A DIFFICULT QUESTION.
Reading edition
THE STORY OF TWO CHRISTMAS EVES.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—PROLOGUE.
In the gray light of an Indian dawn, with the cool breeze blowing through the curtains of the tent, and his friend's sorrowful eyes looking down on him, a soldier lay on his rough couch—waiting for death. They were soon to be parted those two, who had lived and fought together; but the face of the one who was starting on that journey of which none has measured the distance, was smilingly calm, while the eyes of the other glistened with regretful tears as he spoke low, faltering, remorseful words.
'Hush, Ralph, hush!' the other said at last. 'Don't you think, dear old fellow, I would sooner lose my life in having saved yours, than in any other way? After all, a few days or years sooner or later, what does it signify? My fate is perhaps the happiest, though I hope it is not. I don't think life is so very desirable,' he continued; 'I am only twenty-six; but mine has not been a happy one. It was my own fault, though. Take my advice, Ralph; don't marry young. There is only one thing that troubles me'——
'Your little girl,' Ralph interrupted. 'Wrayworth, let me take care of her; if I can make her happy, it will be some slight atonement, some'——
'You would take care of her, Ralph? would you?' The dying man's eyes shone gratefully as he looked up in his friend's face. 'She has nothing, poor little thing,' he went on sadly—'motherless, fatherless, scarcely more than a baby either. It would be a heavy charge to leave you, Ralph.'
'Wrayworth! how can you speak so; you will drive me mad! You—you'—— He broke down utterly; it was something so terrible to see this friend dying there—for him. 'Anything on earth that I can do'—— he murmured.
'You will do for her,' said Wrayworth. 'Thank you. I have no friends to send her to. I meant to have made her very happy.'
'She shall be; I swear it!' Ralph answered fervently, thankful for this charge, which might in some degree help him to pay that debt of gratitude, and forgetful that he had no control of fate, that the promise he gave of happiness was a fearfully presumptuous one. But he made it willingly, gladly, solemnly, before God; and as far as lay in his power it should sacredly be kept; any sacrifice he would make for this child.
His friend's eyes rested on him searchingly for a moment. 'I trust you,' he said—'I trust you.'
The hours passed on, the blazing sun arose, and Ralph went out into the burning glare with bent head and staggering footsteps, while words he had heard long since seemed floating round him in letters of fire: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.'—'Is there none greater?' he thought. 'Is there nothing I can do to repay—nothing?'