第 六十 章 · 第60章

. 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 fireplace 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.