_ Ernest now went home and occupied himself till luncheon with
studying Dean Alford's notes upon the various Evangelistic records
of the Resurrection, doing as Mr Shaw had told him, and trying to
find out not that they were all accurate, but whether they were all
accurate or no. He did not care which result he should arrive at,
but he was resolved that he would reach one or the other. When he
had finished Dean Alford's notes he found them come to this, namely,
that no one yet had succeeded in bringing the four accounts into
tolerable harmony with each other, and that the Dean, seeing no
chance of succeeding better than his predecessors had done,
recommended that the whole story should be taken on trust--and this
Ernest was not prepared to do.
He got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and returned to
dinner at half past six. While Mrs Jupp was getting him his dinner-
-a steak and a pint of stout--she told him that Miss Snow would be
very happy to see him in about an hour's time. This disconcerted
him, for his mind was too unsettled for him to wish to convert
anyone just then. He reflected a little, and found that, in spite
of the sudden shock to his opinions, he was being irresistibly drawn
to pay the visit as though nothing had happened. It would not look
well for him not to go, for he was known to be in the house. He
ought not to be in too great a hurry to change his opinions on such
a matter as the evidence for Christ's Resurrection all of a sudden--
besides he need not talk to Miss Snow about this subject to-day--
there were other things he might talk about. What other things?
Ernest felt his heart beat fast and fiercely, and an inward monitor
warned him that he was thinking of anything rather than of Miss
Snow's soul.
What should he do? Fly, fly, fly--it was the only safety. But
would Christ have fled? Even though Christ had not died and risen
from the dead there could be no question that He was the model whose
example we were bound to follow. Christ would not have fled from
Miss Snow; he was sure of that, for He went about more especially
with prostitutes and disreputable people. Now, as then, it was the
business of the true Christian to call not the righteous but sinners
to repentance. It would be inconvenient to him to change his
lodgings, and he could not ask Mrs Jupp to turn Miss Snow and Miss
Maitland out of the house. Where was he to draw the line? Who
would be just good enough to live in the same house with him, and
who just not good enough?
Besides, where were these poor girls to go? Was he to drive them
from house to house till they had no place to lie in? It was
absurd; his duty was clear: he would go and see Miss Snow at once,
and try if he could not induce her to change her present mode of
life; if he found temptation becoming too strong for him he would
fly then--so he went upstairs with his Bible under his arm, and a
consuming fire in his heart.
He found Miss Snow looking very pretty in a neatly, not to say
demurely, furnished room. I think she had bought an illuminated
text or two, and pinned it up over her fire-place that morning.
Ernest was very much pleased with her, and mechanically placed his
Bible upon the table. He had just opened a timid conversation and
was deep in blushes, when a hurried step came bounding up the stairs
as though of one over whom the force of gravity had little power,
and a man burst into the room saying, "I'm come before my time." It
was Towneley.
His face dropped as he caught sight of Ernest. "What, you here,
Pontifex! Well, upon my word!"
I cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed quickly
between the three--enough that in less than a minute Ernest,
blushing more scarlet than ever, slunk off, Bible and all, deeply
humiliated as he contrasted himself and Towneley. Before he had
reached the bottom of the staircase leading to his own room he heard
Towneley's hearty laugh through Miss Snow's door, and cursed the
hour that he was born.
Then it flashed upon him that if he could not see Miss Snow he could
at any rate see Miss Maitland. He knew well enough what he wanted
now, and as for the Bible, he pushed it from him to the other end of
his table. It fell over on to the floor, and he kicked it into a
corner. It was the Bible given him at his christening by his
affectionate aunt, Elizabeth Allaby. True, he knew very little of
Miss Maitland, but ignorant young fools in Ernest's state do not
reflect or reason closely. Mrs Baxter had said that Miss Maitland
and Miss Snow were birds of a feather, and Mrs Baxter probably knew
better than that old liar, Mrs Jupp. Shakespeare says:
O Opportunity, thy guilt is great
'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason:
Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.
If the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater is the guilt
of that which is believed to be opportunity, but in reality is no
opportunity at all. If the better part of valour is discretion, how
much more is not discretion the better part of vice
About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, insulted girl,
flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying from Mrs Jupp's house as
fast as her agitated state would let her, and in another ten minutes
two policemen were seen also coming out of Mrs Jupp's, between whom
there shambled rather than walked our unhappy friend Ernest, with
staring eyes, ghastly pale, and with despair branded upon every line
of his face. _