She brooded and fancied and recoiled till the thought of him became so
painful that she turned from it, rather than from him, with discomfort
amounting almost to disgust. He had been to her the centre of all that
was noble and true. And he revelled in company of which she knew
nothing except from far-off hints of unapproachable pollution! Her idol
all of silver hue was blackened with the breath of sulphur, and the
world was overspread with the darkness which radiated from it.
In this mood she went to the week-evening service at Mr Turnbull's
chapel. There she sat listless, looking for no help, and caring for
none of the hymns or prayers. At length Mr Turnbull began to read the
story of the Prodigal Son. And during the reading her distress vanished
like snow in the sunshine. For she took for her own the character of
the elder brother, prayed for forgiveness, and came away loving Alec
Forbes more than ever she had loved him before. If God could love the
Prodigal, might she not, ought she not to love him too????-The deepest
source of her misery, though she did not know that it was, had been the
fading of her love to him.
And as she walked home through the dark, the story grew into other
comfort.
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