Where Two Ways Met

© 2014 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.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Author

Chapter 1

February, 1946

The sky was dark, and the wind was cold. There was slush on the pavements from a late snow. The young man shivered as he turned his collar up and buttoned his coat more closely about him.

It was late February and supposed to be near spring, but the grim clouds hurrying across the leaden sky gave no suggestion of spring. Rather, they had the air of going out to battle, as if they were hastening to obey a sharp imperative emergency command in a case of unanticipated dire necessity! There was nothing encouraging in the night scene to lift the heart of one who was already troubled from within.

Paige Madison had gone out earlier that evening with high hopes, to get a job and establish himself in a new and successful life, now that the war was over. Nothing was really changed from the promises of the day before—promises that had sent him to a great and influential man who had seemed so favorable and willing. But there was an uneasiness within him since the evening’s interview he could not quite analyze, an uneasiness strong enough to haunt him as he went on his way and to prevent his rejoicing, as he really had every right to do, he told himself. What was the matter?

Could it be just a little shifty look in one director’s eyes? A crafty set of the jaw on the great man who had promised so much and been so complacent? Or the very streamlined look of most of that bunch of men gathered about that director’s table? Could that be what had disturbed him? There was one there who looked like nothing in the world but a slick crook. Oh, he was well groomed, of course, or he couldn’t have been numbered with that respectable group. He was clean shaven, his thin hair cut just right below the bald crown. His pale, shifty pop-eyes above his sly mouth did not miss a thing. He wore a nifty outfit, not quite in the same class with the others, but his half-deprecating smile was veiled by an amused swagger.

Paige had never thought of himself as a discerning reader of character, yet in spite of himself as he trod the midnight slush, the faces of those men with whom he had spent the evening came out and were pictured vividly against the blackness of the night. He found himself studying each one as he had not dared study them while he was sitting face-to-face with them. And now he saw qualities in those faces that plainly denied the fine, high descriptions of them that had been given to him before he met them. Then he blamed himself for allowing his mind, or his imagination, to play such tricks on good, benevolent men who were kindly offering to open their ranks and take him into a group where his future success would be practically assured. There was Harris Chalmers, the president, well dressed, smug in an all-but-elderly dignity, beaming with affable content, well pleased with himself and all he had done, glad to extend a helping hand to a young man just returning from distant, dangerous warfare in which his own part had been merely financial.

There was Mr. Chalmers’s personal lawyer, Dawson Sharp, keen and cold and missing no point that he was so well paid to keep before the minds of these other crooks, for crooks they all seemed to Paige now, down the line to the tawdry unmistakable crook at the foot of the table, to whom they had each and all referred now and then as “Jimson.” “Jimson’ll take care of that when the time comes,” they had said, with casual winks and smiles and slight shrugs.

As he plodded along toward home, Paige drew a deep sigh. How tired he was! Perhaps that was the matter. The long journey, the excitement of getting home, the hope of a good job by means of which he would be able to look after his mother and his father, who was failing greatly and was no longer able to be working.

And now this letdown. It wasn’t thinkable! It couldn’t be that such respectable men, men with such fine reputations, could be dishonest! He was crazy! It was just a part of the weary reaction after the danger and turmoil and chances of war.

He would go to bed and get a good sleep. In the morning, of course, things would look different. He was hired, anyway, and he did not have to worry about that anymore. If, after he had thought it over, there still seemed some questionable matters that he would like made clear, there would be time enough to worry about them. Meanwhile, he was too tired to be really sane.

As he neared the house he could see a bright light in the window of the living room. Somebody was waiting up for him. His heart sank. Probably his mother.