The Angel of His Presence Read Online Free PDF

glad the hateful, beautiful thing was broken. It was no one's fault particularly, and now it was out of the way and would not need to be explained . He walke d about, still humming and look ing at his room, and still that picture seemed to follow and be a part of his consciousness wherever he went. It certainly was well h ung, and gave the strong impres sion of being a part of the room itself. He looked at it critically from a new point of view, and as he faced it, once more he was in the upper chamber and seemed to hear his Master saying, "Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more"; and he real ized that he was in the presence of the scene of the end of his Master's mission. He walked back to the fireplace seeking for something to turn his thoughts away, and passing the table where stood his elegantly mounted smoking set, he decided to smoke. It was about the usual hour for his bedtime smoke, anyway. He selected a cigar from those Thomas had set out and lighted it with one of the matches in the silver match safe, and for an instant turned with a feeling of lazy, delicious luxury in the use of his new room and all its appliances. Un consciously he seated himself again before the fire in the great leather chair, and began to puff the smoke into dreamy shapes and let his thoughts wander as he closed his eyes.
    Suppose, ah, suppose that someone, say the " ladye of high degree," should be there, should belong there, and should come and stand behind his chair. He could see the graceful pose of her fine figure. She might reach over and touch his hair and laugh lightly. He tried to imagine it, but in spite of him the laugh rang out in his thoughts scornfully like a sharp, silver bell th at be longed to someone else. He glanced over his shoulder at the imagined face, but it looked cold above the smoke. She did not mind smoke. He had seen her face behind a wreath of smoke several times. It seemed a natural setting. But the dream seemed an empty one. He raised his head and settled it back at a new angle. How rosy the light was as it played on the hearth and how glad he was to be at home again. That was enough for tonight. The " ladye of high de gree" might stay in her home across the sea for this time. He was content.
    Then he raised his eyes to the picture above without knowing it, and there he was smoking at the supper table of the Lord. At least so he felt it to be. He had always been scrupulously careful never to smoke in or about a church. He used to give long, ear nest lectures on the subject to some of the boys of t he mission who would smoke ciga rettes and pipes on the steps of the church before service. He remembered them now with satisfaction, and he also remembered a murmured, jeering sound that had arisen from the corner where the very worst boys sat, which had been suppressed by his friends, but which had cut at the time, and which he had always wondered over a little. He had seen no inconsistency in speaking so to the boys in view of his own actions. Bu t now , as he looked at that pic ture he felt as though he were smoking in church with the service going on. The smoke actually hid his Master's face. He took down his cigar and looked up with a feeling of apolo gy, but this was involun tary. His irritation was rising again. The idea of a picture upsetting him so! He must be tired or his nerves unsettled. There was no more harm in smoking in front of that picture than before any other. "Confound that picture!" he said, as he rose and walked over to the bay window, "I'll have it hung somewhere else tomorrow. I won't have the thing around. No, it'll have to be left here till after that reception, I suppose; but after that it shall go. Such a consum mate nuisance!"
    He stood looking out of the open window with a scowl. He reflected that it was a strange thing for him to be so affected by a picture, a mere imagination of the brain. He would not let it be so. He would over come it. Then he turned and tramped delib