At one side of the wide vestibule, a door led into a long hall. In one of the many rooms opening from it Miss Kendall was holding her meeting. The door was heavy and swung slowly. Just before Elizabeth opened it sufficiently3 to gain a view of the hall, she heard her own name spoken in Miss Kendall's decisive tones.
"Pardon me, Miss Withrow, but you are mistaken. The Miss Gordon you have reference to is a student or milliner or something; we certainly haven't asked her to join us. I know because I met her over on Seaton Crescent when I was calling on those tiresome4 boarders. Mrs. Jarvis's Miss Gordon is quite another person, I don't know her personally, but they say Mr. Huntley is quite enamored and——"
Elizabeth shrank back closing the door softly. Here was a predicament indeed! The approaching swish of silken skirts sounded along the hall, and she ran noiselessly up the carpeted stairway looking for some place of concealment5. The door leading into the auditorium6 confronted her, and shaking with silent laughter she pushed it open and slipped noiselessly within. A soft hushed movement like one breathing in sleep filled the great space. She paused, startled—the church was crowded.
Away up in the dim pulpit at the other end a man was speaking. Elizabeth dropped breathlessly and embarrassed into the pew nearest the door. She had no idea what this gathering8 was for or who the speaker was. Mrs. Jarvis attended the regular Sunday morning services in St. Stephen's, whenever a headache did not prevent, and Elizabeth accompanied her. But beyond this the girl had not the slightest connection with any of the activities of this religious body of which she was a member. Otherwise she might have known that this was a great gathering of students, many of whom were young volunteers for the army of the King that was fighting sin far away in the stronghold of heathenism. She would have heard, too, that the man up there in the pulpit, with every eye set unwaveringly upon him, was one who had stirred the very pulses of her native land by his call to the laymen9 of the church to a wider vision of their duty to the world. But poor Elizabeth knew very little more about this great movement than if she had been one of the heathen in whose behalf it was being made.
And perhaps because she had been so long shut away from the great things of life, for which her heart vainly cried, her very soul went out to the words of the speaker. He was nearing the end of his address, and was making his appeal to those young people to invest their lives in this great work for God and humanity.
Looking back upon that scene afterwards, it almost seemed miraculous10 to Elizabeth, that the first words of his message she heard were from that prophetic poem that had always moved her to tears in her childhood days when her father read them at family worship.
"The wilderness11 and the solitary12 place shall be glad for them, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing." This was the promise to those who responded to their Master's call. The wildernesses13 of the earth, the sad and solitary places, were to be made glad and beautiful at their coming.
And then Elizabeth grasped the purpose of the gathering. She read it as much in the sea of eager upturned faces as in the speaker's words. She knew, too, that he was not speaking to her. She had no part nor lot in this great onward14 march of the world. She belonged to those who were clogging15 the wheels of progress. A feeling of intense envy seized her, all her old yearning16 for love and service came over her with twofold strength, and with it the bitter remembrance that she had wasted her life in worse than idleness.
The low, deep, appealing voice went on, and she bowed her head in humiliation17. But surely he was speaking to her now. "Do you want to find Jesus Christ?" he was asking. "Have you lost your hold on Him? Then go out where the drunkard and the orphan18 and the outcast throng19 in their sin and misery20—you will find Him there!"
For a brief space Elizabeth heard no further word. That message was especially for her. For she had lost her hold upon Him, and with Him, she realized it for the first time, she had lost the joy and power of life. She had been very near Him many times—when her father read of His love and sacrifice, or Mother MacAllister showed her the beauty of His service. The Vision Beautiful had been hers, and she had refused to go out at the call of the hungry, and so it had not stayed.
And now a new vision—the tormenting21 picture of what she might have made of her life was being shown her through the magic of the speaker's words. "The King's Highway," he called his address. "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, the wayfaring22 men, though fools, shall not err23 therein." He pictured to their eager young eyes, what that Way would be for the world, when they prepared it for the coming of their King.
"Would they make this way of holiness accessible to someone?" he asked. "To those wayfaring men who were sure to err unless guided thereto."
He ended with the Prophet's words, and the choir24, away up in their brightly lighted gallery arose and burst forth25 into the glorious words that closed the vision.
"Then shall the redeemed26 of the Lord come to Zion with songs and everlasting27 joy upon their heads. They shall receive joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
Elizabeth could bear no more. She arose, the tears blinding her, and slipped quietly out. She had seen Jean looking over the gallery railing with serious eyes, and Stuart standing28 by a pillar with a group of fellow-students, his face pale and tense. She dared not risk meeting them or anyone else she knew. She hurried down the stairs and out along the street struggling for her self-control. Half consciously her footsteps turned in the direction of that little street where she had seen the girl that looked like Eppie. The tumult29 of self-accusation within drove her to immediate30 action. She would go down there at once and see that girl, and help and comfort her, and perhaps—even though she had wandered so far away, she might prove the speaker's words true—she might find the Vision return. Choking back her sobs31 she hurried along. The memory of the sad sight, that pitiful ill-clad girl striving to comfort the still more pitiful old man driving her forward as if with a whip.
The twilight33 had fallen and the dingy34 street looked even more gloomy. She was terrified by the glimpses of rough-looking men and slatternly women, by the loud voices and the sounds of violence that issued from many of the houses. But her fear did not once make her think of turning back. Her soul now recognized the fact that there were things more to be dreaded35 in the life of uselessness from which she was fleeing.
She turned down the dark alley36 from which she had seen the girl emerge, stumbling over heaps of garbage. Even in her terror she had a faint sense of grim enjoyment37 at the thought of how horrified38 Mr. Huntley would be could he know. She almost hated him for his solicitous39 care of her when she compared it with his indifference40 to these ragged41 shrill-voiced women about her. She paused at length before one of the low hovels and timidly knocked. At the same moment the door suddenly opened and a young man came lounging heavily out. By the light from the doorway42 Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a heavy brutal43 face, as he slouched past her. She started back, about to run, but stopped. Just beyond him in the doorway stood the girl she sought. The pale light of a flickering44 gas jet above her head revealed her face. There was no mistaking her now. Elizabeth forgot her fears and went forward with a joyful45 little run.
"Eppie!" she cried, "oh, Eppie! Do you know me?"
The girl stood staring.
"Is it?—Is it you—Lizzie?" she whispered.
"Yes—it's Lizzie. May I come in, Eppie?"
The girl shrank back as though afraid, but there was a pleading look in her hungry eyes, a gleam of something like hope that drew Elizabeth in. She stepped down into the chilly46 little room. The flickering gas jet shed a pale circle of light around the wretched place. At one glance every detail of the sordid47 surroundings seemed to be stamped upon Elizabeth's brain; the low bed in the corner under the sloping roof, where the old man lay, covered by a ragged quilt, the rusty48 fireless stove, with the water falling drip, drip upon it from the melting snow on the sagging49 roof, the old cupboard with its cracked dishes and its smell of moldy50 bread. And yet she looked only at her lost school-mate, at the hungry, frightened eyes and the white thin face. She saw, too, how the girl shrank from her, fearful and yet hopeful, and a great flood of pity surged over her. She took both the thin rough hands in her delicately gloved ones and tried to smile.
"Oh, Eppie!" she cried, "where have you been this long, long time, my dear?"
The effect of her words alarmed her. Eppie clutched her hands and burst into a storm of sobs. Frightened and dismayed, and at a loss what to do, Elizabeth blindly did the very best thing. She put her arms about the shaking little figure and held it close. She drew her down to an old box that stood by the damp wall, and the two old school-mates, so widely separated by fate, clung to each other and sobbed51.
"Oh, Lizzie! oh, Lizzie," the girl kept repeating her friend's name over and over. "You always promised you'd come and see me, and I thought you'd forgot me—you being such a grand lady. I thought you'd forgot me!"
"Eppie," whispered Elizabeth, "don't! oh, don't! I wanted to find you—long ago—but I didn't know where you were. Hush7, dear, don't cry so, you will make yourself ill. See, you will waken your grandfather."
She stopped at this, choking back her sobs. "It's because I'm so glad you came, Lizzie, and you such a fine lady," she whispered. "I hadn't nobody left." She sat up and wiped away her tears on her ragged
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