CHAPTER XXVI.

FLIGHT.

GERTRUDE could hardly breathe, but she kept quiet, and the woman continued her narrative, still in the same dull, hopeless, heart-broken tone in which she had spoken all along.

"I did everything I could think of. I gave him a warm bath—I poured out prayers and tears—I did everything to bring him back, but to no avail.

"As to Johnnie, he hung over him too, and cried as I never wish to hear a child cry again; it wrings my heart now to think of it.

"All night we watched him, and kissed him, and coaxed him, but it was of no use! At last, Johnnie fell asleep, kneeling on the floor by us, but no sleep came to my eyes.

"Then I made my fatal mistake and committed a dreadful sin.

"When the morning sun crept in, and still those wide-open startled eyes gave no sign of intelligence, I made up my mind for flight.

"At first I only intended to gain time, perhaps to consult a doctor in London, or to try what change of air would do to restore him. But I did a dreadful thing—I robbed a mother of her child, and I prevented her doing what she might have done to repair the mischief.

"You will blame me—I know you must—I feel your knees trembling beneath me. But oh! No one who has not passed through it can conceive what I suffered then, and what I have suffered since!"

Gertrude's knees did tremble, but by a great effort she murmured some words of sympathy. While the woman raised her face to wipe from it the drops of perspiration which stood on her brow.

One thought crossed Gertrude's mind of what they would think if she did not arrive at the confectioner's, but she was reassured that they would conclude that she had been persuaded to drive home with Mrs. Shaddock, and till both parties arrived, each would think she was with the other. This woman's story would be enough excuse when once she got home!

"It was my terror of what would be done to Johnnie," the woman went on at length, "that made me fly. Ah! I had better have faced it all, ten thousand times! Better for myself, better for him. As to me, I have grown an old, broken-down woman; as to him—he lies here in the cold ground, and I shall never, never see him again!"

"He is gone to Jesus," whispered Gertrude in a broken voice; "if you seek Him too, you will meet your boy again."

She did not know how to articulate the words, and yet—still she thought of herself as a forgiven sinner, and must she not forgive too!

The woman seemed to listen.

"Oh, if I could!" she said, with a yearning cry.

"'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,'" said Gertrude earnestly. And then she thought of the unfinished story, and how could she bear to speak of anything till that was told?

But had she not in that brief prayer asked her Heavenly Father to take it all in hand? And was she going to slight "His" work, which He had given her to do, in order to take what she thought the best road to finding little Lester?

"Those are the very words my Johnnie said!" exclaimed the woman, raising her face for the first time, and letting Gertrude gaze upon its haggard lines—at least upon so much of them as could be seen in the increasing darkness.

"'In no wise cast out!' Those are good words!"

She laid her head down again on the trembling knees, and did not speak for ever so long.

"Why are you so good to me?" she asked at last.

"Because I am so sorry for you," said Gertrude in a low tone.

"I'm not worthy to come to Him," the woman went on; "and yet—yet I think I must try. Johnnie said he'd been forgiven—and he said I should be. And oh, though you may not think it, from such a dreadful thing as I am, but if I could be forgiven by God, and know that the poor mother I robbed—"

She broke off and flung herself upon Johnnie's grave, and lay there with her face against the cold clay.

"Dear friend," said Gertrude kneeling down beside her, "go to Jesus now! Do not wait any longer. You will never be happy without Him; you will be at peace even in the midst of this dreadful sorrow, if only you have Him for your Saviour. Do not wait another moment."

And again repeating those words which have brought balm to thousands of hopeless hearts, Gertrude said, as Johnnie's nurse had done, "'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'"

Perhaps Johnnie's persuasion had prepared her, perhaps the week of anguish she had just passed had softened her heart; at any rate, the woman believed the loving promise and acted on it.

She "came" to Jesus, and found that she was not cast out! But, covered with the Atoning Blood, she was drawn into the circle of everlasting love!

"I've done it!" she whispered at length. "I've come, and He has not cast me out! Oh, I never saw such love!"

She rose from the ground, and taking Gertrude's hand, pointed towards the entrance, where the men were beginning to put away their tools.

"I shall never be able to thank you, miss," she said brokenly, "but if ever there was a grateful heart!—To think that I 'shall' see Johnnie again now! Oh, miss! I'm lost in joy and wonder. I cannot think that I am the same woman that I was an hour ago!"

Gertrude, amidst all the conflicting feelings of joy for this new-born soul, sorrow for her sister, and anxiety as to the future, could do nothing but weep.

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