A STRAIGHT TALK

MR. ROKEBY came and went for the next few days with news of the Evanses and their friends, but nothing could be proved against them. The real culprits seemed to have escaped, and no trace could be found of them or of the horse.

As he was wishing Rhoda good-bye at the garden gate, after the last of these interviews, he said, looking at her intently, "I do not think you will be tempted to go past the Evans's house just yet, but I wish you would promise me you will not go near the neighbourhood for the present."

"I am not likely to be able to walk so far for some time," said Rhoda, a little coldly. "I never make promises to any one."

"I only ask it for your own sake," he urged. "You have no one to look after you here. It is not safe for you to be in their vicinity by yourself. Your brothers, I think, would be the first to say so."

Rhoda smiled.

"My brothers have given me up as incorrigible, long ago. I shall not do anything rash, but when I get stronger on my feet, I shall go to see Mrs. Dyke, if I can possibly manage it."

"Will you not take some one with you? I would offer myself as an escort with pleasure, but I feel I would not be acceptable."

"No, thank you. I always like to do my visiting alone. After all, Mr. Rokeby, you can easily make the coast clear for me. Why do you keep such disreputable tenants?"

Mr. Rokeby looked amused.

"And this from the lady who has hitherto always stood up for the tenants' rights, and written furious notes to the unjust and arrogant landlord demanding justice for the oppressed! Are you aware that a landlord cannot turn a tenant out without a quarter's notice, especially when he has no ground for ejecting them?"

Rhoda looked rather crestfallen, and then laughed.

"But you should not have taken them in the first instance without more careful inquiry. We have been so peaceful and quiet up here till they came. If a system of robbing and bullying all who go their way is to be the order of things now, we have you to thank for it."

"And that is why I venture to plead with you not to expose yourself to the chance of another experience like that of a few nights ago. I plead guilty to bringing unsafe characters here. Is it too much to ask you to keep away from them?"

Their eyes met; and there was something in his earnest look that made her say hastily, "Very well! I promise to take Hannah with me the next time I go. That must content you."

"Thank you," he said simply, and left her.

"It is no concern of his what I do, and where I go," she said musingly. "It ought not to interest him in the least. I cannot bear the idea of being considered unprotected. As if I want a bodyguard always dogging my footsteps! I did hope, when I came up here, that I should have perfect liberty and independence. I wish I need have no intercourse with him."

The next day was Sunday; and, true to her promise, Miss Montague arrived early in the afternoon, and brought Rhoda a lovely bouquet of flowers.

"How are you bearing your confinement to the house?" she asked, settling herself in a big chair opposite Rhoda, and arranging the cushions to her liking.

"Badly, I am afraid," was the truthful answer. "I can't help worrying over the loss of my horse at times, but I hope I am learning my lesson. I am trying to be at rest about it."

They talked for some time, then Miss Montague said,—

"I heard to-day that Mr. Rokeby intends to go abroad again soon, with his sister. You are such friends that I should think you would quite miss him."

"I see very little of him, as a rule. Lately, he has taken this matter of my horse into his hands, but I shall be very thankful if he goes abroad. I came here to work amongst the poor, and I like to do it with perfect freedom."

"I don't believe you like men better than I do," said Miss Montague, laughing; "I wonder if you came here to get away from them?"

"I don't dislike the sex," Rhoda replied gravely, "because I have always been a great deal amongst them. I am the only girl, and have seven brothers, who all have their particular cranks and crotchets; but I never had any difficulty in living with them."

"And you don't think that they are all selfish creatures? Don't be shocked at my plain speaking. May I give you a little of my experience?"

"Do."

"At seventeen, I was engaged to be married to a young fellow in the Guards only a few years my senior, and I think we both imagined ourselves desperately in love with each other. I suppose we were both too young, and being equally headstrong, soon came to grief. I found he expected me to minister to his wants and pleasures on every occasion, and I asked him one day if this was his idea of a woman's duty.

"'Most certainly,' was his calm reply; 'after marriage, if not before it.'

"'Then you can get some one else to marry you,' I said, 'for I certainly will not be your victim.'

"And we never spoke to each other again. You are smiling, and I can smile too now, though at the time I was in misery about it.

"But a few years after, I got over it and went out to India to my father, who was a judge there. I pinned my faith, whilst there, to a barrister. We were engaged for nine months, and then I overheard a few chance remarks of his to a friend one day.

"'Do you know pretty Rose Finch is pining for you at home?' his friend said. 'I saw her just before I came out again.'

"'She ought to have got over it by this time,' said my 'fiancé.' 'I have, very nearly. When I wrote to break it off, I was desperate, but time heals such wounds. You see she hadn't a penny to bless herself with. What could I do? A man cannot support a wife on an income that will only just suffice for his own needs.'

"'You are in luck now, at any rate.'

"'As far as pounds, shillings, and pence go, I am,' was the reply.

"You will not be surprised to hear that when we first met after that, I gave him his 'congé,' and my faith in genuine affection was shattered again.

"I suppose it was foolish of me to trust another man, but I did, and this time it was a London doctor, who was an earnest worker, a philanthropist. I really believed in that man, and began to feel interested in better things. I must tell you this was after my father's death, when I was making my home again in England. We were within a few weeks of our marriage, when a crash came in the company in which most of my money was invested.

"'What a mercy,' I said to myself, 'that it will make no difference to me! My future husband is not mercenary, as he has often assured me his feelings would be exactly the same if I did not possess a penny!'

"And knowing that he was enjoying a very fair income, I went cheerfully on making preparations for our wedding. The week before the day that was fixed for our marriage, I received a note from him to the effect that he was in great trouble, as he felt more and more how unsuited I was to help him in all his good work; he had been fighting with his conscience for weeks, but he dared not marry me without telling me of his scruples and doubts concerning our union, &c. I needn't tell you more. It was sickening cant to me; all his conscientious motives were laid bare by his sister telling me of the awful state of mind he had been in since hearing of my loss, and how impossible it was for him to contemplate a marriage with a penniless girl! What do you think of my experience of mankind, Miss Canton?"

"I think you have been unfortunate, and I feel very sorry for you."

"You need not. I have got over it. I am afraid I flirted with lots of men after that, but never was so foolish as to lose my heart to any; and I soon discovered that my reduced income made a great difference in my attractions. I have not become soured with it, only I have learnt to live my life happily without men, and you will be wise if you do the same."

There was silence for a few moments, then Miss Montague said,—

"Now, are you ready to give me a Bible lesson? That is what I came for, you know, not to talk gossip."

"Shall we read a little together?" Rhoda said, putting out her hand for her Bible, which was always close at hand, and breathing an inward prayer for guidance as she did so.

Miss Montague's eyes twinkled ominously, but she took a Bible that was offered to her in silence, and then Rhoda suggested reading part of the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah. When they came to the fifth verse, Miss Montague looked up.

"I don't mean to be irreverent, but may I say of the first part of this verse that 'them's my sentiments'? Did you choose it 'à propos' of our talk just now?"

"No, I did not remember the exact words. It only seems to give us two wonderful pictures—light and darkness—winter and summer—and since I have lived on the moor, I can picture the desolate scene in the sixth verse so. Shall we read on?"

They did so; and then Rhoda said softly, "It seems to me such a wonderful contrast, that one wonders, if we believe the reality of it, that we can put ourselves under the curse and not under the blessing. And the curse is not on the outwardly immoral and ungodly, only on those who place their confidence in themselves, whose hearts are out of the Lord's keeping."

"You are giving it to me hot and strong, with a vengeance," murmured Miss Montague. "I did not know you had me up here to curse me!"

But her eyes were scanning the page intently as she spoke.

"Anyhow," she added, "my experience is not at all that of the sixth verse. I'm a very happy person, in my way, and I don't feel I'm living in a parched land at all."

"Don't you think the soul may be in a parched land, though the body may be in prosperous circumstances? Now, shall we look at the eighth verse? Isn't it a beautiful picture of a happy life; like a tree sucking in moisture underneath and out of sight, having an inexhaustible fountain to feed its growth, quite independent of all outside means, so that in hard, difficult times, when others around would be withered up with blasts of adversity, this one would stand fresh and beautiful, never ceasing to yield fruit for its Maker?"

Miss Montague knitted her brows. "You go on too fast for me in your eloquence. I don't think the verse says all that. 'Shall not see when heat cometh'—what does that mean, may I ask?"

"Doesn't it mean that we shall not notice the troubles that would naturally distress us? It is an Eastern image, and I suppose the blazing waves of heat are to be dreaded for most trees there, when there is so little rain to keep them cool."

"Go on."

"I like to put another verse with this. Shall we turn to it? It is the third chapter of Habakkuk.

"'Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.'

"The first half seems such utter poverty, doesn't it? The last as rich as any one can be! It is a case of leaf being green in the blazing heat, of not being careful or anxious in the year of drought."

"Then what a trifle the loss of your horse must be!" Miss Montague said mischievously.

"It is," said Rhoda, with shining eyes, "when I get to verses like this. That is where this Book is such a comfort. A verse or two like these seem to lift one up altogether out of the Slough of Despond. It makes me feel ashamed of my groans over my small troubles. I know I am a bad practiser of what I preach, but I am only a beginner in God's school, and when I look up such passages as this, it is a splendid tonic. I chose this chapter quite as much for myself as for you. I am so fond of it."

"I don't think I have ever read or heard those verses before. Now, go on with your description of a Christian's life, and see if you cannot make my mouth water!"

Rhoda was not shocked with the apparent flippancy of tone. Her heart was longing after the bright, worldly little woman in front of her, and she said most earnestly,—

"Oh, how I wish I could, Miss Montague! But it is the Holy Spirit who will give you that longing. I have only experienced the reality of it myself for a few years. Soon after I left school, I began to think seriously of life; and for a long time I seemed to be seeking after light which did not come. I hardly know when I found it. It was the Bible showed me Christ, and I saw at last if I took Him as my Saviour, I took all the riches of heaven with Him. I don't think any one can describe the deep, restful satisfaction and joy it is to live with Him and for Him every day. Nothing—no one—can mar the peace that passes understanding, that keeps our hearts and minds through all that comes. I suppose it is only by looking back to our former life that we see how intensely barren it was in every way."

Miss Montague laid her head back on the cushions, and watched Rhoda's glowing face as she spoke.

"You are an enthusiast," she said; "some people would tell you all this was a dream or a fancy. But I'm not sceptical myself. I believe you have something that I have not, and I have been secretly envying you for that possession for some time past, let me tell you. I am going to quote Bible words:

"'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian!'

"'But,' and this is a very big 'but,' I tell you frankly, if it entails my going into dirty houses in Ashampton, and visiting the sick and the poor, and the loathsome and the vile, I cannot, and I will not, do it! Now then, what have you to say to me?"

"You would do anything and everything for Him, Miss Montague, if you once came to Him and knew Him!"

"But don't you see this prevents my 'coming to Him,' as you term it?"

"I suppose it may do so. I think if you were to have a sight of your own heart, as I had, and realize that for living away from and rejecting Christ, God's wrath is daily and hourly over your head, that would prevent you from weighing your soul's salvation with your own momentary case and comfort."

"Now, that is hitting out very straight! I think I have had enough for to-day. I will think it over. Don't I hear the clattering of tea-cups in the other room? Am I going to be rewarded by some tea?"

And when Hannah came in a few moments after with the afternoon tea, Miss Montague looked up laughingly into her face and said, "I have had my powder—I took it well—and now it is over, and here is the jam!"

As she took her departure a little later, she said half-seriously, half-comically, "We have come to very close quarters this afternoon, but I don't know that I should care for a repetition of it. So you must give me your word before I go that you will not attack me again on the same subject till I give you leave. I will not be bullied into it, and though you have not badgered me much yet, I am always in fear of you, especially if you think you see signs of my coming round. I know what you good people are like! Promise me that you will leave me alone."

Rhoda could not help laughing, and Miss Montague joined her. "I certainly promise. I did not start the subject this afternoon, remember."

"No, I brought it upon myself. I wanted to hear your side of the question, that was all—to see how well you could plead for your cause—and you have not done badly. Good-bye! I hope your foot will be better soon."

"If I cannot speak to her, I can pray for her," said Rhoda to herself after she had gone, "and God can speak Himself, and convince her of her need. I don't feel as if this afternoon has been wasted. It has been different kind of sowing, that is all."