Part 15

“He can and He will. He is a God of love, Naomi.”

“No,” said Naomi with stubborn conviction. “He isn’t a God of love at all. That’s why I’m skeered of him. No, no. He’s a God of wrath and justice and punishment. Love! There ain’t no such thing as love! I’ve never found it on earth, and I don’t believe it’s to be found in God.”

“Naomi, God loves us like a father.”

“Like MY father?” Naomi’s shrill laughter, pealing through the still room, was hideous to hear.

The old minister shuddered.

“No--no! As a kind, tender, all-wise father, Naomi--as you would have loved your little child if it had lived.”

Naomi cowered and moaned.

“Oh, I wish I could believe THAT. I wouldn’t be frightened if I could believe that. MAKE me believe it. Surely you can make me believe that there’s love and forgiveness in God if you believe it yourself.”

“Jesus Christ forgave and loved the Magdalen, Naomi.”

“Jesus Christ? Oh, I ain’t afraid of HIM. Yes, HE could understand and forgive. He was half human. I tell you, it’s God I’m skeered of.”

“They are one and the same,” said Mr. Leonard helplessly. He knew he could not make Naomi realize it. This anguished death-bed was no place for a theological exposition on the mysteries of the Trinity.

“Christ died for you, Naomi. He bore your sins in His own body on the cross.”

“We bear our own sins,” said Naomi fiercely. “I’ve borne mine all my life--and I’ll bear them for all eternity. I can’t believe anything else. I CAN’T believe God can forgive me. I’ve ruined people body and soul--I’ve broken hearts and poisoned homes--I’m worse than a murderess. No--no--no, there’s no hope for me.” Her voice rose again into that shrill, intolerable shriek. “I’ve got to go to hell. It ain’t so much the fire I’m skeered of as the outer darkness. I’ve always been so skeered of darkness--it’s so full of awful things and thoughts. Oh, there ain’t nobody to help me! Man ain’t no good and I’m too skeered of God.”

She wrung her hands. Mr. Leonard walked up and down the room in the keenest anguish of spirit he had ever known. What could he do? What could he say? There was healing and peace in his religion for this woman as for all others, but he could express it in no language which this tortured soul could understand. He looked at her writhing face; he looked at the idiot girl chuckling to herself at the foot of the bed; he looked through the open door to the remote, starlit night--and a horrible sense of utter helplessness overcame him. He could do nothing--nothing! In all his life he had never known such bitterness of soul as the realization brought home to him.

“What is the good of you if you can’t help me?” moaned the dying woman. “Pray--pray--pray!” she shrilled suddenly.

Mr. Leonard dropped on his knees by the bed. He did not know what to say. No prayer that he had ever prayed was of use here. The old, beautiful formulas, which had soothed and helped the passing of many a soul, were naught save idle, empty words to Naomi Clark. In his anguish of mind Stephen Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his lips had ever uttered.

“O, God, our Father! Help this woman. Speak to her in a tongue which she can understand.”

A beautiful, white face appeared for a moment in the light that streamed out of the doorway into the darkness of the night. No one noticed it, and it quickly drew back into the shadow. Suddenly, Naomi fell back on her pillow, her lips blue, her face horribly pinched, her eyes rolled up in her head. Maggie started up, pushed Mr. Leonard aside, and proceeded to administer some remedy with surprising skill and deftness. Mr. Leonard, believing Naomi to be dying, went to the door, feeling sick and bruised in soul.

Presently a figure stole out into the light.

“Felix, is that you?” said Mr. Leonard in a startled tone.

“Yes, sir.” Felix came up to the stone step. “Janet got frightened that you might fall on that rough road after dark, so she made me come after you with a lantern. I’ve been waiting behind the point, but at last I thought I’d better come and see if you would be staying much longer. If you will be, I’ll go back to Janet and leave the lantern here with you.” “Yes, that will be the best thing to do. I may not be ready to go home for some time yet,” said Mr. Leonard, thinking that the death-bed of sin behind him was no sight for Felix’s young eyes.

“Is that your grandson you’re talking to?” Naomi spoke clearly and strongly. The spasm had passed. “If it is, bring him in. I want to see him.”

Reluctantly, Mr. Leonard signed Felix to enter. The boy stood by Naomi’s bed and looked down at her with sympathetic eyes. But at first she did not look at him--she looked past him at the minister.

“I might have died in that spell,” she said, with sullen reproach in her voice, “and if I had, I’d been in hell now. You can’t help me--I’m done with you. There ain’t any hope for me, and I know it now.”

She turned to Felix.

“Take down that fiddle on the wall and play something for me,” she said imperiously. “I’m dying--and I’m going to hell--and I don’t want to think of it. Play me something to take my thoughts off it--I don’t care what you play. I was always fond of music--there was always something in it for me I never found anywhere else.”

Felix looked at his grandfather. The old man nodded, he felt too ashamed to speak; he sat with his fine silver head in his hands, while Felix took down and tuned the old violin, on which so many godless lilts had been played in many a wild revel. Mr. Leonard felt that he had failed his religion. He could not give Naomi the help that was in it for her.

Felix drew the bow softly, perplexedly over the strings. He had no idea what he should play. Then his eyes were caught and held by Naomi’s burning, mesmeric, blue gaze as she lay on her crumpled pillow. A strange, inspired look came over the boy’s face. He began to play as if it were not he who played, but some mightier power, of which he was but the passive instrument.