"I am sorry to disturb your Sabbath morning meditations, Sister Argalls, nor would I if it were not in the line of Christian duty;but Sister Robbins is unable today to make her usual Sabbath hospital visit, and I thought if you were excused from the Foreign Missionary class and Bible instruction at three you might undertake her functions. I know, my dear old friend," he continued, with bland deprecation of her hard-set eyes, "how distasteful this promiscuous mingling with the rough and ungodly has always been to you, and how reluctant you are to be placed in the position of being liable to hear coarse, vulgar, or irreverent speech. Ithink, too, in our long and pleasant pastoral relations, you have always found me mindful of it. I admit I have sometimes regretted that your late husband had not more generally familiarized you with the ways of the world. But so it is--we all have our weaknesses.
If not one thing, another. And as Envy and Uncharitableness sometimes find their way in even Christian hearts, I should like you to undertake this office for the sake of example. There are some, dear Sister Argalls, who think that the rich widow who is most liberal in the endowment of the goods that Providence has intrusted to her hands claims therefore to be exempt from labor in the Christian vineyard. Let us teach them how unjust they are.""I am willing," said the lady, with a dry, determined air. "Isuppose these patients are not professedly bad characters?""By no means. A few, perhaps; but the majority are unfortunates--dependent either upon public charity or some small provision made by their friends.""Very well."
"And you understand that though they have the privilege of rejecting your Christian ministrations, dear Sister Argalls, you are free to judge when you may be patient or importunate with them?""I understand."
The Pastor was not an unkindly man, and, as he glanced at the uncompromising look in Mrs. Argalls's eyes, felt for a moment some inconsistency between his humane instincts and his Christian duty.
"Some of them may require, and be benefited by, a stern monitress, and Sister Robbins, I fear, was weak," he said consolingly to himself, as he descended the steps again.
At three o'clock Mrs. Argalls, with a reticule and a few tracts, was at the door of St. John's Hospital. As she displayed her testimonials and announced that she had taken Mrs. Robbins's place, the officials received her respectfully, and gave some instructions to the attendants, which, however, did not stop some individual comments.
"I say, Jim, it doesn't seem the square thing to let that grim old girl loose among them poor convalescents.""Well, I don't know: they say she's rich and gives a lot o' money away, but if she tackles that swearing old Kentuckian in No. 3, she'll have her hands full."However, the criticism was scarcely fair, for Mrs. Argalls, although moving rigidly along from bed to bed of the ward, equipped with a certain formula of phrases, nevertheless dropped from time to time some practical common-sense questions that showed an almost masculine intuition of the patients' needs and requirements. Nor did she betray any of that over-sensitive shrinking from coarseness which the good Pastor had feared, albeit she was quick to correct its exhibition. The languid men listened to her with half-aggressive, half-amused interest, and some of the satisfaction of taking a bitter but wholesome tonic. It was not until she reached the bed at the farther end of the ward that she seemed to meet with any check.
It was occupied by a haggard man, with a long white moustache and features that seemed wasted by inward struggle and fever. At the first sound of her voice he turned quickly towards her, lifted himself on his elbow, and gazed fixedly in her face.
"Kate Howard--by the Eternal!" he said, in a low voice.
Despite her rigid self-possession the woman started, glanced hurriedly around, and drew nearer to him.
"Pendleton!" she said, in an equally suppressed voice, "What, in God's name, are you doing here?""Dying, I reckon--sooner or later," he said grimly, "that's what they do here.""But--what," she went on hurriedly, still glancing over her shoulder as if she suspected some trick--"what has brought you to this?""YOU!" said the colonel, dropping back exhaustedly on his pillow.
"You and your daughter."
"I don't understand you," she said quickly, yet regarding him with stern rigidity. "You know perfectly well I have NO daughter. You know perfectly well that I've kept the word I gave you ten years ago, and that I have been dead to her as she has been to me.""I know," said the colonel, "that within the last three months Ihave paid away my last cent to keep the mouth of an infernal scoundrel shut who KNOWS that you are her mother, and threatens to expose her to her friends. I know that I'm dying here of an old wound that I got when I shut the mouth of another hound who was ready to bark at her two years after you disappeared. I know that between you and her I've let my old nigger die of a broken heart, because I couldn't keep him to suffer with me, and I know that I'm here a pauper on the State. I know that, Kate, and when I say it Idon't regret it. I've kept my word to YOU, and, by the Eternal, your daughter's worth it! For if there ever was a fair and peerless creature--it's your child!""And she--a rich woman--unless she squandered the fortune I gave her--lets you lie here!" said the woman grimly.
"She don't know it."
"She SHOULD know it! Have you quarreled?" She was looking at him keenly.
"She distrusts me, because she half suspects the secret, and Ihadn't the heart to tell her all."
"All? What does she know? What does this man know? What has been told her?" she said rapidly.