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An Apostle Of The Tules
by
He stopped and walked towards the window. The sunlight that fell upon his handsome face seemed to call back the careless smile to his lips and the reckless fire to his brown eyes. “I don’t suppose there’s a man among them that wouldn’t tell you all this in a great deal better way than I do. But the darned fools–excuse me–would have ME break it to you. Why, I don’t know. I needn’t tell you I like you–not only for what you did for George–but I like you for your style–for yourself. And I want you to accept. You could keep these rooms till they got a house ready for you. Together–you and me–we’d make that organ howl. But because I like it–because it’s everything to us–and nothing to you, it don’t seem square for me to ask it. Does it?”
Gideon replied by taking Hamlin’s hand. His face was perfectly pale, but his look collected. He had not expected this offer, and yet when it was made he felt as if he had known it before–as if he had been warned of it–as if it was the great temptation of his life. Watching him with an earnestness only slightly overlaid by his usual manner, Hamlin went on.
“I know it would be lonely here, and a man like you ought to have a wife for–” he slightly lifted his eyebrows–“for example’s sake. I heard there was a young lady in the case over there in Tasajara–but the old people didn’t see it on account of your position. They’d jump at it now. Eh? No? Well,” continued Jack, with a decent attempt to conceal his cynical relief, “perhaps those boys have been so eager to find out all they could do for you that they’ve been sold. Perhaps we’re making equal fools of ourselves now in asking you to stay. But don’t say no just yet–take a day or a week to think of it.”
Gideon still pale but calm, cast his eyes around the elegant room, at the magic organ, then upon the slight handsome figure before him. “I WILL think of it,” he said, in a low voice, as he pressed Jack’s hand. “And if I accept you will find me here to-morrow afternoon at this time; if I do not you will know that I keep with me wherever I go the kindness, the brotherly love, and the grace of God that prompts your offer, even though He withholds from me His blessed light, which alone can make me know His wish.” He stopped and hesitated. “If you love me, Jack, don’t ask me to stay, but pray for that light which alone can guide my feet back to you, or take me hence for ever.”
He once more tightly pressed the hand of the embarrassed man before him and was gone.
Passers-by on the Martinez road that night remembered a mute and ghostly rider who, heedless of hail or greeting, moved by them as in a trance or vision. But the Widow Hiler the next morning, coming from the spring, found no abstraction or preoccupation in the soft eyes of Gideon Deane as he suddenly appeared before her, and gently relieved her of the bucket she was carrying. A quick flash of color over her brow and cheek-bone, as if a hot iron had passed there, and a certain astringent coyness, would have embarrassed any other man than him.
“Sho, it’s YOU. I reck’ned I’d seen the last of you.”
“You don’t mean that, Sister Hiler?” said Gideon, with a gentle smile.
“Well, what with the report of your goin’s on at Martinez and improvin’ the occasion of that sinner’s death, and leadin’ a revival, I reckoned you’ld hev forgotten low folks at Tasajara. And if your goin’ to be settled there in a new church, with new hearers, I reckon you’ll want new surroundings too. Things change and young folks change with ’em.”
They had reached the house. Her breath was quick and short as if she and not Gideon had borne the burden. He placed the bucket in its accustomed place, and then gently took her hand in his. The act precipitated the last drop of feeble coquetry she had retained, and the old tears took its place. Let us hope for the last time. For as Gideon stooped and lifted her ailing babe in his strong arms, he said softly, “Whatever God has wrought for me since we parted, I know now He has called me to but one work.”
“And that work?” she asked, tremulously.
“To watch over the widow and fatherless. And with God’s blessing, sister, and His holy ordinance, I am here to stay.”