Grace Livingston Hill

“ Touch me and heal me Saviour divine!”
They sang with such assurance, as if they knew He could and would do what they asked. Dared he ask too? Were there conditions to such assurance? Would God take a man who had killed a girl, and then gone on masquerading as a Christian just to save his skin alive?
“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!” went on the quiet prayer. Ah! That was the condition. Surrender! Well, he was ready. That was what that fellow Saul did, just said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” He could ask that. ”

“ He was given a chair at the far side of the table away from both window and door, and surrounded by strong, able-bodied men, who acknowledged the introductions to him with pleasant courtesy, and the right hand of welcome. Before he knew it, he found himself glowing with the warmth of their friendliness, and his heart aching almost to bursting that he could not stay and take refuge behind all this genial welcome. If only he were sure that that bird Allan Murray was dead, really dead so he could never come to life and turn up inconveniently any old time, he believed he would chance it. ”

“ Now, Murray Van Rensselaer had been taking chances all his life. He loved chances. He was a born gambler in living, and if it had not been for the white face of Bessie Chapparelle that haunted him everywhere he turned and suddenly appeared to him out of the most unexpected thoughts and occurrences, he would have just delighted in entering into this situation and seeing if he could get away with it. The little white haunting face spoiled everything for him everywhere. There had never been anything in his life before that really took the fun and the excitement out of living. ”

“ They whispered in lower tones of how it was rumored that Bob Sleighton was making money in bootlegging, and he got a view for the first time in his life of how the quiet, respectable, non-drinking world think of the people who break the law in that way. And then they told in detail how they scalloped oysters and made angel cake, and just the degree of brownness that a chicken should be when it was roasted right, until Murray Van Rensselaer, sitting so empty in his back seat, could fairly smell them all as they came out of the oven, and felt as if he must cry like a child. ”

“ What if Violet had been a woman like that, who would set the table for supper and go about the stove preparing little dishes. He laughed aloud bitterly at the thought. Violet in her slim dinner gown, her dangling earrings and her French bob, risking her lily and rose complexion over a fire!
He turned sharply back to his room, snapped on the electric light and went and stood before the two great silver frames that adorned his dressing-table. One held the picture of the lovely delicate woman, almost a girl in appearance, smart, artistic, perfect as the world counts perfection. ”

“ Oh, well, life was a disappointment anyway, whichever way you turned. Now here was Murray! What a bitter disappointment he was! Just when he might have been a comfort. Of course there was a slight possibility of his being injured somehow, but if he had been able to take a girl to the hospital he couldn’t have been very badly off. No, he was probably off with the fellows somewhere having a good time, or off with his Countess, or his latest fancy! What a son! But he must do his duty as a father, anyhow. So Murray’s new car was smashed! That was probably the reason Murray did not come home. ”

“ Murray and Bessie came to their senses about the same moment also, and there they all four stood and looked at one another, ashamed and confused, yet happy.
It took the man of the world to recover first.
“Well, my son,” he said in a pleased voice, “you seem to have done something worthy of your family name at last!”
“Yes, father, isn’t it great? But everything’s going to be different from now on. Oh, Boy! Mother Chapparelle! I just realized. I haven’t got to give myself up after all, have I? I’m not a murderer! She’s alive! And she loves me!” ”

“ Why, men had liked him, been pleased with what he did, showed him that he was going to be a success. The long lines of men and women, even boys and girls, outside his window, looking at him as if he were some one who held their fate in his hand, had eyed him with pleasant cordiality. Everywhere men had acknowledged his smile, as if it were worth something to know him. He had been used to all that, of course, at home, only there had been a new tang to this friendliness—a kind of respect that had never been granted to him before. ”

“ Why should a clock seem to have eyes that searched to your soul? What was a clock doing there anyway, in a place where they regarded not time, and were absorbed in their own terrible affairs? The clock seemed to be the only connecting-link with the outside world.
He strode nearer and read the silver plate of the donor, inscribed in memory of “Elizabeth,” and turned sharply back to the door again with a haunting vision of the white-faced girl he had brought in a while before. Bessie! Little Bessie Chapparelle! She was “Elizabeth” too. ”

“ Summers gave him no chance to escape. She swung the door open and ushered him inside, where he was surrounded by a bevy of young people, who fairly took him into their arms with welcome, and almost carried him on their shoulders into a great banquet-hall, where tables were set with flowers and overflowing plates of good things, and the odors of wonderful food were more than human starving man could resist. ”

“ There would be syrup like amber perhaps in a glass pitcher, and how good they would taste! What would they say if he were to go over and ask if he might eat supper with them? What would Violet say if he should go? Leave her abominable interminable dinner party and go over to that quiet kitchen to eat pancakes! Violet would think he was crazy—would perhaps take steps to put him in the insane asylum, would at least consult a physician. What a fraud life was! A man was never his own master in this world! ”

“ Murray followed him because there was nothing else he dared do, and the steel gateway swung to with a click behind him as he entered the inner precincts of the bank proper. And once more he heard dimly the echo of bolts and bars and approaching prison walls about him. He walked to the little grated window that was to be his, so cell-like with its heavy grill, and saw an open drawer with piles of clean money lying ready for his unskilled hand. ”

“ Murray Van Rensselaer divested himself of his expensive coat and crawled into the harsh gray coat of the stranger, and said to himself eagerly, “Now I’m becoming a new man,” but he shivered as the car shot forward and the chill air struck through him. Fur lining did make a difference. It never occurred to him before that there were men who could not have fur coats when they needed them for comfort. ”

“ Murray Van Rensselaer hesitated and looked toward the door, but the reluctant Jane, with arms full of cake and vases, was still filling it, eyeing him blissfully, and there was no escape that way. Perhaps if he once got in the room above with the door locked he could climb from the window and get away in the dark. So he dragged himself up the stairs after his hospitable hostess, and was ushered into a bedroom, the like of which for sweetness and restfulness had never met his eye before. ”

“ Her heart felt like lead as she walked along slowly in the sunshine of the bright November morning. She realized that she had been struggling against all evidence to excuse Murray for not having brought her home, or come to tell her mother about the accident, or even calling up on the telephone this morning to find out if she was all right. She could not understand it. Murray! Her old friend, turned yellow like this! Disgusting! Terrible! Why believe in anybody any more? ”

“ He thought—poor soul, he had not yet learned the subtlety of sin, the frailty of human nature—he thought if he could be in this environment, with such people about him, such a home to come to, and such a mother to love him, he could learn to fit it. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of the other man coming he would have dared to try it and keep up his masquerade. ”

“ Murray was doing more thinking these last few days than he had ever done in the whole of his life before. Life, as it were, was painting pictures on his mind, wonderful living truths that he had never seen before were flashing on the canvas of his brain, made up of the facts of his past life which at the time had passed over him unnoticed. ”

“ But he felt sure now that if he had been obliged to stay on that truck under that fearful rumbling car, and bump over that uneven roadbed for another ten [Pg 59] minutes, he would have died of horror, or else rolled off beneath those grinding, crunching wheels. His head was aching as if those wheels were going around inside his brain. His back ached with an ache unspeakable, and his cramped legs ached as if they were being torn from his aching body. He had never known before how many places there were in a human body to ache.
He had eaten no breakfast nor dinner. ”

“ You can’t blame the poor child for being divorced from men who were seeking her merely for her money!”
“The Countess Lenowski is neither so young nor so innocent as she would have everybody believe, and I told you at the time that her beauty wasn’t even skin-deep. I don’t get your fine distinctions. What’s the matter with this De Flora woman? Isn’t she rich? Doesn’t your son think she’s beautiful? And she’s young enough. They say she’s never been married at all, let alone divorced. I made it a point to look into that.” ”

“ He heard how all men were sinners. That was made most plain, in terms that reminded him of the morning sermon about the judgment. He did not dispute that fact in his mind. He knew that he was a sinner. Since he had run away from the hospital his sin had loomed large, but he named it by the name of murder, and counted it done against a human law. Now he began to see that there was sin back of that. There were worse things in his life than even killing Bessie had been, if one was to believe all that the preacher said. ”

“ A man suddenly dashing away from his companions would excite much attention in the quiet town. He could not hope to make any possible getaway that way. He must bide his time and watch for a side door, a by-way somewhere.
They led him across a marble floor down aisles of mahogany partitions, through silently swinging doors to an office beyond, where he was introduced to the Vice-president. They went down a marble hall to an elevator and shot up several stories to a dim and silent room, with thick velvet underfoot and a polished table of noble proportions set about with lordly chairs. ”

“ Could not have the power to shut him out from eternal life, as it was now shutting him out from earthly life and all that he loved. Queer! Could this thing be true? There was one condition, however. One had to believe! How could one believe a thing like that? It was too good to be true. Besides, if it were true, why had no one ever told it to him before?
Murray went home in a dazed state of mind, home to the deep chair by the firelight, to Mrs. Summers’ gentle benediction of a prayer before he went up to his room. ”

“ Murray Van Rensselaer had never held such sweet converse with a man as he held with the minister on that ride home. Murray had never supposed there could be such a man as that minister, so strong and fearless, yet so tender and gentle, so wise and far-seeing, yet able to laugh and see a joke quicker than most ”

“ The morning passed swiftly, and when he was told that it was the noon hour he came to himself with a sudden realization that now was his chance to escape. He had almost forgotten that he had wanted to escape—needed to. He was enjoying himself hugely, and liked the idea of going on and becoming a banker. He saw himself winning out and becoming a champion in the game of banking—just as he had won out and become a champion in tennis and golf and polo. ”

“ Now here was a girl, just a common little country girl, filling him with terror. She seemed to possess almost supernatural power over him, as if she had eyes that could see through to his soul, and would expose him to the scorn of the world if he for one moment angered her and let her get a chance to look into his poor shaken mind. “Murray Van Rensselaer! Why, Murray, what’s the matter with you?” he said to himself. And then, “But I’m not Murray Van [Pg 76] Rensselaer any more. I’m a murderer fleeing from justice! I must get away!” ”