Robert Hardys Seven Days | Page 8

Yes: they were gambling. So here was where
George spent all his money, and Bessie's too! Nothing that the
miserable father had seen so far cut him to the quick quite so sharply as
this. He had prided himself on his own freedom from vices, and had an
honest horror of them: for Mr. Hardy was not a monster of iniquity,
only an intensely selfish man. Gambling, drinking, impurity--all the
physical vices--were to Mr. Hardy the lowest degradation.
The thought that his own son had fallen into this pit was terrible to him.

But he was compelled to look and listen. All the young men were
smoking, and beer and wine, which stood on a buffet at one side of the
room, were plentifully partaken of.
"I say, George," said a very flashily-dressed youth, who was smoking
that invention of the devil, a cigarette, "your old man would rub his
eyes to see you here, eh?"
"Well, I should remark he would," replied George, as he shuffled the
cards and then helped himself to a drink.
"I say, George," said the first speaker, "your sister Bess is getting to be
a beauty. Introduce me, will you?"
"No, I won't," said George shortly. He had been losing all the evening,
and he felt nervous and irritable.
"Ah! We are too bad, eh?"
George made some fierce reply, and the other fellow struck him.
Instantly George sprang to his feet and a fight took place. Mr. Hardy
could not bear it any longer. He thought he broke away from the scene
by the exercise of a great determination.
Next he found himself looking into his own home. It seemed to him it
was an evening when he and all the children had gone out and Mrs.
Hardy sat alone, looking into the fire as she had been looking before he
fell asleep. She was thinking, and her thoughts were like burning coals
as they fell into Mr. Hardy's heart and scorched him, as no other scene,
not even the last, had done.
"My husband!" Mrs. Hardy was saying to herself, "how long it is since
he gave me a caress, kissed me when he went to his work, or laid his
hand lovingly on my cheek as he used to do! How brave, and handsome,
and good I used to think him in the old Vermont days when we were
struggling for our little home, and his best thought was of the home and
of the wife! But the years have changed him; oh, yes! they have
changed him bitterly. I wonder if he realises my hunger for his

affection? Of what value to me are all these baubles wealth brings
compared with a loving look, a tender smile, an affectionate caress! O
Robert! Robert! come back to me! for I am so lonely, so lonely! Would
to God all our riches might be taken from us and our position in Society
be lost to us! for I am fast losing my love for him who is my husband.
Great and long-suffering and forgiving God, help me! I feel wicked
sometimes. I cannot bear this kind of a life. It is killing me! It is
robbing me of all that life contains that is sweet and true. O Father of
mercies, for Jesus' sake do not let me grow insane or without belief! O
Robert, Robert! my lover, my husband; I will, I will love you!" And
Mrs. Hardy fell on her knees by the side of the couch and buried her
face in its cushions and sobbed and prayed.
Suddenly the whole scene changed, and Mr. Hardy, who had stretched
out his arms to comfort his wife as in the old days when love was
young, felt himself carried by an irresistible power up away from the
earth, past the stars and planets and suns and satellites that blazed like
gems in space; on, on for what seemed to him like ages of time, until
even the thought of time grew indistinct; on and up and into the
presence of the most mighty Face he had ever looked into. It was the
Face of Eternity. On its brow was written in words of blazing light the
one word "Now." And as he looked into that calm, awful Face and read
that word, Mr. Hardy felt his soul crumble within him. When the Face
spoke it was the speech of a thousand oceans heaved by a million
tempests, yet through the terror of it ran a thread of music--a still, sweet
sound like everlasting love--as if angels sang somewhere a divine
accompaniment. And the Face said:
"Child of humanity, you have neglected and despised me for fifty years.
You have lived for yourself. You have been careless and thoughtless of
the world's great needs.