giving up.

So she turned her attention once more to the mourner, who was clasping her as if she were the only comfort left.

She whispered words of the love of Jesus, of His sympathy, of His ability to save to the uttermost, of His love for the little children. And as she went on, feeling her way as it were, she began to understand what a mighty Saviour she had for her own, and a great longing came over her for this poor soul who, evidently, was a stranger to His great love.

"I'm a wicked woman," groaned her listener at last. "You would not speak to me so if you guessed how wicked I have been."

"Jesus our Saviour came to save sinners," whispered Gertrude.

"That is what 'he' said," she exclaimed, her eyes raining down tears.

"Your little boy?"

"Yes; but—but he asked me to do two things, and I can't do either."

"He wanted you to come to Jesus?" asked Gertrude eagerly.

"Yes, but though I cannot do that, it was not the hardest thing. I promised him, and yet I am going to break my word!"

"Break your word to him?" asked Gertrude reproachfully. "You will not do that."

"I shall—simply because I never can do it! I thought I would when I promised, but I can't. No, I can't. Johnnie, it is of no use."

Again she wept hopelessly, while Gertrude trembled, she hardly knew why.

"Is it something you ought to tell?" asked Gertrude.

A movement of the woman's head seemed to acknowledge that it was.

"Then God will help you to tell it, if you ask Him."

"I have never asked Him anything. Yes, I have; I asked Him that Johnnie might not die, and He did not hear."

"Ask Him for this, and perhaps He will make the other plain to you by and by. The reason, I mean!"

"I know the reason!" said the woman bitterly. "It was because of my sin!"

"You do not know the reason. Perhaps the loving and merciful God could find no other way to show you your sin, and lead you to Himself to be forgiven."

There was a long silence, while the woman's thoughts chased each other through her torn heart.

Gertrude watched the men rolling the gravel; she heard their cheerful tones as they went backwards and forwards. Then she bent over the prostrate form once more.

"Dear friend," she whispered, "shall I pray that God will give you His mighty help to keep this promise?"

The woman pressed her hand, and Gertrude prayed a prayer, the earnestness of which had never perhaps passed her lips before.

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