第139章 CHAPTER XXVII(7)

No dread of shame, either for yourself, or even for him, can ever make it right for you to shake off your responsibility." All this time he was watching her narrowly, and saw her slowly yield herself up to the force of what he was saying. "Besides, Ruth," he continued, "we have gone on falsely, hitherto. It has been my doing, my mistake, my sin. I ought to have known better. Now, let us stand firm on the truth. You have no new fault to repent of. Be brave and faithful. It is to God you answer, not to men. The shame of having your sin known to the world, should be as nothing to the shame you felt at having sinned. We have dreaded men too much, and God too little, in the course we have taken. But now be of good cheer. Perhaps you will have to find your work in the world very low--not quite working in the fields,"said he, with a gentle smile, to which she, downcast and miserable, could give no response. "Nay, perhaps, Ruth," he went on, "you may have to stand and wait for some time; no one may be willing to use the services you would gladly render; all may turn aside from you, and may speak very harshly of you. Can you accept all this treatment meekly, as but the reasonable and just penance God has laid upon you--feeling no anger against those who slight you, no impatience for the time to come (and come it surely will--I speak as having the word of God for what I say), when He, having purified you, even as by fire, will make a straight path for your feet ? My child, it is Christ the Lord who has told us of this infinite mercy of God. Have you faith enough in it to be brave, and bear on, and do rightly in patience and in tribulation?" Ruth had been hushed and very still until now, when the pleading earnestness of his question urged her to answer. "Yes!" said she. "I hope--I believe I can be faithful for myself, for Ihave sinned and done wrong. But Leonard----" She looked up at him. "But Leonard," he echoed. "Ah! there it is hard, Ruth. I own the world is hard and persecuting to such as he." He paused to think of the true comfort for this sting. He went on. "The world is not everything, Ruth;nor is the want of men's good opinion and esteem the highest need which man has. Teach Leonard this. You would not wish his life to be one summer's day. You dared not make it so, if you had the power. Teach him to bid a noble, Christian welcome to the trials which God sends--and this is one of them. Teach him not to look on a life of struggle, and perhaps of disappointment and incompleteness, as a sad and mournful end, but as the means permitted to the heroes and warriors in the army of Christ, by which to show their faithful following. Tell him of the hard and thorny path which was trodden once by the bleeding feet of One--Ruth! think of the Saviour's life and cruel death, and of His divine faithfulness. Oh, Ruth! " exclaimed he, "when I look and see what you may be--what you must be to that boy, I cannot think how you could be coward enough, for a moment, to shrink from your work! But we have all been cowards hitherto," he added, in bitter self-accusation. "God help us to be so no longer!" Ruth sat very quiet. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she seemed lost in thought. At length she rose up. "Mr. Benson!" said she, standing before him, and propping herself by the table, as she was trembling sadly from weakness, "I mean to try very, very hard, to do my duty to Leonard--and to God," she added reverently. "I am only afraid my faith may sometimes fail about Leonard----" "Ask, and it shall be given unto you. That is no vain or untried promise, Ruth!" She sat down again, unable longer to stand. There was another long silence. "I must never go to Mr. Bradshaw's again," she said at last, as if thinking aloud. "No, Ruth, you shall not," he answered. "But I shall earn no money!" added she quickly, for she thought that he did not perceive the difficulty that was troubling her. "You surely know, Ruth, that, while Faith and I have a roof to shelter us, or bread to eat, you and Leonard share it with us." "I know--I know your most tender goodness," said she, "but it ought not to be." "It must be at present," he said, in a decided manner. "Perhaps, before long you may have some employment; perhaps it may be some time before an opportunity occurs." "Hush," said Ruth; "Leonard is moving about in the parlour. I must go to him." But when she stood up, she turned so dizzy, and tottered so much, that she was glad to sit down again immediately. "You must rest here. I will go to him," said Mr. Benson. He left her; and when he was gone, she leaned her head on the back of the chair, and cried quietly and incessantly; but there was a more patient, hopeful, resolved feeling in the heart, which all along, through all the tears she shed, bore her onwards to higher thoughts, until at last she rose to prayers. Mr. Benson caught the new look of shrinking shame in Leonard's eye, as it first sought, then shunned, meeting his. He was pained, too, by the sight of the little sorrowful, anxious face, on which, until now, hope and joy had been predominant. The constrained voice, the few words the boy spoke, when formerly there would have been a glad and free utterance--all this grieved Mr. Benson inexpressibly, as but the beginning of an unwonted mortification, which must last for years. He himself made no allusion to any unusual occurrence; he spoke of Ruth as sitting, overcome by headache, in the study for quietness: he hurried on the preparations for tea, while Leonard sat by in the great arm-chair, and looked on with sad, dreamy eyes.