He felt as though he had collided with the stars
in their courses and been crushed to dust.
An Answer to Prayer 129
In the middle of the pile of cards he found one signed by Kate
Ransom. She had written across the printed form in her smooth,
flowing hand:
"Please call after the service and let me know the result. I will
send you my subscription to-morrow."
He knew that she would make a liberal gift, but her fortune could
not be more than a million, perhaps not half so large. Her generosity
could not save the day even if she gave half of all she possessed,
a supposition of course preposterous.
He could not summon courage to go in the bitterness of his defeat.
He scrawled a note and sent it by the sexton.
"Feeling too blue to call. Failure complete and pitiful. The
subscriptions reach only twenty thousand dollars. GORDON."
There was but one forlorn hope left. He had written personal letters
to several millionaires he knew in town. They might respond.
He sat in his study in the afternoon, dull, stupid and sick, feeling
an iron band around his brain. He could not think. Ho gave up the
work on his evening sermon and determined to repeat an old one.
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