CHAPTER XXV.

THE HEART OF THE HEART.

The laird had been poorly for some weeks, and Alexa began to fear that he was failing. Nothing more had passed between him and Dawtie, but he knew that anxious eyes were often watching him, and the thought worried him not a little. If he would but take a start, thought Dawtie, and not lose all the good of this life! It was too late for him to rise very high; he could not now be a saint, but he might at least set a foot on the eternal stair that leads to the fullness of bliss! He would have a sore fight with all those imps of things, before he ceased to love that which was not lovely, and to covet that which was not good! But the man gained a precious benefit from this world, who but began to repent before he left it! If only the laird would start up the hill before his body got quite to the bottom! Was there any way to approach him again with her petition that he would be good to himself, good to God, good to the universe, that he would love what was worth loving, and cast away what was not? She had no light, and could do nothing!

Suddenly the old man failed quite—apparently from no cause but weakness. The unease of his mind, the haunting of the dread thought of having to part with the chalice, had induced it. He was in his closet one night late into the morning, and the next day did not get up to breakfast He wanted a little rest, he said. In a day he would be well! But the hour to rise again, much anticipated, never came. He seemed very troubled at times, and very desirous of getting up, but never was able. It became necessary to sit with him at night. In fits of delirium he would make fierce endeavor to rise, insisting that he must go to his study. His closet he never mentioned: even in dreams was his secrecy dominant. Dawtie, who had her share in nursing him, kept hoping her opportunity would come. He did not seem to cherish any resentment against her. His illness would protect him, he thought, from further intrusion of her conscience upon his! She must know better than irritate a sick man with overofficiousness! Everybody could not be a saint! It was enough to be a Christian like other good and salvable Christians! It was enough for him if through the merits of his Saviour he gained admission to the heavenly kingdom at last! He never thought now, once in, he could bear to stay in; never thought how heaven could be to him other than the dullest place in the universe of God, more wearisome than the kingdom of darkness itself! And all the time the young woman with the savior-heart was watching by his bedside, ready to speak; but the Spirit gave her no utterance, and her silence soothed his fear of her.

One night he was more restless than usual. Waking from his troubled slumber, he called her—in the tone of one who had something important to communicate.

"Dawtie," he said, with feeble voice but glittering eye, "there is no one I can trust like you. I have been thinking of what you said that night ever since. Go to my closet and bring me the cup."

Dawtie held a moment's debate whether it would be right; but she reflected that it made little difference whether the object of his passion was in his hand or in his chest, while it was all the same deep in his heart. Then his words seemed to imply that he wanted to take his farewell of it; and to refuse his request might only fan the evil love, and turn him from the good motion in his mind. She said: "Yes, sir," and stood waiting. He did not speak.

"I do not know where to find it," she said.

"I am going to tell you," he replied, but seemed to hesitate.

"I will not touch a single thing beside," said Dawtie.

He believed her, and at once proceeded:

"Take my bunch of keys from the hook behind me. There is the key of the closet door!—and there, the key of all the bunch that looks the commonest, but is in reality the most cunningly devised, is the key of the cabinet in which I keep it!"

Then he told her where, behind a little book-case, which moved from the wall on hinges, she would find the cabinet, and in what part of it the cup, wrapped in a piece of silk that had once been a sleeve, worn by Mme. de Genlis—which did not make Dawtie much wiser.

She went, found the chalice, and brought it where the laird lay straining his ears, and waiting for it as a man at the point of death might await the sacramental cup from absolving priest.

His hands trembled as he took it; for they were the hands of a lover—strange as that love was, which not merely looked for no return, but desired to give neither pleasure nor good to the thing loved! It was no love of the merely dead, but a love of the unliving! He pressed the thing to his bosom; then, as if rebuked by the presence of Dawtie, put it a little from him, and began to pore over every stone, every repoussé figure between, and every engraved ornament around the gems, each of which he knew, by shape, order, quality of color, better than ever face of wife or child. But soon his hands sunk on the counterpane of silk patchwork, and he lay still, grasping tight the precious thing.

He woke with a start and a cry, to find it safe in both his hands.

"Ugh!" he said; "I thought some one had me by the throat! You didn't try to take the cup from me—did you, Dawtie?"

"No, sir," answered Dawtie; "I would not care to take it out of your hand, but I should be glad to take it out of your heart!"

"If they would only bury it with me!" he murmured, heedless of her words.

"Oh, sir! Would you have it burning your heart to all eternity? Give it up, sir, and take the treasure thief never stole."

"Yes, Dawtie, yes! That is the true treasure!"

"And to get it we must sell all that we have!"

"He gives and withholds as He sees fit."

"Then, when you go down into the blackness, longing for the cup you will never see more, you will complain of God that he would not give you strength to fling it from you?"

He hugged the chalice.

"Fling it from me!" he cried, fiercely. "Girl, who are you to torment me before my time!"

"Tell me, sir," persisted Dawtie, "why does the apostle cry, 'Awake thou that sleepest!' if they couldn't move?"

"No one can move without God."

"Therefore, seeing every one can move, it must be God giving him the power to do what he requires of him; and we are fearfully to blame not using the strength God gives us!"

"I can not bear the strain of thinking!" gasped the laird.

"Then give up thinking, and do the thing! Shall I take it for you?"

She put out her hand as she spoke.

"No! no!" he cried, grasping the cup tighter. "You shall not touch it! You would give it to the earl! I know you! Saints hate what is beautiful!"

"I like better to look at things in my Father's hand than in my own!"

"You want to see my cup—it is my cup!—in the hands of that spendthrift fool, Lord Borland!"

"It is in the Father's hand, whoever has it!"

"Hold your tongue, Dawtie, or I will cry out and wake the house!"

"They will think you out of your mind, and come and take the cup from you! Do let me put it away; then you will go to sleep."

"I will not; I can not trust you with it! You have destroyed my confidence in you! I may fall asleep, but if your hand come within a foot of the cup, it will wake me! I know it will! I shall sleep with my heart in the cup, and the least touch will wake me!"

"I wish you would let Andrew Ingram come and see you, sir!"

"What's the matter with him?"

"Nothing's the matter with him, sir; but he helps everybody to do what is right."

"Conceited rascal! Do you take me for a maniac that you talk such foolery?"

His look was so wild, his old blue faded eyes gleamed with such a light of mingled fear and determination, that Dawtie was almost sorry she had spoken. With trembling hands he drew the cup within the bed-clothes, and lay still. If the morning would but come, and bring George Crawford! He would restore the cup to its place, or hide it where he should know it safe and not far from him!

Dawtie sat motionless, and the old man fell into another feverish doze. She dared not stir lest he should start away to defend his idol. She sat like an image, moving only her eyes.

"What are you about, Dawtie?" he said at length. "You are after some mischief, you are so quiet!"

"I was telling God how good you would be if he could get you to give up your odds and ends, and take Him instead."

"How dared you say such a thing, sitting there by my side! Are you to say to Him that any sinner would be good, if He would only do so and so with him! Tremble, girl, at the vengeance of the Almighty!"

"We are told to make prayers and intercessions for all men, and I was saying what I could for you." The laird was silent, and the rest of the night passed quietly.

His first words in the morning were:

"Go and tell your mistress I want her."

When his daughter came, he told her to send for George Crawford. He was worse, he said, and wanted to see him.

Alexa thought it best to send Dawtie with the message by the next train. Dawtie did not relish the mission, for she had no faith in Crawford, and did not like his influence on her master. Not the less when she reached his hotel, she insisted on seeing him and giving her message in person; which done, she made haste for the first train back: they could not do well without her! When she arrived, there was Mr. Crawford already on the platform! She set out as fast as she could, but she had not got further than half-way when he overtook her in a fly, and insisted she should get in.