“And what kind of a God would He be who, having the power to prevent, permits, or orders, as the Bible teaches, all these evils? I am a man of the world, and pretend to nothing saintlike or chivalric, but do you think I am capable of going to Mr. Winthrop and striking down his daughter Susie with a loathsome disease? And yet if a minister or priest should come here he would begin to talk about the mysterious providence, and submission to God’s will. If I am to have a God, I want one at least better than myself.”
“You must be right,” said Christine, with a weary moan. “There is no God, and if there were, in view of what you say, I could only hate and fear Him. How chaotic the world is! But it is hard.” After a moment she added, shudderingly: “It is horrible. I did not think of these things when well.”
“Get well and forget them again, my dear. It is the best you can do.”
“If I get well,” said Christine, almost fiercely, “I shall get the most I can out of life, cost what it may;” and she turned her face to the wall.
A logical result of his teaching, but for some reason it awakened in Mr. Ludolph a vague foreboding.
The hours dragged on, and late in the afternoon the hard-driven physician appeared, examined his patient, and seemed relieved.
“If there is no change for the worse,” he said, cheerily, “if no new symptoms develop by tomorrow, I can pronounce this merely a severe cold, caused by the state of the system and too sudden check of perspiration;” and the doctor gave an opiate and bowed himself out.
Long and heavily Christine slept. The night that Dennis filled with agonizing prayer and thought was to her a blank. While he in his strong Christian love brought heaven nearer to her, while he resolved on that which would give her a chance for life, happy life, here and hereafter, she was utterly unconscious. No vision or presentiment of good, like a struggling ray of light, found access to her darkened spirit. So heavy was the stupor induced by the opiate, that her sleep seemed like the blank she so feared, when her brilliant, ambitious life should end in nothingness.
So I suppose God’s love meditates good, and resolves on life and joy for us, while our hearts are sleeping, dead to Him, benumbed and paralyzed so that only His love can awaken them. Like a vague yet hope-inspiring dream, this truth often enters the minds of those who are wrapped in the spiritual lethargy that may end in death. God wakes, watches, loves, and purposes good for them. When we are most unconscious, perhaps another effect for our salvation has been resolved upon in the councils of heaven.
But ambition more than love, earthly hopes rather than heavenly, kept Mr. Ludolph an anxious watcher at Christine’s side that night. A smile of satisfaction illumined his somewhat haggard face as he saw the fever pass away and the dew of natural moisture come out on Christine’s brow, but there was no thankful glance upward. Immunity from loathsome disease was due only to chance and the physician’s skill, by his creed.
The sun was shining brightly when Christine awoke and by a faint call startled her father from a doze in the great armchair.
“How do you feel, my dear?” he asked.
She languidly rubbed her heavy eyes, and said she thought she was better—she felt no pain. The opiate had not yet lost its effect. But soon she greatly revived, and when the doctor came he found her decidedly better, and concluded that she was merely suffering from a severe cold, and would soon regain her usual health.
Father and daughter were greatly relieved, and their spirits rose.
“I really feel as if I ought to thank somebody,” said Christine. “I am not going to thank the doctor, for I know what a bill is coming, so I will thank you. It was very kind of you to sit up the long night with me.”
Even Mr. Ludolph had to remember that he had in his anxiety thought as much of himself as of her.
“Another lease of life,” said Christine, dreamily looking into the future; “and, as I said last night, I mean to make the most of it.”
“I can best guide you in doing that,” said her father, looking into his daughter’s face with keen scrutiny.
“I believe you, and intend to give you the chance. When can we leave this detested land, this city of shops and speculators? To think that I, Christine Ludolph, am sick, idle, and perhaps have endangered all by reason of foolish exposure in a brewer’s tawdry, money-splashed house! Come, father when is the next scene in the brief drama to open? I am impatient to go home to our beloved Germany and enter on real life.”
“Well, my dear, if all goes well, we can enter on our true career a year from next fall—a short year and a half. Do not blame the delay, for it will enable us to live in Germany in almost royal style. I never was making money so rapidly as now. I have invested in that which cannot depreciate, and thus far has advanced beyond belief—buildings in the business part of the city.
