A strange, shamed look passed over Alan’s face, as if he had suddenly looked in the mirror and found his face dirty.
“Say, Bob,” he began, with a deep contrition, “I’m mighty sorry. I can’t ever forgive myself. But, old man, I’m beginning to think that perhaps your estimate of us was true. But Bob, we didn’t have an idea of it. Honest, we didn’t. Why, kid, we prayed for you the time you got hit by the automobile. We prayed in our Sunday night meeting for you.”
“I know you did,” said Bob with a thoughtful, faraway look, “and I hated it. One of the little kids told me, and I thought you did it to show off. But—say, Mac, I wish you’d pray for me again. I need it. It’s a mighty kind of stark living in this little old world all alone, even if I have got the chance of my lifetime.”
A great wave of love and joy thrilled up from Alan’s heart.
“I sure will,” he said, with a ring in his voice. “Let’s do it now. And I wish you’d pray for me. If ever a Christian felt mean and self-centered, and all kinds of rotten fool, I do. Come on.”
They knelt beside the big leather couch at the foot of the bed; Robert shyly, awkwardly, wondering just what he had brought upon himself by his impulsive words; but Alan in young eagerness, his arm flung across his companion’s shoulders.
“Oh, God,” he prayed, “I’ve been all kinds of a fool, but I thank You that You’ve shown me before it was too late. I thank You that You’ve given me this friend, and may we be friends always. And now won’t You just bless him, and show him what the Lord Jesus has done for him. We thank You together that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover all our sins and mistakes, the sins and mistakes of both of us; and that even such carelessness as I have been guilty of, such lack of true witnessing for Christ, cannot keep either of us from wearing the robe of righteousness, because it is Christ’s righteousness that we may wear and not our own. Help Bob to make a surrender of himself to You before he goes, and when he goes may he take You with him, and feel that he is never alone. We ask it in the name of Jesus.”
There was silence in the room for a moment as they continued to kneel, and then Alan said softly, “You pray, too, kid, it’ll be good to remember. Kind of bind us together, you know, till you come back.”
Bob caught his breath softly, and then after a pause, he spoke huskily, hesitantly, “Oh God—I’m pretty much of a sinner, I guess. I—don’t think—I’d be much good—to You—but I need somebody—mighty bad! If You’ll take me—I’m Yours.”
He caught his breath again in a little gasp and added, “Thanks for sending Mac into my life—and for this great chance to go in his place.”
They talked a long time after the light was out and they were in bed, Alan explaining what it meant to be born again, what he had meant by “robe of righteousness,” showing his new friend how Christ had taken his sins entirely upon Himself and nailed them to the cross when He died, and that if he was willing to accept that freedom from the law that had been purchased on the cross, he had a right to stand clear and clean before God, not in his own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ.
Bob asked a lot of questions. The whole subject was utterly new to him. The clock struck two before the boys turned over and decided to get a little sleep. Alan had forgotten all about his own worries in the joy of leading another soul into the Light. Both boys were just drifting off into unconsciousness when they were vaguely aware of a car stopping before the door of the house. A moment later a pebble sharply struck the glass of the window, and a low whistle followed this signal.
They were alert and upright at once, and Alan sprang out of bed and went to the window.
“Who’s there?” Alan called softly, sharply from the window.
“That you, Mac?” whispered Keith Washburn softly. “Say Mac, did you leave a light on in the store?”
“Why, no!” said Alan. “Of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Abso-tively!” said Alan. “I know because I stumbled over a box of tin things Joe had left in the way.”
“Well, there’s one on there now,” said Keith impressively. “Just saw it as I went by. And what’s more it’s moving around like a flashlight, in the back of the store.”
“Wait a second. I’ll be down!” said Alan, flying into his clothes.
CHAPTER IV
Don’t get up, Bob,” said Alan struggling into a sweater. “Remember you’ve got a journey to go to tomorrow. It’s likely nothing. Go to sleep. I’ll be back in three jerks of a lamb’s tail.”
“Cut it!” said Bob, jerking on his shoes. “Whaddaya think I am, anyway, Mac?”
Keith was waiting for them downstairs, the engine running softly, and he had the car moving before they were fairly in.
“Sure you weren’t dreaming, Wash?” asked Alan, wondering why his teeth had a tendency to chatter, and trying to remember whether he had finally brought those papers home with him or left them in the safe. He had a ghastly feeling that he had left them in the safe. Oh, if Dad were only well!
“Dreaming!” said Keith contemptuously. “Well, I might have been of course. I saw the light when I first rounded the corner of the post office and I thought it was odd. Thought you must have forgotten to turn it out, or else you decided to leave it burning. But when I got around the front of the store, it was all dark, so I concluded I had been mistaken. Thought it was just a reflection or something. But when I got down to your corner, I looked back, and it flashed up again and moved around. Then I decided you had gone down to the store after something, but somehow I wasn’t easy and thought I’d better see if I could get in touch with you. Thought maybe you could explain it.”
They were rounding the corner into the main street now, and suddenly Bob laid a detaining hand on the wheel.
“Better stop here, Washburn,” he suggested. “If you go nearer, the engine can be heard.”
“That’s right, Lincoln. I ought to have thought of that. I’ll park here in the shadow, and we’ll sneak up. Probably it’s only some trick of the streetlights reflecting somewhere, and I’ll feel like two cents. Probably I’ve only got a case of nerves, riding half the night. If it is, I’ll feel cheap as dirt to think I woke you up, but it’s always just as well to be on the safe side.”
“Sure thing,” said Alan with set lips, as he swung to the ground softly and wondered for the fortieth time whether he had taken those papers home or left them in the safe.
“There is a light in there,” whispered Bob as they stole along, walking on the grass at the edge of the pavement so that their feet made no sound. “There! See there! It’s moving around. Now, it’s gone. No, there it is again.”
“I’ll slide around to the alley,” whispered Alan. “It might be I can look in the back window. They’re operating down by the safe, whoever it is. You two watch this side and the front, will you?”
“Don’t do anything rash, Mac! Perhaps we better call the officer. He ought to be in the region about now.”
“No, wait! I want to get a line on things first,” said Alan as he slid off into the darkness, plunging swiftly down the alleyway that separated his father’s store from the millinery store just beyond, and passed the window behind his father’s desk.
Softly Washburn and Lincoln stepped up to the front of the store and tried to look through the front windows, but the window decorations prevented their