seat laden with a large leather grip and a suitcase. He sat down to read
his letters, and these took his mind away from his troubled thoughts for a
little while. There was a letter from his mother, sweet, graceful, half
wistfully offering her sympathy. He saw she guessed the reason why he had
left her and gone to this far place. Dear little mother! What would she
say if she knew his trouble now? And then would return his heart-frenzy
over Elizabeth's peril. O to know that she was protected, hidden!

Fumbling in his pocket, he came upon a slip of paper, the slip the girl
had given Elizabeth in the schoolhouse on Sunday afternoon. "For in the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me."

Ah! God had hidden her then. Why not again? And what was that he had said
to her himself, when searching for a word to cover his emotion? "I pray
for you!" Why could he not pray? She had made him pray in the wilderness.
Should he not pray for her who was in peril now? He leaned back in the
hot, uncomfortable car-seat, pulling his hat down closer over his eyes,
and prayed as he had never prayed before. "Our Father" he stumbled through
as far as he could remember, and tried to think how her sweet voice had
filled in the places where he had not known it the other time. Then, when
he was done, he waited and prayed, "Our Father, care for Elizabeth," and
added, "For Jesus' sake. Amen." Thereafter through the rest of his
journey, and for days and weeks stretching ahead, he prayed that prayer,
and sometimes found in it his only solace from the terrible fear that
possessed him lest some harm had come to the girl, whom it seemed to him
now he had deserted in cold blood.