Part 47

She stood, her eyes now suffused with tears, but smiling still; the panic in her father's house, the comment of cruel tongues, the fight with death, the pestilence that walks in darkness--these were all forgotten in the transport of her soul. She had chosen her Gethsemane long ago, and this was its harvest time.

Angus' eyes drank deeply from the spring.

"Margaret," he said at last, "how beautiful God is!"--and Margaret understood.

She advanced towards the bed, her hands outstretched--he sought to bid her back.

"Margaret, you know not what you do; your life----" But it was in vain.

"My life is my love," she cried with defiant passion. "Oh, Angus, how beautiful God is!" and, stooping down, she overpowered him, spurning death while love should claim its own.

As she stood above him again, her lips were moist with love's anointing and she knew that nothing could prevail against them now. Hers the promised power that could take up serpents, and drink deadly things, and be unharmed. Hers the commission to lay hands on the sick that they might recover. Her sombre foes seemed many; shame clouded the name she fain would bear, opposition frowned from the faces of those who bore her, and now plague had joined the conspiracy--but in all these things she was more than conqueror.

* * * * *

The winter had retreated before the conquering spring, and the vanquished pestilence had also fled when they came forth again, these prisoners of love. Nearly four long luscious weeks had flown, and their souls' bridal time was past. They had baffled death together; and they came forth, each with the great experience--each with the unstained heart.

Angus bore a scar, only one, as the legacy of pestilence--but it could be clearly seen, and it was on his brow.

"My life seems doomed to these single scars," he had said, not bitterly, during one of the sweet convalescent days.

"But not through any fault of yours, dear one," Margaret had answered. "I have the same wounds, mark for mark, but they are in my heart," and she kissed his brow, ordained to another burden.

"Where shall we go?" said Margaret. He had heard the words before, and rich memories came back. The freedom of the world was theirs; for they had been absolved from the stigma of disease, and the sentinel had ceased from his labours.

"I must go home now," she continued, "for it will soon be dark."

"I had forgotten about darkness," said Angus. "Come with me. I want to do something for my mother's sake."

"'Your mother's sake!'" she repeated, "did your mother ever know the poor woman who died of the disease? or her little child? Did you care for them for her sake?"

"I cared for them for her sake," Angus answered, "but my mother never knew her; they lived in different countries--but their sorrows were related. Let us turn here."

They turned off into a quiet street, and presently entered the old stone-cutter's shop. Angus spoke to him apart for a time; finally the old man said:

"Perhaps you'd better write it down."

"Very well, I will," replied Angus.

The old stone-cutter adjusted his glasses: "Nothin' on the big stone about her age?"

"No, nothing," answered Angus.

"Nor nothin' about her folks?"

"No, nothing," said Angus again.

"And nothin' on the little stone only this?"

"Nothing more," said the other.

"All right, sir, I understand then. The big stone is just to have 'Luke. 7:47: For she loved much,' and the little one: 'My brother.' All right, I'll set 'em up to-morrow, only I kind o' thought it didn't give a terrible lot of information. But I suppose you know the meanin' of it."

"Yes, I know," said the man with the mark upon his brow.