The Seventh Hour

Copyright

© 2016 by Grace Livingston Hill

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

Chapter 1

Dana Barron settled himself in his Pullman chair, tossed his hat up into the rack overhead, and closed his eyes wearily. The day was the culmination of a fortnight of anxiety and pain and sorrow, and the errand on which he was bound promised anything but pleasure.

He was two years out of college and supposed to be working hard in a publisher's office, learning the business. But it was not business that was absorbing his thoughts as he sat with closed eyes being whirled away from the environment that had been his since childhood. He was thinking of the quiet safety and strong kind guidance of the past years, in spite of all the hard work and discipline in self-control, patience, unselfishness, that had been a part of every day. It was all changed now. A new era of life had begun for him, and old things were swept away. He was thinking most of all of those last days of his father's life. How close they had come to each other, making up for all the reticence of the years! That last talk they had had together, in which they were no longer father and young son, but equals with a common interest.

"Son, I haven't ever talked with you much about the circumstances of your life. Somehow I couldn't. I hoped you'd understand someday. And I tried to make up in every way I knew how for what you've lacked in having no mother."

"You have, Father!"

He felt the throb of deep love and pity in his own heart again as he remembered he had said those words. He was glad he had spoken so. The light that came into his father's eyes when he said it was something to remember! Poor Dad! How he must have suffered! And always so patient, so strong, so tender! Such a good sport! So young and companionable, even amid the hardest of his work! Even with uncertainty and loneliness around him, death menacing in the future. Even when he knew he had come to the end and had but a few more weeks to stay!

Some people were coming through the train from the direction of the diner. One sat down across the aisle, but most of them drifted up to the other end of the car and found seats.

Dana did not look up. He wasn't interested in his fellow-passengers.

Then suddenly a familiar voice boomed out joyously. The man across the aisle stood before him and was clapping him boisterously on the shoulder, patting his knee.

"My word! If it isn't Dana Barron! What are you doing here? Oh, boy! But I'm glad to see you! Isn't this great!"

Dana came to life at once, his own eyes filled with a glad light.

"Bruce Carbury, is it really you? I thought you were on your way to South Africa or China or some end of the earth somewhere. How does it happen you are here?"

Dana moved over and made room for him, and Bruce dropped down delightedly as if it were two years ago.

"Well, I didn't go, you see! I couldn't seem to make my plans work. You know how they do, plans, sometimes? It was like that. They didn't, so I didn't. And so I'm here. But where are you going? Just a few miles up the road, or have we time to talk?"

"All the time there is," said Dana with a half sigh. "At least all the way across the continent. New York, if you're going that far."

"Oh boy! Tell the glad news again! I am! That's just where I'm going. I'm on my way to be tried out for a job that I've heard of. If it works out I hope to be on easy street someday, or at least in the next block to it.