These are
they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
WHEN Dr.
Bruce and the Bishop entered the Sterling mansion everything
in the usually well appointed household was in the greatest
confusion and terror. The great rooms downstairs were empty,
but overhead were hurried footsteps and confused noises. One
of the servants ran down the grand staircase with a look of
horror on her face just as the Bishop and Dr. Bruce were
starting to go up.
"Miss
Felicia is with Mrs. Sterling," the servant stammered
in answer to a question, and then burst into a hysterical
cry and ran through the drawing-room and out of doors.
At the top
of the staircase the two men were met by Felicia. She walked
up to Dr. Bruce at once and put both hands in his. The
Bishop then laid his hand on her head and the three stood
there a moment in perfect silence. The Bishop had known
Felicia since she was a little child. He was the first to
break the silence.
"The
God of all mercy be with you, Felicia, in this dark hour.
Your mother--"
The Bishop
hesitated. Out of the buried past he had, during his hurried
passage from his friend's to this house of death,
irresistibly drawn the one tender romance of his young
manhood. Not even Bruce knew that. But there had been a time
when the Bishop had offered the incense of a singularly
undivided affection upon the altar of his youth to the
beautiful Camilla Rolfe, and she had chosen between him and
the millionaire. The Bishop carried no bitterness with his
memory; but it was still a memory.
For answer
to the Bishop's unfinished query, Felicia turned and went
back into her mother's room. She had not said a word yet,
but both men were struck with her wonderful calm. She
returned to the hall door and beckoned to them, and the two
ministers, with a feeling that they were about to behold
something very unusual, entered.
Rose lay
with her arms outstretched upon the bed. Clara, the nurse,
sat with her head covered, sobbing in spasms of terror. And
Mrs. Sterling with "the light that never was on sea or
land" luminous on her face, lay there so still that
even the Bishop was deceived at first. Then, as the great
truth broke upon him and Dr. Bruce, he staggered, and the
sharp agony of the old wound shot through him. It passed,
and left him standing there in that chamber of death with
the eternal calmness and strength that the children of God
have a right to possess. And right well he used that
calmness and strength in the days that followed.
The next
moment the house below was in a tumult. Almost at the same
time the doctor who had been sent for at once, but lived
some distance away, came in, together with police officers,
who had been summoned by frightened servants. With them were
four or five newspaper correspondents and several neighbors.
Dr. Bruce and the Bishop met this miscellaneous crowd at the
head of the stairs and succeeded in excluding all except
those whose presence was necessary. With these the two
friends learned all the facts ever known about the
"Sterling tragedy," as the papers in their
sensational accounts next day called it.
Mr. Sterling
had gone into his room that evening about nine o'clock and
that was the last seen of him until, in half an hour, a shot
was heard in the room, and a servant who was in the hall ran
into the room and found him dead on the floor, killed by his
own hand. Felicia at the time was sitting by her mother.
Rose was reading in the library. She ran upstairs, saw her
father as he was being lifted upon the couch by the
servants, and then ran screaming into her mother's room,
where she flung herself down at the foot of the bed in a
swoon. Mrs. Sterling had at first fainted at the shock, then
rallied with a wonderful swiftness and sent for Dr. Bruce.
She had then insisted on seeing her husband. In spite of
Felicia's efforts, she had compelled Clara to support her
while she crossed the hall and entered the room where her
husband lay. She had looked upon him with a tearless face,
had gone back to her own room, was laid on her bed, and as
Dr. Bruce and the Bishop entered the house she, with a
prayer of forgiveness for herself and for her husband on her
quivering lips, had died, with Felicia bending over her and
Rose still lying senseless at her feet.
So great
and swift had been the entrance of grim Death into that
palace of luxury that Sunday night! But the full cause of
his coming was not learned until the facts in regard to Mr.
Sterling's business affairs were finally disclosed.
Then it was
learned that for some time he had been facing financial ruin
owing to certain speculations that had in a month's time
swept his supposed wealth into complete destruction. With
the cunning and desperation of a man who battles for his
very life when he saw his money, which was all the life he
ever valued, slipping from him, he had put off the evil day
to the last moment. Sunday afternoon, however, he had
received news that proved to him beyond a doubt the fact of
his utter ruin. The very house that he called his, the
chairs in which he sat, his carriage, the dishes from which
he ate, had all been bought with money for which he himself
had never really done an honest stroke of pure labor.
It had all
rested on a tissue of deceit and speculation that had no
foundation in real values. He knew that fact better than any
one else, but he had hoped, with the hope such men always
have, that the same methods that brought him the money would
also prevent the loss. He had been deceived in this as many
others have been. As soon as the truth that he was
practically a beggar had dawned upon him, he saw no escape
from suicide. It was the irresistible result of such a life
as he had lived. He had made money his god. As soon as that
god was gone out of his little world there was nothing more
to worship; and when a man's object of worship is gone he
has no more to live for. Thus died the great millionaire,
Charles R. Sterling. And, verily, he died as the fool dieth,
for what is the gain or the loss of money compared with the
unsearchable riches of eternal life which are beyond the
reach of speculation, loss or change?
Mrs.
Sterling's death was the result of the shock. She had not
been taken into her husband's confidence for years, but she
knew that the source of his wealth was precarious. Her life
for several years had been a death in life. The Rolfes
always gave an impression that they could endure more
disaster unmoved than any one else. Mrs. Sterling
illustrated the old family tradition when she was carried
into the room where her husband lay. But the feeble tenement
could not hold the spirit and it gave up the ghost, torn and
weakened by long years of suffering and disappointment.
The effect
of this triple blow, the death of father and mother, and the
loss of property, was instantly apparent in the sisters. The
horror of events stupefied Rose for weeks. She lay unmoved
by sympathy or any effort to rally. She did not seem yet to
realize that the money which had been so large a part of her
very existence was gone. Even when she was told that she and
Felicia must leave the house and be dependent on relatives
and friends, she did not seem to understand what it meant.
Felicia,
however, was fully conscious of the facts. She knew just
what had happened and why. She was talking over her future
plans with her cousin Rachel a few days after the funerals.
Mrs. Winslow and Rachel had left Raymond and come to Chicago
at once as soon as the terrible news had reached them, and
with other friends of the family were planning for the
future of Rose and Felicia.
"Felicia,
you and Rose must come to Raymond with us. That is settled.
Mother will not hear to any other plan at present,"
Rachel had said, while her beautiful face glowed with love
for her cousin, a love that had deepened day by day, and was
intensified by the knowledge that they both belonged to the
new discipleship.
"Unless
I can find something to do here," answered Felicia. She
looked wistfully at Rachel, and Rachel said gently:
"What
could you do, dear?"
"Nothing.
I was never taught to do anything except a little music, and
I do not know enough about it to teach it or earn my living
at it. I have learned to cook a little," Felicia added
with a slight smile.
"Then
you can cook for us. Mother is always having trouble with
her kitchen," said Rachel, understanding well enough
she was now dependent for her very food and shelter upon the
kindness of family friends. It is true the girls received a
little something out of the wreck of their father's fortune,
but with a speculator's mad folly he had managed to involve
both his wife's and his children's portion in the common
ruin.
"Can
I? Can I?" Felicia responded to Rachel's proposition as
if it were to be considered seriously. "I am ready to
do anything honorable to make my living and that of Rose.
Poor Rose! She will never be able to get over the shock of
our trouble."
"We
will arrange the details when we get to Raymond,"
Rachel said, smiling through her tears at Felicia's eager
willingness to care for herself.
So in a few
weeks Rose and Felicia found themselves a part of the
Winslow family in Raymond. It was a bitter experience for
Rose, but there was nothing else for her to do and she
accepted the inevitable, brooding over the great change in
her life and in many ways adding to the burden of Felicia
and her cousin Rachel.
Felicia at
once found herself in an atmosphere of discipleship that was
like heaven to her in its revelation of companionship. It is
true that Mrs. Winslow was not in sympathy with the course
that Rachel was taking, but the remarkable events in Raymond
since the pledge was taken were too powerful in their
results not to impress even such a woman as Mrs. Winslow.
With Rachel, Felicia found a perfect fellowship. She at once
found a part to take in the new work at the Rectangle. In
the spirit of her new life she insisted upon helping in the
housework at her aunt's, and in a short time demonstrated
her ability as a cook so clearly that Virginia suggested
that she take charge of the cooking at the Rectangle.
Felicia
entered upon this work with the keenest pleasure. For the
first time in her life she had the delight of doing
something of value for the happiness of others. Her resolve
to do everything after asking, "What would Jesus
do?" touched her deepest nature. She began to develop
and strengthen wonderfully. Even Mrs. Winslow was obliged to
acknowledge the great usefulness and beauty of Felicia's
character. The aunt looked with astonishment upon her niece,
this city-bred girl, reared in the greatest luxury, the
daughter of a millionaire, now walking around in her
kitchen, her arms covered with flour and occasionally a
streak of it on her nose, for Felicia at first had a habit
of rubbing her nose forgetfully when she was trying to
remember some recipe, mixing various dishes with the
greatest interest in their results, washing up pans and
kettles and doing the ordinary work of a servant in the
Winslow kitchen and at the rooms at the Rectangle
Settlement. At first Mrs. Winslow remonstrated.
"Felicia,
it is not your place to be out here doing this common work.
I cannot allow it."
"Why,
Aunt? Don't you like the muffins I made this morning?"
Felicia would ask meekly, but with a hidden smile, knowing
her aunt's weakness for that kind of muffin.
"They
were beautiful, Felicia. But it does not seem right for you
to be doing such work for us."
"Why
not? What else can I do?"
Her aunt
looked at her thoughtfully, noting her remarkable beauty of
face and expression.
"You
do not always intend to do this kind of work, Felicia?"
"Maybe
I shall. I have had a dream of opening an ideal cook shop in
Chicago or some large city and going around to the poor
families in some slum district like the Rectangle, teaching
the mothers how to prepare food properly. I remember hearing
Dr. Bruce say once that he believed one of the great
miseries of comparative poverty consisted in poor food. He
even went so far as to say that he thought some kinds of
crime could be traced to soggy biscuit and tough beefsteak.
I'm sure I would be able to make a living for Rose and
myself and at the same time help others."
