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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Astra," Grace Livingston Hill weaves a poignant narrative that explores themes of love, identity, and self-discovery. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century America, this novel encapsulates Hill's signature style—characterized by lyrical prose and deep psychological insight. Through the journey of the protagonist, Astra, Hill delves into the conflicts between societal expectations and personal desires, intertwining elements of romance and moral dilemmas that resonate with the reader's own experiences and aspirations. The book presents a unique intersection of the traditional and the modern, reflecting the evolving roles of women during this transformative era. Grace Livingston Hill, recognized as one of the early architects of Christian romance fiction, draws upon her own faith and life experiences to enrich her storytelling. Born in a family dedicated to social reform and education, her literary endeavors are deeply influenced by her acute understanding of human emotions and relationships. Hill's own struggles with societal norms and her commitment to moral and religious values inspire a narrative that not only entertains but also instills a sense of purpose and reflection. "Astra" is a compelling read for both lovers of classic literature and those seeking inspiration through narrative. Hill's exploration of the intimate battle between societal conformity and personal integrity makes this work a timeless reflection on the human spirit. Readers will find themselves captivated by Astra's journey, and ultimately, it serves as a reminder of the resilience required to forge one's path in a changing world. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Astra
Table of Contents
Introduction
In Astra, Grace Livingston Hill sets a young woman at the crossroads where glittering opportunity and unwavering principle converge, tracing the danger and promise in choosing a life defined not by applause or convenience but by integrity, courage, and quiet faith, as invitations to ease and admiration press close, loyalties are tested in subtle rooms and crowded streets, and the heart learns that every path lit by brilliance is not necessarily bright, that every refusal carries its own radiance, and that love, if it is to endure, must be rooted in something more enduring than momentary charm.
Grace Livingston Hill’s novel belongs to the tradition of early twentieth-century American inspirational romance, a mode that blends domestic realism, moral inquiry, and restrained courtship with an explicitly Christian framework. Though individual scenes range from parlors to city thoroughfares typical of its era, the story remains anchored in recognizable American life rather than exotic locales. Hill wrote prolifically across decades when modern conveniences, shifting social codes, and new forms of leisure were altering everyday expectations, and Astra reflects that milieu by examining how a young woman orients herself amid change. The result is a narrative both contemporary to its time and character-centered.
Astra introduces its heroine as capable and inquisitive, suddenly confronted with choices that expose the distance between what seems desirable and what is truly good. Invitations arrive that promise comfort, status, or relief; responsibilities appear that require effort, sacrifice, and discernment. The plot unfolds not through sensational twists but through the steady accumulation of decisions, conversations, and providential intersections, making the stakes emotionally vivid without relying on melodrama. As readers follow Astra into new rooms and unfamiliar expectations, Hill shapes an atmosphere of gentle tension, where hope remains visible yet contingent upon character, and where kindness and courage quietly alter trajectories.
Hill’s voice is plainspoken and earnest, marked by clear moral signposts and a preference for everyday detail over ornate flourish. Dialogue carries much of the movement, revealing motives and contrasts without requiring harsh confrontation. The prose favors warmth and clarity, allowing brief moments of danger or misunderstanding to register as spiritual tests rather than spectacles. Readers encounter domestic scenes, workaday tasks, and modest pleasures set alongside invitations to compromise, each rendered with a patient cadence. The tone is hopeful without naïveté, gently persuasive rather than coercive, inviting the audience to consider not only what happens next, but why choices matter.
Among the novel’s central concerns are integrity in the face of social pressure, the formation of conscience, the stewardship of personal gifts, and the discovery that genuine love involves responsibility as much as delight. Money, comfort, and admiration tempt by offering shortcuts to security and belonging, yet they often carry costs obscured at first glance; Hill invites readers to weigh those trade-offs through Astra’s deliberations. Community matters, not as a vague ideal, but as the network of ordinary people who encourage wise decisions and extend practical help. Forgiveness and second chances appear without sentimentality, grounded in humility, service, and persistence.
For contemporary readers, Astra remains relevant because it examines the alluring surfaces of success and belonging with a clear-eyed sense of their limits, a question as pressing in an age of digital visibility as it was in Hill’s day. The novel models boundary-setting, wise friendship, and vocational purpose founded on values rather than on urgent trends. Its romance is clean yet emotionally credible, portraying trust as something earned, not assumed. For readers of faith, the spiritual dimension offers encouragement; for others, the ethical reflections invite sympathetic engagement. Either way, the book affirms that gentleness and integrity can navigate noisy, competitive environments.
Approaching Astra as both a period piece and a living conversation allows its textures to shine: the manners and rhythms of its era, the measured courtship, the quiet heroism of steadfast choices. Hill’s sympathetic attention to ordinary decency gives the novel staying power, inviting readers to reflect on where their own loyalties and ambitions meet. Without revealing turns best discovered in reading, it is enough to say that the story insists character is destiny in small, cumulative ways. Entering Astra’s world offers a restorative pace, a moral center, and the reminder that hope often grows in the soil of humble daily faithfulness.
Synopsis
Grace Livingston Hill’s Astra follows a young woman whose ordered world is abruptly unsettled, thrusting her from familiar comforts into circumstances that demand self-reliance and moral clarity. The narrative opens with routines and assumptions that have long sheltered her, only to reveal how quickly security can give way to uncertainty. In the aftermath, she must learn to navigate practical needs and social expectations without the buffers she once took for granted. Hill situates the heroine’s private struggle within a broader question of what truly defines stability, setting a tone of searching faith, quiet courage, and measured observation that guides the story’s unfolding.
As new responsibilities press in, the heroine enters an unpretentious milieu where resourcefulness matters more than appearances. Everyday tasks and small economies teach her to see people beyond reputation, and the contrast with her former circle becomes quietly instructive. Hill traces these adjustments with domestic detail and moral restraint, watching how kindness restores dignity and how pride yields to gratitude. Alongside the practical shift, the heroine encounters believers whose steady hope challenges her inherited assumptions. Their unobtrusive witness opens questions about purpose, prayer, and trust, not through argument but through the gentle discipline of shared work, hospitality, and consistent integrity.
Past ties continue to encroach, drawing the heroine back toward expectations that once seemed inevitable. Messages from home and visits from acquaintances pull on her loyalties, sometimes promising easy solutions that would cost her newly forming convictions. Hill uses these encounters to clarify competing definitions of success and security, showing how affection, obligation, and social pressure can blur moral lines. The heroine’s choices begin to affect others who depend on her resolve, and she comes to see that character is tested not only in dramatic trials but also in quiet decisions about honesty, stewardship, and the company she chooses to keep.
A central relationship develops gradually, not as rescue but as recognition. The man who comes into focus embodies steady responsibility and unshowy courage, and his presence complicates the heroine’s path by making integrity more attractive than convenience. Misunderstandings arise in the ordinary frictions of work and duty, yet mutual respect deepens as each witnesses the other’s sacrifices. Hill keeps the courtship restrained and observant, allowing trust to grow in shared tasks, guarded speech, and a readiness to protect the vulnerable. The relationship widens the story’s moral horizon, asking whether love can be aligned with service without surrendering conscience or calling.
The middle movement turns on a decision that cannot be deferred, where the heroine must choose between an expedient path endorsed by influential voices and a costlier path consistent with truth. The immediate consequences are tangible, touching livelihood, reputation, and the stability she has begun to rebuild. Hill frames the crisis without sensationalism, tracing how prayerful reflection, memory, and counsel guide the heroine toward clarity. The choice exposes hidden motives in those around her, some generous, some self-serving, and it forces a reevaluation of what safety means. From this point, the narrative gathers momentum, oriented toward accountability and repair.
Pressures crest in a sequence that tests resilience and alliances. Threats to hard-won trust, and to the well-being of those in the heroine’s care, compel decisive action. Small acts of bravery and timely help from unexpected quarters unsettle what once appeared unassailable. Hill balances suspense with spiritual introspection, letting danger reveal the character of both friends and adversaries without dwelling on spectacle. The story preserves its surprise by linking outcomes to choices already made, so that turning points feel earned rather than contrived. In their wake, paths open that had seemed closed, and relationships are clarified in light of truth.
The closing chapters affirm the novel’s central concerns: integrity tested in ordinary life, compassion that costs something, and a faith that steadies rather than shields from difficulty. Without disclosing final turns, the resolution seeks restoration rather than triumph, honoring obligations and opening a future marked by purpose. Astra endures in Grace Livingston Hill’s corpus as a study of character under pressure, notable for its quiet confidence that spiritual commitments can reshape practical realities. Readers drawn to stories where romance serves vocation, and where hope is anchored to responsibility, will find its themes resonant long after the immediate conflicts have passed.
Historical Context
Grace Livingston Hill (1865–1947) was a widely read American writer of inspirational fiction whose novels appeared from the 1900s through the 1940s. Astra, published in the early 1930s, belongs to her series of contemporary moral romances set in the United States and aimed at a Protestant readership. Issued by mainstream houses and later reprinted for mass audiences, the book situates its heroine amid familiar American institutions—churches, schools, workplaces, and civic groups—during a decade marked by economic turmoil and cultural change. Hill’s narrative voice, shaped by evangelical Presbyterian convictions, frames personal choices against public conditions that were pressing upon ordinary middle‑class readers.
The novel’s contemporary setting overlaps with the early Great Depression, which followed the 1929 stock market crash and produced widespread unemployment, bank failures, and tightened household budgets. Prohibition, established by the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, remained national law until repeal in 1933, fueling debates about morality, crime, and public order. Urban neighborhoods saw speakeasies, bootlegging, and enforcement raids, while churches and charities expanded soup kitchens and relief drives. These conditions inform characters’ options for work, leisure, and community life, and they heighten the moral language—sobriety, thrift, honesty, and neighborly duty—that Hill and much of her audience used to evaluate modern behavior.
Women’s public roles had shifted significantly by the time Astra appeared. American women won federal suffrage in 1920, and the 1920s saw larger numbers pursuing secondary and collegiate education and entering paid employment, especially in offices, retail, teaching, and nursing. At the same time, social expectations still valorized marriage, home management, and respectability. Cultural images of the “New Woman” and the “flapper” had stirred controversy over dress, dance, and autonomy. Hill’s fiction consistently upholds modesty, industriousness, and purposeful service, while acknowledging women’s competence in study and work—an outlook that resonated with readers negotiating independence within family, church, and civic obligations.
The religious climate of the interwar United States was marked by the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, most famously publicized during the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial and continuing through denominational disputes in the 1930s. Evangelical Protestants emphasized biblical authority, personal conversion, prayer, and moral separation from worldly amusements, while many mainline leaders embraced accommodation to modern science and culture. Voluntary associations such as the YMCA and YWCA, youth fellowships, and women’s missionary societies remained influential in local communities. Hill wrote from a conservative Protestant vantage point, drawing on that network of churches and ministries to model guidance, accountability, and care for those in need.
American daily life in the late 1920s and early 1930s was reshaped by automobiles, paved highways, streetcars, and expanding telephone and electrical networks. Radio broadcasting, organized under national chains like NBC (1926) and CBS (1927), spread news and music into homes. Motion pictures shifted to synchronized sound after 1927; the Production Code was adopted in 1930 and began rigorous enforcement in 1934, prompting ongoing debates about screen morality. Prohibition-era nightlife, with jazz, clubs, and speakeasies, symbolized modern temptations in many religious circles. Hill’s stories register these technologies and entertainments chiefly as moral crossroads where discernment, safety, and stewardship must be exercised.
Before federal relief expanded, many Americans relied on local networks—extended families, fraternal orders, civic clubs, and congregations—for aid. Settlement houses and Progressive Era reforms had pioneered social services, but in the Depression’s early years, volunteerism and private charity predominated. The New Deal, beginning in 1933, introduced work programs and banking reforms, gradually changing expectations about government responsibility. Against that backdrop, narratives like Astra foreground church benevolence, personal generosity, and ethical business practice. Such emphases matched prevailing advice literature that urged budgeting, modest living, and mutual help, and they offered a moral framework through which readers interpreted layoffs, scarcity, and sudden reversals.
The book also reflects its publishing ecology. Hill’s novels were issued by major trade houses in hardcover and circulated widely through public libraries at a time when borrowing soared because of the Depression. Many titles later appeared in inexpensive reprints, extending their reach into drugstore rental libraries and church reading rooms. Her consistent emphasis on clean romance, conversion, and everyday piety positioned her between general-market fiction and explicitly denominational tracts. The result was a broad, intergenerational audience who encountered Astra as both entertainment and instruction, aligned with a national market for morally edifying stories that promised stability amid economic and cultural volatility.
Within this framework, Astra exemplifies how early‑1930s inspirational fiction interpreted its moment. It affirms virtues prized by conservative Protestants—temperance, diligence, truthfulness, and mutual care—while depicting the hazards associated with fashionable excess, lax ethics, and impersonal urban life. It presents churches, families, and honorable work as stabilizing institutions when fortunes falter, and it treats female aspiration as compatible with faith‑anchored purpose. Rather than proposing political remedies, the book offers a moral critique of the era’s anxieties and temptations, encouraging readers to fortify conscience, choose trustworthy companions, and seek communal responsibility in a nation struggling toward recovery and moral clarity.
Astra
CHAPTER I
It had begun to snow as Astra boarded the train just east of Chicago, but only in an erratic way. A few stray, sharp little flakes, slanting across the morning grayness, as if they were out on a walk, looking around. Not at all as if they meant anything by it. A few minutes later, after she was settled in her place in the day coach[1], one suitcase stowed in the rack above her, the other at her feet, she withdrew her gaze from the unattractive fellow travelers to look out of the window again, and the flakes were still wandering around, seemingly without a purpose. She watched one or two till they glanced across the warm windowpane and vanished into nothing. Only an idle little crystal drifted down from the eternal cold somewhere, and was gone. Where? Into nothing? What a lovely idle little life, thought Astra, as she settled back into her stiff, uncomfortable seat, with her head against the window frame and tried to turn her thoughts to her own perplexities. She was very tired, for she had gotten up early after a sleepless night and hurried around to get ready for the train.
And so, idly watching the aimless flakes of snow snapping on her consciousness from the windowpane outside, her eyes grew weary, her eyelids drooped, and she was soon asleep.
A little later she aroused suddenly as the conductor drew her ticket out of her relaxed grasp and punched it sharply, passing on to the next seat briskly. It came to her to wonder vaguely why he ever selected the job of conductor. To go through life in a dull train, far from home, if he had a home, and doing nothing but punching tickets. What a life! Only dull strangers, uninteresting people he didn't know, to vary the monotony.
Idly she drifted away into sleep again, putting aside her own disturbed thoughts about personal matters, for she really was very weary. When she awoke again the snow was still coming down. The flakes were larger now, and more purposeful, as if they meant business.
She sat up and looked out. They were going through small towns and villages. People were passing along the streets with brisk steps, bundles in their arms. In marketplaces there were rows of tall pines and hemlocks displayed for sale, and a bright cluster of red and silver stars, holly wreaths, and Christmas trimmings.
Christmas! Yes, Christmas was almost here[1q]!
She drew a soft quivering breath of desolation. Not much joy in the thought of Christmas for her anymore! Going out alone into an unknown world, with very little money and without a job!
The train swept out of the town where it had lingered for a few brief minutes just opposite that market with its rows of Christmas trees, and then the increasing snow drew her attention. The flakes were larger now, and whiter, giving a decided whiteness to the atmosphere. The next small town that hurried into view ahead showed up a merry string of lights along the business street. They brought out the whirling flakes in giddy relief, as if flakes and lights were in league for the holiday season, bound to make the most of their powers.
People about her were ordering cups of coffee and eating ham sandwiches that were brought around in a basket for sale. Others were drifting by toward the diner car. But Astra wasn't hungry. However, she bought a sandwich and stowed it in her handbag, against a time when she might feel faint and not be able to get the sandwich so easily. Then she sat back again, watching the twilight as it crept through the snowflakes. Gradually the landscape was taking on a white background from the falling snow, and soft plush flakes were melting on the windows and blurring into one another. It was becoming more and more difficult to see the landscape as it whirled by, to discern the little towns with their holiday trimmings, and more and more, Astra's thoughts were turning inward to her own problems and her own drab life.
She had friends of other days, of course—friends of her childhood and young girlhood, friends of her mother's and father's, and she was hastening back to them. After all, it was only two years since she had left them and gone to live with Cousin Miriam, who had been almost like an older sister to her in the past when Miriam used to spend so much time at holidays and vacations from school and college with Astra's mother.
But Miriam had married into wealth and fashion and was very much changed. The standards on which both she and Astra had been brought up were no longer Miriam's standards. She laughed at Astra for continuing to uphold them. She told her that times had changed and one couldn't continue to be dowdy and old-fashioned just because one's mother was that way. One had to do what others did, in company, even if there were things called principles. It wasn't done in these days, to have principles. One couldn't "get on" and have principles. One had to smoke and drink a little. Everybody did. To "get on" was, in Miriam's eyes, the end and aim of living.
Astra couldn't get away from the thought of how ashamed her mother would have been of her cousin, for Astra's mother had practically brought up Miriam from the time she was a schoolgirl of twelve, at least as much as one could do that important act within the limits of vacations and holidays.
In addition to Miriam there was Miriam's daughter, Clytie, badly spoiled, and very determined in her own way, which was the way of a changing world that Astra did not care to adopt.
Astra had stood the differences as long as she could, and then during the absence of the cousins on a western trip in which she was not included, she had written a sweet little note of farewell and departed.
And now that she was on her way, she was tormented continually by the fear that perhaps she had been wrong to go. Perhaps she should have endured a little longer. But in a few days now she would be of age and would have a little more money to carry on quietly. To secure one of her mother's old servants perhaps to stay with her, or something of that sort. It had seemed so reasonable and easy to make the transfer now when she was about to come of age. And when she considered returning before her cousins got back, or trying to live the life from which she had just fled, the latter seemed utterly impossible.
The twilight was deepening, and the snow outside the window was gathering thick and soft on the glass, obscuring the view. Suddenly the lights sprang up in the car and banished the gloom of the winter world, bringing out the faces of the tired, discouraged people, the grimy car, and the sharp outlines of the hard seats. All at once the world that Astra was starting out to conquer for herself loomed ahead unhappily, menacingly, with appalling unfriendliness. Suppose she shouldn't be able to get a position anywhere? Suppose her small allowance should run out and she have nowhere to go? Suppose her father's friends were dead or moved away? A lot of things could happen disastrously during a two years' absence. Whatever could she do? Not go back to her cousin's house! Never! She must find something to do. She could not go back to the cousins who would jeer at her and treat her with all the more condescension and find more and more fault with her.
"Oh God," she breathed, "please, please find me a job! You have places for other people to work, couldn't You find a little place for me? Couldn't You please do something about it for me, for I don't know how to do it myself. I haven't money enough for very long. You know. Show me what to do."
Her head was back against the seat, her forehead resting against the coolness of the window frame, her eyes closed. She could hear the soft splashing of the big flakes that were falling now, as she rode on into the whiteness of the winter night and prayed her despairing young prayer in her heart.
Then suddenly the door at the front of the car was flung open and a man's voice spoke clearly with a young ring to it that must have appealed to all who heard it.
"Is there a stenographer here who will volunteer to take dictation of a very important document from a man who is dying?"
Astra sat up at once, stirred to instant attention, filled with a kind of awe at this strange, swift call from a man in distress. She was the kind of girl who was always ready to help anyone who needed it.
There were also two other girls standing, hesitantly, prompt and alert to answer a call from a good-looking young man anywhere. Yet they stood only an instant listening to his explanation, calmly chewing their hunks of gum. Then they slumped slowly back in their seats.
"Oh! Dying? Not me!" said one of them, pushing out her chin as if he had offered her an insult. "I don't like dying people. Excuse me!"
The other of the two girls shook her head decidedly. "Nothing doing!" she said with a shrug. "I'm on a vacation, and I wouldn't care ta handle a job fer a dead man!" Then they both giggled for the edification of the other travelers. But Astra walked steadily down the aisle to the young man.
"I am a stenographer," she said quietly.
She had taken reams of dictation, the notes of her father's lectures and articles; she knew she was master of the requirements.
The young man's eyes appraised her with approval, and he said, "Thank you! This way please!" Then he turned and pointed the way through the next car, courteously helping her across the platform.
"The second car ahead," he said. "He was taken with a sudden heart attack. Fortunately, there was a doctor at hand, and he is doing all he can for him, but the sick man is much distressed because he knows he may go at any minute and there are important matters that must be recorded before he dies. You—are not afraid?"
Astra looked at the young man gravely.
"Of course not," she said quietly. "I'll be glad to help."
He looked his approval as they moved swiftly down the aisle and came to the small stateroom in the next car where the sick man had been laid.
He was lying in the narrow berth grasping for breath, the doctor by his side and a nurse preparing something under the doctor's direction. The sick man looked at Astra with pleading eyes.
"Quick!" he gasped. "Get this!"
The young man who had brought her handed Astra a pencil and pad, and she dropped down on a chair by the bed and began to work swiftly, the young man watching her for an instant, relieved that she seemed to understand her job.
The sick man spoke very slowly, deliberately, his voice sometimes so low that the girl could scarcely hear him.
There were a couple of telegrams on business matters addressed to business firms, putting on record definite arrangements the sick man had completed during his journey. Then there was a briefly worded codicil[2] to his will, concerning certain large properties the man had acquired recently which were to be left to his son by his first wife. This codicil was to be sent to his lawyer at once, observing all the formalities of the law. All this was spoken with the utmost difficulty, gasped slowly, detachedly, as his breath grew faint or his drifting intelligence faded and then flashed back again. It was heartbreaking, and Astra forgot her own perplexities in making sure she caught every syllable the troubled soul uttered.
When the dictation was completed the sick man sank limply into his pillow, relaxed for an instant as if he had reached the end. Then he roused again and feebly pointed at the papers in the girl's lap.
"Copy! Quick! I—must—sign——"
Astra gathered her papers together and stood up with an understanding look in her eyes.
"Yes of course," she said in a clear, businesslike voice. "If I only had a typewriter, it would take almost no time at all," she added.
The young man stood at the door.
"Come right this way. I have a machine ready for you," he said, and led her down the aisle to another car and into a small compartment where was a typewriter and plenty of paper.
"It will be necessary to have two copies," said the young man. "Here is carbon paper."
Astra sat down and went expertly to work, and in a very short time she had a sheaf of neatly typed papers ready.
The young man was back at the door as she finished.
"Fine! That was quick work. I didn't expect you'd be quite done yet," he said. "We'll go right back. The doctor has given him a stimulant, hoping to make those signatures possible. We'll have to be witnesses, of course."
The patient lay with bright, restless eyes on the door as they entered, and a relieved look came into his face as he saw them.
The doctor and nurse arranged a bedside table, tilted so that the patient could see what he was writing, and they placed the papers one by one upon it and watched the trembling hand trace feebly the name that had been a power in the business world for many years.
It was very still in the little stateroom. Only the noise of the rushing train could be heard. Astra glanced at the windows, covered thickly now with snow, shutting out the darkness of the outside world, with only now and then a faint, fleeting splash of color—red or yellow or green—as the train flashed through a lighted town.
And now the signatures were finished, the last few strokes evidently a tremendous effort as the lagging heart sought to keep the muscles doing their duty to the end, and then the poor brain fagged as the last stroke was made, and the man slumped back to the pillow, the limp hand dropped to his side, the grasp on the pen relaxed, and the pen snapped away to the floor, its duty done.
The young man recovered the pen. Astra dropped down in her chair where she had sat for dictation and began to get the papers in shape for the witnesses.
The doctor, with his finger on the sick man's pulse, was giving attention to his patient, the nurse removing the bed table, straightening the covers.
Then the sick man's eyes opened anxiously, as if there were one more command he must give. His lips were stiff, but he murmured with a wry twist one word. "Witnesses!" He tried to motion toward the papers, but his hand dropped uselessly on the bed. He looked at the doctor pleadingly and the doctor bowed.
"Yes sir! I'll sign as a witness!" Turning, he stooped over the little table that had been placed beside Astra and wrote his name clearly, hastily, on each paper. The sick man's glance went to the others, and one by one they all signed their names: Astra, the young man, and the nurse. Then the sick man drew a deep sigh and closed his eyes with finality, as if he felt he had done everything and was content.
The doctor and nurse did their best, but a gray shadow was stealing over the man's face. He scarcely seemed to be breathing.
Astra, after signing her name as a witness, gathered the papers up carefully, laid them together on the table, and sat there watching that dying face, a little at a loss to know just what was expected of her next. The young man and the doctor had stepped outside in the corridor and were talking in low tones. The nurse was mixing something from a bottle in a glass. Then suddenly the sick man opened his eyes and looked up, and his face was filled with anguish.
"Pray!" he murmured, almost inaudibly.
The nurse was on the alert at once with a spoonful of medicine.
"Pray!" she said snappily. "You want someone should make a prayer? Well, I'll ask the doctor to get a preacher."
She stepped to the door and murmured something to the doctor, but the sick man cast an anguished glance toward Astra.
"Can't you—pray?" he gasped. "I can't—wait!"
His breath was almost gone, and the girl sensed his desperation. Swiftly, she dropped back to the chair again and bent her head, her lips not far from the dying man's ear, and began to pray in a clear young voice.
"Oh heavenly Father, Thou didst so love the whole world that though all of us were sinners, Thou didst send Thine own dear Son to take our sins upon Himself and die on the cross to pay our penalty, so that all who would believe on Him might be saved. Hear us now as we cry to Thee for this soul in need. Give him faith to believe in what Thou hast done for him. May he rest in Thy strength and know that Thou wilt put Thine arms around him and guide him into the Light. Give him Thy peace in his soul as he trusts in what the precious blood of Jesus has done for him. Make him know that he has nothing to do but trust Thee. We ask it in the name of Jesus our Savior, Amen."
"Amen!" came a soft murmur from the dying lips.
Then suddenly a loud, disagreeable voice boomed into the solemnity of the little room, where the voice of prayer still lingered.
"Well, really! What's the meaning of all this? George Faber, what are you doing in here, I'd like to know?"
Astra looked up and saw a tall, imposing woman, smartly turned out and groomed to the last hair. Lipstick and rouge and expensive powder combined to give her a lovely baby complexion that somehow only made her look older and very hard. She was looking straight at Astra with cold, hostile eyes.
Yet so sacred had been the scene through which Astra had just passed that she did not at first take in that this hostility was directed toward herself.
The doctor had suddenly arrived, with a warning hand flung up for silence, but the woman paid no attention and boomed on.
"I go into the diner to get my dinner and leave my husband in his seat because he said he didn't want any dinner! Just stubbornness that he wouldn't eat! And then I come back and find him gone! And when I at last track him down, I find him in bed with a whole mob around him! And this designing young woman—who is she?—whining around and putting over some sort of pious act. Who is she?—I demand to know!"
But the last of the question was smothered by the doctor's hand firmly laid across the woman's lips as he and the nurse grasped her arms and forced her out of the room into the corridor, closing the door sharply behind her.
After that things were a bit confused. The sick man's eyes were closed. He looked like death. Had he heard that awful voice maligning him?
Astra stood at one side, the papers with the dictation grasped in her hands, her frightened eyes on the sick man. Was he living yet?
Then the door opened and the young man beckoned her to come out. The woman seemed to have disappeared for the moment.
The young man drew Astra over to an unoccupied section and made her sit down.
"Shall I take these papers for the time being?" he said, and she surrendered them thankfully. He slipped them inside his briefcase.
"Mr. Faber seemed to be anxious that no one else came in on this side. He told me that before I came after you," he said in explanation of his care.
"Now will you sit here for a few minutes until I can scout around and find out the possibilities? I suppose these telegrams ought to get off at once. There's a Western Union man on board. Just stay here and I'll see what can be done. I won't be long."
He hurried away, and Astra sat there staring at the great white flakes that were coming down like miniature blankets lapping over each other on the windowpanes. The warm train seemed so protected from the darkness that had come down while she had been busy. There seemed a great quiet sadness all about her as she sat thinking of the little tragedy. She had a strange feeling that God had been in that stateroom while she had been praying for the dying man, and He had heard her prayer. She seemed still to hear the echo of that whispered "Amen!" as if it were the heartfelt assent of the man's passing soul. And it seemed a strange thing that it had been so arranged that she should have been the one to answer that cry from a dying man.
She wondered, was he gone yet? It surely had seemed like the end. Her own sorrowful experience when her father died had taught her to know the signs. And it had really seemed to give him relief to leave those messages behind. She was glad she had been able to help.
Then she heard a door open sharply at the extreme other end of the car, and footsteps, silken stirrings, sounded down the corridor. Suddenly there was the smart lady coming stormily down toward her, battle in her eyes.
She sighted Astra almost at once and fixed her cold blue gaze upon her, coming on with evident intention to do her worst.
Now she was upon her, standing in front of her with the attitude of an officer of the law come to bring her to justice.
"Who are you?" she demanded, and her voice rose again. "And what were you doing in my husband's stateroom, you shameless creature, you?"
