THE DAMNATION OF THERON WARE

by Harold Frederic

PART I

CHAPTER I

No such throng had ever before been seen in the building during all itseight years of existence. People were wedged together most uncomfortablyupon the seats; they stood packed in the aisles and overflowed thegalleries; at the back, in the shadows underneath these galleries, theyformed broad, dense masses about the doors, through which it would behopeless to attempt a passage. 

The light, given out from numerous tin-lined circles of flaring gas-jetsarranged on the ceiling, fell full upon a thousand uplifted faces--someframed in bonnets or juvenile curls, others bearded or crowned withshining baldness--but all alike under the spell of a dominant emotionwhich held features in abstracted suspense and focussed every eye upon acommon objective point. 

The excitement of expectancy reigned upon each row of countenances, wasvisible in every attitude--nay, seemed a part of the close, overheatedatmosphere itself. 

An observer, looking over these compact lines of faces and noting theuniform concentration of eagerness they exhibited, might have guessedthat they were watching for either the jury's verdict in some peculiarlyabsorbing criminal trial, or the announcement of the lucky numbers ina great lottery. These two expressions seemed to alternate, and even tomingle vaguely, upon the upturned lineaments of the waiting throng--thehope of some unnamed stroke of fortune and the dread of some adversedecree. 

But a glance forward at the object of this universal gaze would havesufficed to shatter both hypotheses. Here was neither a court of justicenor a tombola. It was instead the closing session of the annual NedahmaConference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Bishop was aboutto read out the list of ministerial appointments for the coming year. This list was evidently written in a hand strange to him, and the slow, near-sighted old gentleman, having at last sufficiently rubbed theglasses of his spectacles, and then adjusted them over his nosewith annoying deliberation, was now silently rehearsing his task tohimself--the while the clergymen round about ground their teeth andrestlessly shuffled their feet in impatience. 

Upon a closer inspection of the assemblage, there were a great manyof these clergymen. A dozen or more dignified, and for the most partelderly, brethren sat grouped about the Bishop in the pulpit. As manyothers, not quite so staid in mien, and indeed with here and therealmost a suggestion of frivolity in their postures, were seated on thesteps leading down from this platform. A score of their fellows satfacing the audience, on chairs tightly wedged into the space railed offround the pulpit; and then came five or six rows of pews, stretchingacross the whole breadth of the church, and almost solidly filled withpreachers of the Word. 

There were very old men among these--bent and decrepit veterans whohad known Lorenzo Dow, and had been ordained by elders who rememberedFrancis Asbury and even Whitefield. They sat now in front places, leaning forward with trembling and misshapen hands behind their hairyears, waiting to hear their names read out on the superannuated list, itmight be for the last time. 

The sight of these venerable Fathers in Israel was good to the eyes, conjuring up, as it did, pictures of a time when a plain and homelypeople had been served by a fervent and devoted clergy--by preacherswho lacked in learning and polish, no doubt, but who gave their liveswithout dream of earthly reward to poverty and to the danger and wearingtoil of itinerant missions through the rude frontier settlements. Thesepictures had for their primitive accessories log-huts, rough householdimplements, coarse clothes, and patched old saddles which told of wearyyears of journeying; but to even the least sympathetic vision thereshone upon them the glorified light of the Cross and Crown. Reverendsurvivors of the heroic times, their very presence there--sittingmeekly at the altar-rail to hear again the published record of theiruselessness and of their dependence upon church charity--was in thenature of a benediction. 

The large majority of those surrounding these patriarchs weremiddle-aged men, generally of a robust type, with burly shoulders, andbushing beards framing shaven upper lips, and who looked for the mostpart like honest and prosperous farmers attired in their Sunday clothes. As exceptions to this rule, there were scattered stray specimens ofa more urban class, worthies with neatly trimmed whiskers, whiteneckcloths, and even indications of hair-oil--all eloquent of citifiedcharges; and now and again the eye singled out a striking and scholarlyface, at once strong and simple, and instinctively referred it to thefaculty of one of the several theological seminaries belonging to theConference. 

The effect of these faces as a whole was toward goodness, candor, and imperturbable self-complacency rather than learning or mentalastuteness; and curiously enough it wore its pleasantest aspect onthe countenances of the older men. The impress of zeal and moral worthseemed to diminish by regular gradations as one passed to younger faces;and among the very beginners, who had been ordained only within the pastday or two, this decline was peculiarly marked. It was almost a reliefto note the relative smallness of their number, so plainly was it to beseen that they were not the men their forbears had been. 

And if those aged, worn-out preachers facing the pulpit had gazedinstead backward over the congregation, it may be that here too theirold eyes would have detected a difference--what at least they would havedeemed a decline. 

But nothing was further from the minds of the members of the First M. E. Church of Tecumseh than the suggestion that they were not an improvementon those who had gone before them. They were undoubtedly the smartestand most important congregation within the limits of the NedahmaConference, and this new church edifice of theirs represented alikea scale of outlay and a standard of progressive taste in devotionalarchitecture unique in the Methodism of that whole section of the State. They had a right to be proud of themselves, too. They belonged to thesubstantial order of the community, with perhaps not so many very richmen as the Presbyterians had, but on the other hand with far fewerextremely poor folk than the Baptists were encumbered with. The pewsin the first four rows of their church rented for one hundred dollarsapiece--quite up to the Presbyterian highwater mark--and they now hadalmost abolished free pews altogether. The oyster suppers given by theirLadies' Aid Society in the basement of the church during the winterhad established rank among the fashionable events in Tecumseh's socialcalendar. 

A comprehensive and satisfied perception of these advantages wasuppermost in the minds of this local audience, as they waited for theBishop to begin his reading. They had entertained this Bishop and hisPresiding Elders, and the rank and file of common preachers, in a stylewhich could not have been remotely approached by any other congregationin the Conference. Where else, one would like to know, could theBishop have been domiciled in a Methodist house where he might have asitting-room all to himself, with his bedroom leading out of it? Everyclergyman present had been provided for in a private residence--evendown to the Licensed Exhorters, who were not really ministers at allwhen you came to think of it, and who might well thank their starsthat the Conference had assembled among such open-handed people. Thereexisted a dim feeling that these Licensed Exhorters--an uncouth crew, with country store-keepers and lumbermen and even a horse-doctor amongtheir number--had taken rather too much for granted, and were notexhibiting quite the proper degree of gratitude over their reception. 

But a more important issue hung now imminent in the balance--wasTecumseh to be fairly and honorably rewarded for her hospitality bybeing given the pastor of her choice?

All were agreed--at least among those who paid pew-rents--upon the greatimportance of a change in the pulpit of the First M. E. Church. A changein persons must of course take place, for their present pastor hadexhausted the three-year maximum of the itinerant system, but there wasneeded much more than that. For a handsome and expensive church buildinglike this, and with such a modern and go-ahead congregation, it wassimply a vital necessity to secure an attractive and fashionablepreacher. They had held their own against the Presbyterians these pastfew years only by the most strenuous efforts, and under the depressingdisadvantage of a minister who preached dreary out-of-date sermons, andwho lacked even the most rudimentary sense of social distinctions. ThePresbyterians had captured the new cashier of the Adams County Bank, whohad always gone to the Methodist Church in the town he came from, butnow was lost solely because of this tiresome old fossil of theirs; andthere were numerous other instances of the same sort, scarcely lessgrievous. That this state of things must be altered was clear. 

The unusually large local attendance upon the sessions of the Conferencehad given some of the more guileless of visiting brethren a high notionof Tecumseh's piety; and perhaps even the most sophisticated strangernever quite realized how strictly it was to be explained by the anxietyto pick out a suitable champion for the fierce Presbyterian competition. Big gatherings assembled evening after evening to hear the sermons ofthose selected to preach, and the church had been almost impossiblycrowded at each of the three Sunday services. Opinions had naturallydiffered a good deal during the earlier stages of this scrutiny, butafter last night's sermon there could be but one feeling. The man forTecumseh was the Reverend Theron Ware. 

The choice was an admirable one, from points of view much more exaltedthan those of the local congregation. 

You could see Mr. Ware sitting there at the end of the row inside thealtar-rail--the tall, slender young man with the broad white brow, thoughtful eyes, and features moulded into that regularity of strengthwhich used to characterize the American Senatorial type in thosefar-away days of clean-shaven faces and moderate incomes before the War. The bright-faced, comely, and vivacious young woman in the second sidepew was his wife--and Tecumseh noted with approbation that she knewhow to dress. There were really no two better or worthier people in thebuilding than this young couple, who sat waiting along with the rest tohear their fate. But unhappily they had come to know of the effort beingmade to bring them to Tecumseh; and their simple pride in the triumph ofthe husband's fine sermon had become swallowed up in a terribly anxiousconflict of hope and fear. Neither of them could maintain a satisfactoryshow of composure as the decisive moment approached. The vision oftranslation from poverty and obscurity to such a splendid post asthis--truly it was too dazzling for tranquil nerves. 

The tedious Bishop had at last begun to call his roll of names, and thegood people of Tecumseh mentally ticked them off, one by one, as thelist expanded. They felt that it was like this Bishop--an unimportantand commonplace figure in Methodism, not to be mentioned in the samebreath with Simpson and Janes and Kingsley--that he should begin withthe backwoods counties, and thrust all these remote and pitifully rusticstations ahead of their own metropolitan charge. To these they listenedbut listlessly--indifferent alike to the joy and to the dismay which hewas scattering among the divines before him. 

The announcements were being doled out with stumbling hesitation. Aftereach one a little half-rustling movement through the crowded rows ofclergymen passed mute judgment upon the cruel blow this brother hadreceived, the reward justly given to this other, the favoritism by whicha third had profited. The Presiding Elders, whose work all this was, stared with gloomy and impersonal abstraction down upon the rows ofblackcoated humanity spread before them. The ministers returned thisfixed and perfunctory gaze with pale, set faces, only feebly masking theemotions which each new name stirred somewhere among them. The Bishopdroned on laboriously, mispronouncing words and repeating himself as ifhe were reading a catalogue of unfamiliar seeds. 

"First church of Tecumseh--Brother Abram G. Tisdale!"

There was no doubt about it! These were actually the words that had beenuttered. After all this outlay, all this lavish hospitality, all thissacrifice of time and patience in sitting through those sermons, to drawfrom the grab-bag nothing better than--a Tisdale!

A hum of outraged astonishment--half groan, half wrathful snort boundedalong from pew to pew throughout the body of the church. An echo of itreached the Bishop, and so confused him that he haltingly repeated theobnoxious line. Every local eye turned as by intuition to where thecalamitous Tisdale sat, and fastened malignantly upon him. 

Could anything be worse? This Brother Tisdale was past fifty--aspindling, rickety, gaunt old man, with a long horse-like head andvacantly solemn face, who kept one or the other of his hands continuallyfumbling his bony jaw. He had been withdrawn from routine service for anumber of years, doing a little insurance canvassing on his own account, and also travelling for the Book Concern. Now that he wished to returnto parochial work, the richest prize in the whole list, Tecumseh, wasgiven to him--to him who had never been asked to preach at a Conference, and whose archaic nasal singing of "Greenland's Icy Mountains" had madeeven the Licensed Exhorters grin! It was too intolerably dreadful tothink of!

An embittered whisper to the effect that Tisdale was the Bishop's cousinran round from pew to pew. This did not happen to be true, but indignantTecumseh gave it entire credit. The throngs about the doors dwindled asby magic, and the aisles cleared. Local interest was dead; and even someof the pewholders rose and made their way out. One of these murmuredaudibly to his neighbors as he departed that HIS pew could be had nowfor sixty dollars. 

So it happened that when, a little later on, the appointment of TheronWare to Octavius was read out, none of the people of Tecumseh eithernoted or cared. They had been deeply interested in him so long asit seemed likely that he was to come to them--before their clearlyexpressed desire for him had been so monstrously ignored. But now whatbecame of him was no earthly concern of theirs. 

After the Doxology had been sung and the Conference formally declaredended, the Wares would fain have escaped from the flood of handshakingsand boisterous farewells which spread over the front part of the church. But the clergymen were unusually insistent upon demonstrations ofcordiality among themselves--the more, perhaps, because it was evidentthat the friendliness of their local hosts had suddenly evaporated--and, of all men in the world, the present incumbent of the Octavius pulpitnow bore down upon them with noisy effusiveness, and defied evasion. 

"Brother Ware--we have never been interduced--but let me clasp yourhand! And--Sister Ware, I presume--yours too!"

He was a portly man, who held his head back so that his face seemed alljowl and mouth and sandy chin-whisker. He smiled broadly upon them withhalf-closed eyes, and shook hands again. 

"I said to 'em, " he went on with loud pretence of heartiness, "theminute I heerd your name called out for our dear Octavius, 'I must goover an' interduce myself. ' It will be a heavy cross to part with thosedear people, Brother Ware, but if anything could wean me to the notion, so to speak, it would be the knowledge that you are to take up my laborsin their midst. Perhaps--ah--perhaps they ARE jest a trifle close inmoney matters, but they come out strong on revivals. They'll need a gooddeal o' stirrin' up about parsonage expenses, but, oh! such seasonsof grace as we've experienced there together!" He shook his head, andclosed his eyes altogether, as if transported by his memories. 

Brother Ware smiled faintly in decorous response, and bowed in silence;but his wife resented the unctuous beaming of content on the other'swide countenance, and could not restrain her tongue. 

"You seem to bear up tolerably well under this heavy cross, as you callit, " she said sharply. 

"The will o' the Lord, Sister Ware--the will o' the Lord!" he responded, disposed for the instant to put on his pompous manner with her, and thendeciding to smile again as he moved off. The circumstance that he was toget an additional three hundred dollars yearly in his new place was notmentioned between them. 

By a mutual impulse the young couple, when they had at last gained thecool open air, crossed the street to the side where over-hanging treesshaded the infrequent lamps, and they might be comparatively alone. Thewife had taken her husband's arm, and pressed closely upon it as theywalked. For a time no word passed, but finally he said, in a gravevoice, --

"It is hard upon you, poor girl. "

Then she stopped short, buried her face against his shoulder, and fellto sobbing. 

He strove with gentle, whispered remonstrance to win her from this mood, and after a few moments she lifted her head and they resumed their walk, she wiping her eyes as they went. 

"I couldn't keep it in a minute longer!" she said, catching her breathbetween phrases. "Oh, WHY do they behave so badly to us, Theron?"

He smiled down momentarily upon her as they moved along, and patted herhand. 

"Somebody must have the poor places, Alice, " he said consolingly. "I ama young man yet, remember. We must take our turn, and be patient. For'we know that all things work together for good. '"

"And your sermon was so head-and-shoulders above all the others!" shewent on breathlessly. "Everybody said so! And Mrs. Parshall heard it soDIRECT that you were to be sent here, and I know she told everybody howmuch I was lotting on it--I wish we could go right off tonight withoutgoing to her house--I shall be ashamed to look her in the face--andof course she knows we're poked off to that miserable Octavius. --Why, Theron, they tell me it's a worse place even than we've got now!"

"Oh, not at all, " he put in reassuringly. "It has grown to be a largetown--oh, quite twice the size of Tyre. It's a great Irish place, I'veheard. Our own church seems to be a good deal run down there. We mustbuild it up again; and the salary is better--a little. "

But he too was depressed, and they walked on toward their temporarylodging in a silence full of mutual grief. It was not until they hadcome within sight of this goal that he prefaced by a little sigh ofresignation these further words, --

"Come--let us make the best of it, my girl! After all, we are in thehands of the Lord. "

"Oh, don't, Theron!" she said hastily. "Don't talk to me about the Lordtonight; I can't bear it!"

CHAPTER II

"Theron! Come out here! This is the funniest thing we have heard yet!"

Mrs. Ware stood on the platform of her new kitchen stoop. The brightflood of May-morning sunshine completely enveloped her girlish form, clad in a simple, fresh-starched calico gown, and shone in goldenpatches upon her light-brown hair. She had a smile on her face, as shelooked down at the milk boy standing on the bottom step--a smile of adoubtful sort, stormily mirthful. 

"Come out a minute, Theron!" she called again; and in obedience to thesummons the tall lank figure of her husband appeared in the open doorwaybehind her. A long loose, open dressing-gown dangled to his knees, and his sallow, clean-shaven, thoughtful face wore a morning undressexpression of youthful good-nature. He leaned against the door-sill, crossed his large carpet slippers, and looked up into the sky, drawing along satisfied breath. 

"What a beautiful morning!" he exclaimed. "The elms over there are fullof robins. We must get up earlier these mornings, and take some walks. "

His wife indicated the boy with the milk-pail on his arm, by a wave ofher hand. 

"Guess what he tells me!" she said. "It wasn't a mistake at all, ourgetting no milk yesterday or the Sunday before. It seems that that's thecustom here, at least so far as the parsonage is concerned. "

"What's the matter, boy?" asked the young minister, drawling his wordsa little, and putting a sense of placid irony into them. "Don't the cowsgive milk on Sunday, then?"

The boy was not going to be chaffed. "Oh, I'll bring you milk fastenough on Sundays, if you give me the word, " he said with nonchalance. "Only it won't last long. "

"How do you mean--'won't last long'?", asked Mrs. Ware, briskly. 

The boy liked her--both for herself, and for the doughnuts fried withher own hands, which she gave him on his morning round. He dropped hishalf-defiant tone. 

"The thing of it's this, " he explained. "Every new minister starts insaying we can deliver to this house on Sundays, an' then gives us noticeto stop before the month's out. It's the trustees that does it. "

The Rev. Theron Ware uncrossed his feet and moved out on to the stoopbeside his wife. "What's that you say?" he interjected. "Don't THEY takemilk on Sundays?"

"Nope!" answered the boy. 

The young couple looked each other in the face for a puzzled moment, then broke into a laugh. 

"Well, we'll try it, anyway, " said the preacher. "You can go on bringingit Sundays till--till--"

"Till you cave in an' tell me to stop, " put in the boy. "All right!" andhe was off on the instant, the dipper jangling loud incredulity in hispail as he went. 

The Wares exchanged another glance as he disappeared round the cornerof the house, and another mutual laugh seemed imminent. Then the wife'sface clouded over, and she thrust her under-lip a trifle forward out ofits place in the straight and gently firm profile. 

"It's just what Wendell Phillips said, " she declared. "'The Puritan'sidea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business. '"

The young minister stroked his chin thoughtfully, and let his gazewander over the backyard in silence. The garden parts had not beenspaded up, but lay, a useless stretch of muddy earth, broken only bylast year's cabbage-stumps and the general litter of dead roots andvegetation. The door of the tenantless chicken-coop hung wide open. Before it was a great heap of ashes and cinders, soaked into grimyhardness by the recent spring rains, and nearer still an ancientchopping-block, round which were scattered old weather-beatenhardwood knots which had defied the axe, parts of broken barrels andpacking-boxes, and a nameless debris of tin cans, clam-shells, andgeneral rubbish. It was pleasanter to lift the eyes, and look across theneighbors' fences to the green, waving tops of the elms on the streetbeyond. How lofty and beautiful they were in the morning sunlight, andwith what matchless charm came the song of the robins, freshly installedin their haunts among the new pale-green leaves! Above them, in thefresh, scented air, glowed the great blue dome, radiant with light andthe purification of spring. 

Theron lifted his thin, long-fingered hand, and passed it in a slow archof movement to comprehend this glorious upper picture. 

"What matter anyone's ideas of hell, " he said, in soft, grave tones, "when we have that to look at, and listen to, and fill our lungs with?It seems to me that we never FEEL quite so sure of God's goodness atother times as we do in these wonderful new mornings of spring. "

The wife followed his gesture, and her eyes rested for a brief moment, with pleased interest, upon the trees and the sky. Then they reverted, with a harsher scrutiny, to the immediate foreground. 

"Those Van Sizers ought to be downright ashamed of themselves, " shesaid, "to leave everything in such a muss as this. You MUST see aboutgetting a man to clean up the yard, Theron. It's no use your thinking ofdoing it yourself. In the first place, it wouldn't look quite the thing, and, second, you'd never get at it in all your born days. Or if a manwould cost too much, we might get a boy. I daresay Harvey would comearound, after he'd finished with his milk-route in the forenoon. Wecould give him his dinner, you know, and I'd bake him some cookies. He'sgot the greatest sweet-tooth you ever heard of. And then perhaps if wegave him a quarter, or say half a dollar, he'd be quite satisfied. I'llspeak to him in the morning. We can save a dollar or so that way. "

"I suppose every little does help, " commented Mr. Ware, with a dolefullack of conviction. Then his face brightened. "I tell you what let'sdo!" he exclaimed. "Get on your street dress, and we'll take a longwalk, way out into the country. You've never seen the basin, where theyfloat the log-rafts in, or the big sawmills. The hills beyond giveyou almost mountain effects, they are so steep; and they say there's asulphur spring among the slate on the hill-side, somewhere, with treesall about it; and we could take some sandwiches with us--"

"You forget, " put in Mrs. Ware, --"those trustees are coming at eleven. "

"So they are!" assented the young minister, with something like a sigh. He cast another reluctant, lingering glance at the sunlit elm boughs, and, turning, went indoors. 

He loitered for an aimless minute in the kitchen, where his wife, hersleeves rolled to the elbow, now resumed the interrupted washing of thebreakfast dishes--perhaps with vague visions of that ever-recedingtime to come when they might have a hired girl to do such work. Thenhe wandered off into the room beyond, which served them alike asliving-room and study, and let his eye run along the two rows of booksthat constituted his library. He saw nothing which he wanted to read. Finally he did take down "Paley's Evidences, " and seated himself inthe big armchair--that costly and oversized anomaly among his humblehouse-hold gods; but the book lay unopened on his knee, and his eyelidshalf closed themselves in sign of revery. 

This was his third charge--this Octavius which they both knew they weregoing to dislike so much. 

The first had been in the pleasant dairy and hop country many miles tothe south, on another watershed and among a different kind of people. Perhaps, in truth, the grinding labor, the poverty of ideas, thesystematic selfishness of later rural experience, had not been lackingthere; but they played no part in the memories which now he passed intender review. He recalled instead the warm sunshine on the fertileexpanse of fields; the sleek, well-fed herds of "milkers" cominglowing down the road under the maples; the prosperous and hospitablefarmhouses, with their orchards in blossom and their spacious red barns;the bountiful boiled dinners which cheery housewives served up withtheir own skilled hands. Of course, he admitted to himself, it wouldnot be the same if he were to go back there again. He was conscious ofhaving moved along--was it, after all, an advance?--to a point where itwas unpleasant to sit at table with the unfragrant hired man, and stillworse to encounter the bucolic confusion between the functions ofknives and forks. But in those happy days--young, zealous, himselffarm-bred--these trifles had been invisible to him, and life thereamong those kindly husbandmen had seemed, by contrast with the gauntsurroundings and gloomy rule of the theological seminary, luxuriouslyabundant and free. 

It was there too that the crowning blessedness of his youth--nay, shouldhe not say of all his days?--had come to him. There he had first seenAlice Hastings, --the bright-eyed, frank-faced, serenely self-reliantgirl, who now, less than four years thereafter, could be heard washingthe dishes out in the parsonage kitchen. 

How wonderful she had seemed to him then! How beautiful andall-beneficent the miracle still appeared! Though herself the daughterof a farmer, her presence on a visit within the borders of his remotecountry charge had seemed to make everything, there a hundred timesmore countrified than it had ever been before. She was fresh from therefinements of a town seminary: she read books; it was known thatshe could play upon the piano. Her clothes, her manners, her way ofspeaking, the readiness of her thoughts and sprightly tongue--notleast, perhaps, the imposing current understanding as to her father'swealth--placed her on a glorified pinnacle far away from the girls ofthe neighborhood. These honest and good-hearted creatures indeedcalled ceaseless attention to her superiority by their deference andopen-mouthed admiration, and treated it as the most natural thing in theworld that their young minister should be visibly "taken" with her. 

Theron Ware, in truth, left this first pastorate of his the followingspring, in a transfiguring halo of romance. His new appointment wasto Tyre--a somewhat distant village of traditional local pride andsubstance--and he was to be married only a day or so before enteringupon his pastoral duties there. The good people among whom he had begunhis ministry took kindly credit to themselves that he had met his bridewhile she was "visiting round" their countryside. In part by jocoseinquiries addressed to the expectant groom, in part by the confidencesof the postmaster at the corners concerning the bulk and frequency ofthe correspondence passing between Theron and the now remote Alice--theyhad followed the progress of the courtship through the autumn andwinter with friendly zest. When he returned from the Conference, to saygood-bye and confess the happiness that awaited him, they gave him a"donation"--quite as if he were a married pastor with a home of hisown, instead of a shy young bachelor, who received his guests and theircontributions in the house where he boarded. 

He went away with tears of mingled regret and proud joy in his eyes, thinking a good deal upon their predictions of a distinguished careerbefore him, feeling infinitely strengthened and upborne by the heartyfervor of their God-speed, and taking with him nearly two wagon-loads ofvegetables, apples, canned preserves, assorted furniture, glass dishes, cheeses, pieced bedquilts, honey, feathers, and kitchen utensils. 

Of the three years' term in Tyre, it was pleasantest to dwell upon thebeginning. 

The young couple--after being married out at Alice's home in anadjoining county, under the depressing conditions of a hopelesslybedridden mother, and a father and brothers whose perceptions wereobviously closed to the advantages of a matrimonial connection withMethodism--came straight to the house which their new congregationrented as a parsonage. The impulse of reaction from the rather grimcheerlessness of their wedding lent fresh gayety to their lighthearted, whimsical start at housekeeping. They had never laughed so much in alltheir lives as they did now in these first months--over their weirdignorance of domestic details; with its mishaps, mistakes, andentertaining discoveries; over the comical super-abundances andshortcomings of their "donation" outfit; over the thousand and onequaint experiences of their novel relation to each other, to thecongregation, and to the world of Tyre at large. 

Theron, indeed, might be said never to have laughed before. Up to thattime no friendly student of his character, cataloguing his admirablequalities, would have thought of including among them a sense of humor, much less a bent toward levity. Neither his early strenuous battle toget away from the farm and achieve such education as should serveto open to him the gates of professional life, nor the later wave ofreligious enthusiasm which caught him up as he stood on the border-landof manhood, and swept him off into a veritable new world of views andaspirations, had been a likely school of merriment. People had prizedhim for his innocent candor and guileless mind, for his good heart, hispious zeal, his modesty about gifts notably above the average, but ithad occurred to none to suspect in him a latent funny side. 

But who could be solemn where Alice was?--Alice in a quandary over thecomplications of her cooking stove; Alice boiling her potatoes all day, and her eggs for half an hour; Alice ordering twenty pounds of steak andhalf a pound of sugar, and striving to extract a breakfast beverage fromthe unground coffee-bean? Clearly not so tenderly fond and sympathetic ahusband as Theron. He began by laughing because she laughed, and grew byswift stages to comprehend, then frankly to share, her amusement. Fromthis it seemed only a step to the development of a humor of his own, doubling, as it were, their sportive resources. He found himselfdiscovering a new droll aspect in men and things; his phraseology tookon a dryly playful form, fittingly to present conceits which danced up, unabashed, quite into the presence of lofty and majestic truths. Hegot from this nothing but satisfaction; it obviously involved increasedclaims to popularity among his parishioners, and consequently magnifiedpowers of usefulness, and it made life so much more a joy and a thing tobe thankful for. Often, in the midst of the exchange of merry quipand whimsical suggestion, bright blossoms on that tree of strength andknowledge which he felt expanding now with a mighty outward pushingin all directions, he would lapse into deep gravity, and ponder with aswelling heart the vast unspeakable marvel of his blessedness, in beingthus enriched and humanized by daily communion with the most worshipfulof womankind. 

This happy and good young couple took the affections of Tyre by storm. The Methodist Church there had at no time held its head very high amongthe denominations, and for some years back had been in a deplorablysinking state, owing first to the secession of the Free Methodists andthen to the incumbency of a pastor who scandalized the community bymarrying a black man to a white woman. But the Wares changed all this. Within a month the report of Theron's charm and force in the pulpit wascrowding the church building to its utmost capacity--and that, too, with some of Tyre's best people. Equally winning was the atmosphere ofjollity and juvenile high spirits which pervaded the parsonage underthese new conditions, and which Theron and Alice seemed to diffusewherever they went. 

Thus swimmingly their first year sped, amid universal acclaim. Mrs. Warehad a recognized social place, quite outside the restricted limits ofMethodism, and shone in it with an unflagging brilliancy altogetherbeyond the traditions of Tyre. Delightful as she was in other people'shouses, she was still more naively fascinating in her own quaint andsomewhat harum-scarum domicile; and the drab, two-storied, tin-roofedlittle parsonage might well have rattled its clapboards to see if itwas not in dreamland--so gay was the company, so light were the hearts, which it sheltered in these new days. As for Theron, the period was oneof incredible fructification and output. He scarcely recognized for hisown the mind which now was reaching out on all sides with the arms ofan octopus, exploring unsuspected mines of thought, bringing in richtreasures of deduction, assimilating, building, propounding as if bysome force quite independent of him. He could not look without blinkingtimidity at the radiance of the path stretched out before him, leadingupward to dazzling heights of greatness. 

At the end of this first year the Wares suddenly discovered that theywere eight hundred dollars in debt. 

The second year was spent in arriving, by slow stages and with a cruelwealth of pathetic detail, at a realization of what being eight hundreddollars in debt meant. 

It was not in their elastic and buoyant natures to grasp the fullsignificance of the thing at once, or easily. Their position in thesocial structure, too, was all against clear-sightedness in materialmatters. A general, for example, uniformed and in the saddle, advancingthrough the streets with his staff in the proud wake of his division'smassed walls of bayonets, cannot be imagined as quailing at the glancethrown at him by his tailor on the sidewalk. Similarly, a man investedwith sacerdotal authority, who baptizes, marries, and buries, whodelivers judgments from the pulpit which may not be questioned in hishearing, and who receives from all his fellow-men a special deference ofmanner and speech, is in the nature of things prone to see the grocer'sbook and the butcher's bill through the little end of the telescope. 

The Wares at the outset had thought it right to trade as exclusively aspossible with members of their own church society. This loyalty becamea principal element of martyrdom. Theron had his creditors seated inserried rows before him, Sunday after Sunday. Alice had her criticsconsolidated among those whom it was her chief duty to visit and professfriendship for. These situations now began, by regular gradations, tounfold their terrors. At the first intimation of discontent, the Waresmade what seemed to them a sweeping reduction in expenditure. Whenthey heard that Brother Potter had spoken of them as "poor pay, " theydismissed their hired girl. A little later, Theron brought himselfto drop a laboriously casual suggestion as to a possible increase ofsalary, and saw with sinking spirits the faces of the stewards freezewith dumb disapprobation. Then Alice paid a visit to her parents, onlyto find her brothers doggedly hostile to the notion of her being helped, and her father so much under their influence that the paltry sum hedared offer barely covered the expenses of her journey. With anotherturn of the screw, they sold the piano she had brought with her fromhome, and cut themselves down to the bare necessities of life, neitherreceiving company nor going out. They never laughed now, and even smilesgrew rare. 

By this time Theron's sermons, preached under that stony glare ofpeople to whom he owed money, had degenerated to a pitiful level ofcommonplace. As a consequence, the attendance became once moreconfined to the insufficient membership of the church, and the trusteescomplained of grievously diminished receipts. When the Wares, growndesperate, ventured upon the experiment of trading outside the bounds ofthe congregation, the trustees complained again, this time peremptorily. 

Thus the second year dragged itself miserably to an end. Nor wasrelief possible, because the Presiding Elder knew something of thecircumstances, and felt it his duty to send Theron back for a thirdyear, to pay his debts, and drain the cup of disciplinary medicine toits dregs. 

The worst has been told. Beginning in utter blackness, this third year, in the second month, brought a change as welcome as it was unlooked for. An elderly and important citizen of Tyre, by name Abram Beekman, whomTheron knew slightly, and had on occasions seen sitting in one ofthe back pews near the door, called one morning at the parsonage, andelectrified its inhabitants by expressing a desire to wipe off all theirold scores for them, and give them a fresh start in life. As he put thesuggestion, they could find no excuse for rejecting it. He had watchedthem, and heard a good deal about them, and took a fatherly sort ofinterest in them. He did not deprecate their regarding the aid heproffered them in the nature of a loan, but they were to make themselvesperfectly easy about it, and never return it at all unless they couldspare it sometime with entire convenience, and felt that they wanted todo so. As this amazing windfall finally took shape, it enabled the Waresto live respectably through the year, and to leave Tyre with somethingover one hundred dollars in hand. 

It enabled them, too, to revive in a chastened form their old dream ofultimate success and distinction for Theron. He had demonstrated clearlyenough to himself, during that brief season of unrestrained effulgence, that he had within him the making of a great pulpit orator. He setto work now, with resolute purpose, to puzzle out and master all theprinciples which underlie this art, and all the tricks that adorn itssuperstructure. He studied it, fastened his thoughts upon it, talkeddaily with Alice about it. In the pulpit, addressing those people whohad so darkened his life and crushed the first happiness out of hishome, he withheld himself from any oratorical display which could affordthem gratification. He put aside, as well; the thought of attractingonce more the non-Methodists of Tyre, whose early enthusiasm hadspread such pitfalls for his unwary feet. He practised effects nowby piecemeal, with an alert ear, and calculation in every tone. Anambition, at once embittered and tearfully solicitous, possessed him. 

He reflected now, this morning, with a certain incredulous interest, upon that unworthy epoch in his life history, which seemed so far behindhim, and yet had come to a close only a few weeks ago. The opportunityhad been given him, there at the Tecumseh Conference, to reveal hisquality. He had risen to its full limit of possibilities, and preacheda great sermon in a manner which he at least knew was unapproachable. Hehad made his most powerful bid for the prize place, had trebly deservedsuccess--and had been banished instead to Octavius!

The curious thing was that he did not resent his failure. Alice hadtaken it hard, but he himself was conscious of a sense of spiritualgain. The influence of the Conference, with its songs and seasons ofprayer and high pressure of emotional excitement, was still strong uponhim. It seemed years and years since the religious side of him had beenso stirred into motion. He felt, as he lay back in the chair, and foldedhis hands over the book on his knee, that he had indeed come forthfrom the fire purified and strengthened. The ministry to souls diseasedbeckoned him with a new and urgent significance. He smiled to rememberthat Mr. Beekman, speaking in his shrewd and pointed way, had asked himwhether, looking it all over, he didn't think it would be better forhim to study law, with a view to sliding out of the ministry when a goodchance offered. It amazed him now to recall that he had taken thishint seriously, and even gone to the length of finding out what bookslaw-students began upon. 

Thank God! all that was past and gone now. The Call sounded, resonantand imperative, in his ears, and there was no impulse of his heart, nofibre of his being, which did not stir in devout response. He closed hiseyes, to be the more wholly alone with the Spirit, that moved him. 

The jangling of a bell in the hallway broke sharply upon hismeditations, and on the instant his wife thrust in her head from thekitchen. 

"You'll have to go to the door, Theron!" she warned him, in a loud, swift whisper. "I'm not fit to be seen. It is the trustees. "

"All right, " he said, and rose slowly from sprawling recumbency to hisfeet. "I'll go. "

"And don't forget, " she added strenuously; "I believe in Levi Gorringe!I've seen him go past here with his rod and fish-basket twice in eightdays, and that's a good sign. He's got a soft side somewhere. And justkeep a stiff upper lip about the gas, and don't you let them jew youdown a solitary cent on that sidewalk. "

"All right, " said Theron, again, and moved reluctantly toward the halldoor. 

CHAPTER III

When the three trustees had been shown in by the Rev. Mr. Ware, and hadtaken seats, an awkward little pause ensued. The young minister lookeddoubtingly from one face to another, the while they glanced withinquiring interest about the room, noting the pictures and appraisingthe furniture in their minds. 

The obvious leader of the party, Loren Pierce, a rich quarryman, was anold man of medium size and mean attire, with a square, beardless face ashard and impassive in expression as one of his blocks of limestone. Theirregular, thin-lipped mouth, slightly sunken, and shut with vice-likefirmness, the short snub nose, and the little eyes squinting fromhalf-closed lids beneath slightly marked brows, seemed scarcely toattain to the dignity of features, but evaded attention instead, as iffeeling that they were only there at all from plain necessity, and oughtnot to be taken into account. Mr. Pierce's face did not know how tosmile--what was the use of smiles?--but its whole surface radiatedsecretiveness. Portrayed on canvas by a master brush, with a ruff or ared robe for masquerade, generations of imaginative amateurs wouldhave seen in it vast reaching plots, the skeletons of a dozen dynasticcupboards, the guarded mysteries of half a century's internationaldiplomacy. The amateurs would have been wrong again. There was nothingbehind Mr. Pierce's juiceless countenance more weighty than a generaldetermination to exact seven per cent for his money, and some specificnotions about capturing certain brickyards which were interfering withhis quarry-sales. But Octavius watched him shamble along its sidewalksquite as the Vienna of dead and forgotten yesterday might have watchedMetternich. 

Erastus Winch was of a breezier sort--a florid, stout, and sandy man, who spent most of his life driving over evil country roads in a buggy, securing orders for dairy furniture and certain allied lines of farmutensils. This practice had given him a loud voice and a deceptivelyhearty manner, to which the other avocation of cheese-buyer, which hepursued at the Board of Trade meetings every Monday afternoon, had addeda considerable command of persuasive yet non-committal language. Tolook at him, still more to hear him, one would have sworn he was a goodfellow, a trifle rough and noisy, perhaps, but all right at bottom. But the County Clerk of Dearborn County could have told you ofagriculturists who knew Erastus from long and unhappy experience, andwho held him to be even a tighter man than Loren Pierce in the matter ofa mortgage. 

The third trustee, Levi Gorringe, set one wondering at the very firstglance what on earth he was doing in that company. Those who had knownhim longest had the least notion; but it may be added that no one knewhim well. He was a lawyer, and had lived in Octavius for upwards of tenyears; that is to say, since early manhood. He had an office on the mainstreet, just under the principal photograph gallery. Doubtless he wassometimes in this office; but his fellow-townsmen saw him more oftenin the street doorway, with the stairs behind him, and the flaringshow-cases of the photographer on either side, standing with his handsin his pockets and an unlighted cigar in his mouth, looking at nothingin particular. About every other day he went off after breakfast intothe country roundabout, sometimes with a rod, sometimes with a gun, butalways alone. He was a bachelor, and slept in a room at the back ofhis office, cooking some of his meals himself, getting others at arestaurant close by. Though he had little visible practice, he wasunderstood to be well-to-do and even more, and people tacitly inferredthat he "shaved notes. " The Methodists of Octavius looked upon him asa queer fish, and through nearly a dozen years had never quite outgrowntheir hebdomadal tendency to surprise at seeing him enter their church. He had never, it is true, professed religion, but they had elected himas a trustee now for a number of terms, all the same--partly because hewas their only lawyer, partly because he, like both his colleagues, helda mortgage on the church edifice and lot. In person, Mr. Gorringe was aslender man, with a skin of a clear, uniform citron tint, black wavinghair, and dark gray eyes, and a thin, high-featured face. He worea mustache and pointed chin-tuft; and, though he was of New Englandparentage and had never been further south than Ocean Grove, hepresented a general effect of old Mississippian traditions and tastesstartlingly at variance with the standards of Dearborn County Methodism. Nothing could convince some of the elder sisters that he was not adrinking man. 

The three visitors had completed their survey of the room now; and LorenPierce emitted a dry, harsh little cough, as a signal that businesswas about to begin. At this sound, Winch drew up his feet, and Gorringeuntied a parcel of account-books and papers that he held on his knee. Theron felt that his countenance must be exhibiting to the assembledbrethren an unfortunate sense of helplessness in their hands. He triedto look more resolute, and forced his lips into a smile. 

"Brother Gorringe allus acts as Seckertary, " said Erastus Winch, beamingbroadly upon the minister, as if the mere mention of the fact promotedjollity. "That's it, Brother Gorringe, --take your seat at Brother Ware'sdesk. Mind the Dominie's pen don't play tricks on you, an' start offwritin' out sermons instid of figgers. " The humorist turned to Theronas the lawyer walked over to the desk at the window. "I allus have tocaution him about that, " he remarked with great joviality. "An' do YOUlook out afterwards, Brother Ware, or else you'll catch that pen o'yours scribblin' lawyer's lingo in place o' the Word. "

Theron felt bound to exhibit a grin in acknowledgment of thispleasantry. The lawyer's change of position had involved some shiftingof the others' chairs, and the young minister found himself directlyconfronted by Brother Pierce's hard and colorless old visage. Its littleeyes were watching him, as through a mask, and under their influencethe smile of politeness fled from his lips. The lawyer on his right, thecheese-buyer to the left, seemed to recede into distance as he for themoment returned the gaze of the quarryman. He waited now for him tospeak, as if the others were of no importance. 

"We are a plain sort o' folks up in these parts, " said Brother Pierce, after a slight further pause. His voice was as dry and rasping as hiscough, and its intonations were those of authority. "We walk here, " hewent on, eying the minister with a sour regard, "in a meek an' humblespirit, in the straight an' narrow way which leadeth unto life. We ain'tgone traipsin' after strange gods, like some people that call themselvesMethodists in other places. We stick by the Discipline an' the ways ofour fathers in Israel. No new-fangled notions can go down here. Yourwife'd better take them flowers out of her bunnit afore next Sunday. "

Silence possessed the room for a few moments, the while Theron, pale-faced and with brows knit, studied the pattern of the ingraincarpet. Then he lifted his head, and nodded it in assent. "Yes, "he said; "we will do nothing by which our 'brother stumbleth, or isoffended, or is made weak. '"

Brother Pierce's parchment face showed no sign of surprise or pleasureat this easy submission. "Another thing: We don't want no book-learnin'or dictionary words in our pulpit, " he went on coldly. "Some folks maystomach 'em; we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do downin some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they'retoo flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashionedWord of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell methere's some parts where hell's treated as played-out--where ourministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want tohear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodistsat all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, flat-footed hell--theburnin' lake o' fire an' brim-stone. Pour it into 'em, hot an' strong. We can't have too much of it. Work in them awful deathbeds of Voltairean' Tom Paine, with the Devil right there in the room, reachin' for'em, an' they yellin' for fright; that's what fills the anxious seat an'brings in souls hand over fist. "

Theron's tongue dallied for an instant with the temptation to commentupon these old-wife fables, which were so dear to the rural religiousheart when he and I were boys. But it seemed wiser to only nod again, and let his mentor go on. 

"We ain't had no trouble with the Free Methodists here, " continuedBrother Pierce, "jest because we kept to the old paths, an' seek forsalvation in the good old way. Everybody can shout 'Amen!' as loudand as long as the Spirit moves him, with us. Some one was sayin' youthought we ought to have a choir and an organ. No, sirree! No suchtom-foolery for us! You'll only stir up feelin' agin yourself by hintin'at such things. And then, too, our folks don't take no stock in all thatpack o' nonsense about science, such as tellin' the age of the earth bycrackin' up stones. I've b'en in the quarry line all my life, an' I knowit's all humbug! Why, they say some folks are goin' round now preachin'that our grandfathers were all monkeys. That comes from departin'from the ways of our forefathers, an puttin' in organs an' choirs, an'deckin' our women-folks out with gewgaws, an' apin' the fashions of theworldly. I shouldn't wonder if them kind did have some monkey blood in'em. You'll find we're a different sort here. "

The young minister preserved silence for a little, until it becameapparent that the old trustee had had his say out. Even then he raisedhis head slowly, and at last made answer in a hesitating and irresoluteway. 

"You have been very frank, " he said. "I am obliged to you. A clergymancoming to a new charge cannot be better served than by havinglaid before him a clear statement of the views and--and spiritualtendencies--of his new flock, quite at the outset. I feel it to beof especial value in this case, because I am young in years and in myministry, and am conscious of a great weakness of the flesh. I cansee how daily contact with a people so attached to the old, simple, primitive Methodism of Wesley and Asbury may be a source of muchstrength to me. I may take it, " he added upon second thought, with aninquiring glance at Mr. Winch, "that Brother Pierce's description of ourcharge, and its tastes and needs, meets with your approval?"

Erastus Winch nodded his head and smiled expansively. "Whatever BrotherPierce says, goes!" he declared. The lawyer, sitting behind at the deskby the window, said nothing. 

"The place is jest overrun with Irish, " Brother Pierce began again. "They've got two Catholic churches here now to our one, and they do jestas they blamed please at the Charter elections. It'd be a good idee topitch into Catholics in general whenever you can. You could make a hitthat way. I say the State ought to make 'em pay taxes on their churchproperty. They've no right to be exempted, because they ain't Christiansat all. They're idolaters, that's what they are! I know 'em! I've had'em in my quarries for years, an' they ain't got no idee of decency orfair dealin'. Every time the price of stone went up, every man of 'emwould jine to screw more wages out o' me. Why, they used to keep accounto' the amount o' business I done, an' figger up my profits, an' havethe face to come an' talk to me about 'em, as if that had anything to dowith wages. It's my belief their priests put 'em up to it. Peopledon't begin to reelize--that church of idolatry 'll be the ruin o' thiscountry, if it ain't checked in time. Jest you go at 'em hammer 'n'tongs! I've got Eyetalians in the quarries now. They're sensiblefellows: they know when they're well off--a dollar a day, an' they'resatisfied, an' everything goes smooth. "

"But they're Catholics, the same as the Irish, " suddenly interjected thelawyer, from his place by the window. Theron pricked up his ears at thesound of his voice. There was an anti-Pierce note in it, so to speak, which it did him good to hear. The consciousness of sympathy began onthe instant to inspire him with courage. 

"I know some people SAY they are, " Brother Pierce guardedly retorted"but I've summered an' wintered both kinds, an' I hold to it they'redifferent. I grant ye, the Eyetalians ARE some given to jabbin' knivesinto each other, but they never git up strikes, an' they don't grumbleabout wages. Why, look at the way they live--jest some weeds an' yarbsdug up on the roadside, an' stewed in a kettle with a piece o' fat thesize o' your finger, an' a loaf o' bread, an' they're happy as a king. There's some sense in THAT; but the Irish, they've got to have meat an'potatoes an' butter jest as if--as if--"

"As if they'd b'en used to 'em at home, " put in Mr. Winch, to help hiscolleague out. 

The lawyer ostentatiously drew up his chair to the desk, and beganturning over the leaves of his biggest book. "It's getting on towardnoon, gentlemen, " he said, in an impatient voice. 

The business meeting which followed was for a considerable time confinedto hearing extracts from the books and papers read in a swift and formalfashion by Mr. Gorringe. If this was intended to inform the new pastorof the exact financial situation in Octavius, it lamentably failed ofits purpose. Theron had little knowledge of figures; and though hetried hard to listen, and to assume an air of comprehension, he did notunderstand much of what he heard. In a general way he gathered that thechurch property was put down at $12, 000, on which there was a debt of$4, 800. The annual expenses were $2, 250, of which the principal itemswere $800 for his salary, $170 for the rent of the parsonage, and $319for interest on the debt. It seemed that last year the receipts hadfallen just under $2, 000, and they now confronted the necessity ofmaking good this deficit during the coming year, as well as increasingthe regular revenues. Without much discussion, it was agreed that theyshould endeavor to secure the services of a celebrated "debt-raiser, "early in the autumn, and utilize him in the closing days of a revival. 

Theron knew this "debt-raiser, " and had seen him at work--a burly, bustling, vulgar man who took possession of the pulpit as if it were anauctioneer's block, and pursued the task of exciting liberality in thebosoms of the congregation by alternating prayer, anecdote, song, and cheap buffoonery in a manner truly sickening. Would it not bepreferable, he feebly suggested, to raise the money by a festival, orfair, or some other form of entertainment which the ladies could manage?

Brother Pierce shook his head with contemptuous emphasis. "Ourwomen-folks ain't that kind, " he said. "They did try to hold a sociableonce, but nobody came, and we didn't raise more 'n three or fourdollars. It ain't their line. They lack the worldly arts. As theDiscipline commands, they avoid the evil of putting on gold and costlyapparel, and taking such diversions as cannot be used in the name of theLord Jesus. "

"Well--of course--if you prefer the 'debt-raiser'--" Theron began, andtook the itemized account from Gorringe's knee as an excuse for notfinishing the hateful sentence. 

He looked down the foolscap sheet, line by line, with no special senseof what it signified, until his eye caught upon this little section ofthe report, bracketed by itself in the Secretary's neat hand:

 INTEREST CHARGE. 

 First mortgage (1873) . . $1, 000 . .. (E. Winch) @7. . $ 70 Second mortgage (1776). . 1, 700 . .. (L. Gorringe) @6. . 102 Third mortgage (1878). .. 2, 100 . .. (L. Pierce) @7. . 147 ------- ----- $4, 800 $319

It was no news to him that the three mortgages on the church propertywere held by the three trustees. But as he looked once more, anotherfeature of the thing struck him as curious. 

"I notice that the rates of interest vary, " he remarked withoutthinking, and then wished the words unsaid, for the two trustees in viewmoved uneasily on their seats. 

"Oh, that's nothing, " exclaimed Erastus Winch, with a boisterous displayof jollity. "It's only Brother Gorringe's pleasant little way of makinga contribution to our funds. You will notice that, at the date of allthese mortgages, the State rate of interest was seven per cent. Sincethen it's b'en lowered to six. Well, when that happened, you see, Brother Gorringe, not being a professin' member, and so not bound by ourrules, he could just as well as not let his interest down a cent. ButBrother Pierce an' me, we talked it over, an' we made up our mindswe were tied hand an' foot by our contract. You know how strong theDiscipline lays it down that we must be bound to the letter of ouragreements. That bein' so, we seen it in the light of duty not to changewhat we'd set our hands to. That's how it is, Brother Ware. "

"I understand, " said Theron, with an effort at polite calmness of tone. "And--is there anything else?"

"There's this, " broke in Brother Pierce: "we're commanded to belaw-abiding people, an' seven per cent WAS the law an' would be now ifthem ragamuffins in the Legislation--"

"Surely we needn't go further into that, " interrupted the minister, conscious of a growing stiffness in his moral spine. "Have we any otherbusiness before us?"

Brother Pierce's little eyes snapped, and the wrinkles in his foreheaddeepened angrily. "Business?" he demanded. "Yes, plenty of it. We'vegot to reduce expenses. We're nigh onto $300 behind-hand this minute. Besides your house-rent, you get $800 free an' clear--that is $15. 38every week, an' only you an' your wife to keep out of it. Why, whenI was your age, young man, and after that too, I was glad to get $4 aweek. "

"I don't think my salary is under discussion, Mr. Pierce--"

"BROTHER Pierce!" suggested Winch, in a half-shuckling undertone. 

"Brother Pierce, then!" echoed Theron, impatiently. "The QuarterlyConference and the Estimating Committee deal with that. The trusteeshave no more to do with it than the man in the moon. "

"Come, come, Brother Ware, " put in Erastus Winch, "we mustn't have nohard feelin's. Brotherly love is what we're all lookin' after. BrotherPierce's meanin' wasn't agin your drawin' your full salary, every centof it, only--only there are certain little things connected with theparsonage here that we feel you ought to bear. F'r instance, there's thenew sidewalk we had to lay in front of the house here only a month ago. Of course, if the treasury was flush we wouldn't say a word about it. An' then there's the gas bill here. Seein' as you get your rent fornothin', it don't seem much to ask that you should see to lightin' theplace yourself. "

"No, I don't think that either is a proper charge upon me, " interposedTheron. "I decline to pay them. "

"We can have the gas shut off, " remarked Brother Pierce, coldly. 

"As soon as you like, " responded the minister, sitting erect and tappingthe carpet nervously with his foot. "Only you must understand that I willtake the whole matter to the Quarterly Conference in July. I already seea good many other interesting questions about the financial managementof this church which might be appropriately discussed there. "

"Oh, come, Brother Ware!" broke in Trustee Winch, with a somewhatagitated assumption of good-feeling. "Surely these are matters we oughtto settle amongst ourselves. We never yet asked outsiders to meddle withour business here. It's our motto, Brother Ware. I say, if you've got amotto, stand by it. "

"Well, my motto, " said Theron, "is to be behaved decently to by thosewith whom I have to deal; and I also propose to stand by it. "

Brother Pierce rose gingerly to his feet, with the hesitation of an oldman not sure about his knees. When he had straightened himself, he puton his hat, and eyed the minister sternly from beneath its brim. 

"The Lord gives us crosses grievous to our natur', " he said, "an' we'retold to bear 'em cheerfully as long as they're on our backs; but thereain't nothin' said agin our unloadin' 'em in the ditch the minute we gitthe chance. I guess you won't last here more 'n a twelvemonth. "

He pulled his soft and discolored old hat down over his brows with asignificantly hostile nod, and, turning, stumped toward the hall-doorwithout offering to shake hands. 

The other trustees had risen likewise, in tacit recognition that themeeting was over. Winch clasped the minister's hand in his own broad, hard palm, and squeezed it in an exuberant grip. "Don't mind his littleways, Brother Ware, " he urged in a loud, unctuous whisper, with agrinning backward nod: "he's a trifle skittish sometimes when you don'tgive him free rein; but he's all wool an' a yard wide when it comes toright-down hard-pan religion. My love to Sister Ware;" and he followedthe senior trustee into the hall. 

Mr. Gorringe had been tying up his books and papers. He came now withthe bulky parcel under his arm, and his hat and stick in the other hand. He could give little but his thumb to Theron to shake. His face worea grave expression, and not a line relaxed as, catching the minister'slook, he slowly covered his left eye in a deliberate wink. 

"Well?--and how did it go off?" asked Alice, from where she knelt by theoven door, a few minutes later. 

For answer, Theron threw himself wearily into the big old farmrocking-chair on the other side of the stove, and shook his head with alengthened sigh. 

"If it wasn't for that man Gorringe of yours, " he said dejectedly, "Ithink I should feel like going off--and learning a trade. "

CHAPTER IV

On the following Sunday, young Mrs. Ware sat alone in the preacher's pewthrough the morning service, and everybody noted that the roses hadbeen taken from her bonnet. In the evening she was absent, and afterthe doxology and benediction several people, under the pretence ofsolicitude for her health, tried to pump her husband as to the reason. He answered their inquiries civilly enough, but with brevity: shehad stayed at home because she did not feel like coming out--this andnothing more. 

The congregation dispersed under a gossip-laden cloud of consciousnessthat there must be something queer about Sister Ware. There was atolerably general agreement, however, that the two sermons of the dayhad been excellent. Not even Loren Pierce's railing commentary on thepastor's introduction of an outlandish word like "epitome"--clearlyforbidden by the Discipline's injunction to plain language understood ofthe people--availed to sap the satisfaction of the majority. 

Theron himself comprehended that he had pleased the bulk of hisauditors; the knowledge left him curiously hot and cold. On the onehand, there was joy in the apparent prospect that the congregation wouldback him up in a stand against the trustees, if worst came to worst. But, on the other hand, the bonnet episode entered his soul. It hadbeen a source of bitter humiliation to him to see his wife sitting therebeneath the pulpit, shorn by despotic order of the adornments naturalto her pretty head. But he had even greater pain in contemplating theeffect it had produced on Alice herself. She had said not a word on thesubject, but her every glance and gesture seemed to him eloquent of deepfeeling about it. He made sure that she blamed him for having defendedhis own gas and sidewalk rights with successful vigor, but permittedthe sacrifice of her poor little inoffensive roses without a protest. Inthis view of the matter, indeed, he blamed himself. Was it too late tomake the error good? He ventured a hint on this Sunday evening, when hereturned to the parsonage and found her reading an old weekly newspaperby the light of the kitchen lamp, to the effect that he fancied therewould be no great danger in putting those roses back into her bonnet. Without lifting her eyes from the paper, she answered that she hadno earthly desire to wear roses in her bonnet, and went on with herreading. 

At breakfast the next morning Theron found himself in command of anunusual fund of humorous good spirits, and was at pains to make themost of it, passing whimsical comments on subjects which the openingday suggested, recalling quaint and comical memories of the past, andstriving his best to force Alice into a laugh. Formerly her merry temperhad always ignited at the merest spark of gayety. Now she gave his jokesonly a dutiful half-smile, and uttered scarcely a word in response tohis running fire of talk. When the meal was finished, she went silentlyto work to clear away the dishes. 

Theron turned over in his mind the project of offering to help her, ashe had done so often in those dear old days when they laughingly beganlife together. Something decided this project in the negative for him, and after lingering moments he put on his hat and went out for a walk. 

Not even the most doleful and trying hour of his bitter experience inTyre had depressed him like this. Looking back upon these past troubles, he persuaded himself that he had borne them all with a light andcheerful heart, simply because Alice had been one with him in everythought and emotion. How perfect, how ideally complete, their sympathyhad always been! With what absolute unity of mind and soul they hadtrod that difficult path together! And now--henceforth--was it to bedifferent? The mere suggestion of such a thing chilled his veins. Hesaid aloud to himself as he walked that life would be an intolerablecurse if Alice were to cease sharing it with him in every conceivablephase. 

He had made his way out of town, and tramped along the country hill-roadfor a considerable distance, before a merciful light began to lessen theshadows in the picture of gloom with which his mind tortured itself. All at once he stopped short, lifted his head, and looked about him. Thebroad valley lay warm and tranquil in the May sunshine at his feet. Inthe thicket up the side-hill above him a gray squirrel was chatteringshrilly, and the birds sang in a tireless choral confusion. Theronsmiled, and drew a long breath. The gay clamor of the woodlandsongsters, the placid radiance of the landscape, were suddenly taken inand made a part of his new mood. He listened, smiled once more, and thenstarted in a leisurely way back toward Octavius. 

How could he have been so ridiculous as to fancy that Alice--hisAlice--had been changed into someone else? He marvelled now at his ownperverse folly. She was overworked--tired out--that was all. The task ofmoving in, of setting the new household to rights, had been too much forher. She must have a rest. They must get in a hired girl. 

Once this decision about a servant fixed itself in the young minister'smind, it drove out the last vestage of discomfort. He strode along nowin great content, revolving idly a dozen different plans for gilding andbeautifying this new life of leisure into which his sanguine thoughtsprojected Alice. One of these particularly pleased him, and waxed indefiniteness as he turned it over and over. He would get another pianofor her, in place of that which had been sacrificed in Tyre. Thatbeneficient modern invention, the instalment plan, made this quitefeasible--so easy, in fact, that it almost seemed as if he should findhis wife playing on the new instrument when he got home. He would stopin at the music store and see about it that very day. 

Of course, now that these important resolutions had been taken, it wouldbe a good thing if he could do something to bring in some extra money. This was by no means a new notion. He had mused over the possibility ina formless way ever since that memorable discovery of indebtedness inTyre, and had long ago recognized the hopelessness of endeavor in everychannel save that of literature. Latterly his fancy had been stimulatedby reading an account of the profits which Canon Farrar had derived fromhis "Life of Christ. " If such a book could command such a bewilderingmultitude of readers, Theron felt there ought to be a chance for him. So clear did constant rumination render this assumption that the youngpastor in time had come to regard this prospective book of his as asubstantial asset, which could be realized without trouble whenever hegot around to it. 

He had not, it is true, gone to the length of seriously considering whatshould be the subject of his book. That had not seemed to him to mattermuch, so long as it was scriptural. Familiarity with the process ofextracting a fixed amount of spiritual and intellectual meat from anycasual text, week after week, had given him an idea that any one ofmany subjects would do, when the time came for him to make a choice. He realized now that the time for a selection had arrived, and almostsimultaneously found himself with a ready-made decision in his mind. Thebook should be about Abraham!

Theron Ware was extremely interested in the mechanism of his own brain, and followed its workings with a lively curiosity. Nothing could be moreremarkable, he thought, than to thus discover that, on the instant ofhis formulating a desire to know what he should write upon, lo, andbehold! there his mind, quite on its own initiative, had the answerwaiting for him! When he had gone a little further, and the powerfulrange of possibilities in the son's revolt against the idolatry of hisfather, the image-maker, in the exodus from the unholy city of Ur, andin the influence of the new nomadic life upon the little deistic familygroup, had begun to unfold itself before him, he felt that the hand ofProvidence was plainly discernible in the matter. The book was to beblessed from its very inception. 

Walking homeward briskly now, with his eyes on the sidewalk and his mindall aglow with crowding suggestions for the new work, and impatience tobe at it, he came abruptly upon a group of men and boys who occupied thewhole path, and were moving forward so noiselessly that he had not heardthem coming. He almost ran into the leader of this little procession, and began a stammering apology, the final words of which were leftunspoken, so solemnly heedless of him and his talk were all the faces hesaw. 

In the centre of the group were four working-men, bearing between theman extemporized litter of two poles and a blanket hastily secured acrossthem with spikes. Most of what this litter held was covered by anotherblanket, rounded in coarse folds over a shapeless bulk. From beneathits farther end protruded a big broom-like black beard, thrown upward atsuch an angle as to hide everything beyond to those in front. The tallyoung minister, stepping aside and standing tip-toe, could see slopingdownward behind this hedge of beard a pinched and chalk-like face, withwide-open, staring eyes. Its lips, of a dull lilac hue, were movingceaselessly, and made a dry, clicking sound. 

Theron instinctively joined himself to those who followed the litter--amotley dozen of street idlers, chiefly boys. One of these in whispersexplained to him that the man was one of Jerry Madden's workmen in thewagon-shops, who had been deployed to trim an elm-tree in front of hisemployer's house, and, being unused to such work, had fallen from thetop and broken all his bones. They would have cared for him at Madden'shouse, but he had insisted upon being taken home. His name was MacEvoy, and he was Joey MacEvoy's father, and likewise Jim's and Hughey's andMartin's. After a pause the lad, a bright-eyed, freckled, barefooted weeIrishman, volunteered the further information that his big brother hadrun to bring "Father Forbess, " on the chance that he might be in time toadminister "extry munction. "

The way of the silent little procession led through back streets--wherewomen hanging up clothes in the yards hurried to the gates, their apronsfull of clothes-pins, to stare open-mouthed at the passers-by--and cameto a halt at last in an irregular and muddy lane, before one of a halfdozen shanties reared among the ash-heaps and debris of the town's mostbedraggled outskirts. 

A stout, middle-aged, red-armed woman, already warned by some messengerof calamity, stood waiting on the roadside bank. There were whimperingchildren clinging to her skirts, and a surrounding cluster of women ofthe neighborhood, some of the more elderly of whom, shrivelled littlecrones in tidy caps, and with their aprons to their eyes, were beginningin a low-murmured minor the wail which presently should rise into thekeen of death. Mrs. MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her broad ruddyface was stern in expression rather than sorrowful. When the litterstopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant on her husband's wetbrow, and looked--one could have sworn impassively--into his staringeyes. Then, still without a word, she waved the bearers toward the door, and led the way herself. 

Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself, a minute later, inside adark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid with the steamfrom a boiler of clothes on the stove, and not in other ways improved bythe presence of a jostling score of women, all straining their gaze uponthe open door of the only other apartment--the bed-chamber. Throughthis they could see the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standingawkwardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and oldMaggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his crushedlimbs. As the neighbors watched what could be seen of these proceedings, they whispered among themselves eulogies of the injured man's industryand good temper, his habit of bringing his money home to his wife, andthe way he kept his Father Mathew pledge and attended to his religiousduties. They admitted freely that, by the light of his example, theirown husbands and sons left much to be desired, and from this wanderedeasily off into domestic digressions of their own. But all the whiletheir eyes were bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron made out, afterhe had grown accustomed to the gloom and the smell, that many of themwere telling their beads even while they kept the muttered conversationalive. None of them paid any attention to him, or seemed to regard hispresence there as unusual. 

Presently he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a person ofa different class. The bright light shone for a passing instant upon afashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remarkably brilliant shade ofred hair beneath it. In another moment there had edged along through thethrong, to almost within touch of him, a tall young woman, the owner ofthis hat and wonderful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing springattire, and carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of aquaint pattern. She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of alengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips, andbig brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made a grave littleinclination of her head toward him, and he bowed in response. Since herarrival, he noted, the chattering of the others had entirely ceased. 

"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of someassistance, " he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feeling thatat last here was some one to whom an explanation of his presence in thisRomish house was due. "I hope they won't feel that I have intruded. "

She nodded her head as if she quite understood. "They'll take the willfor the deed, " she whispered back. "Father Forbes will be here in aminute. Do you know is it too late?"

Even as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the commanding bulkof a newcomer's figure. The flash of a silk hat, and the deferential wayin which the assembled neighbors fell back to clear a passage, made hisidentity clear. Theron felt his blood tingle in an unaccustomed wayas this priest of a strange church advanced across the room--abroad-shouldered, portly man of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-lined face of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread. He carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound case. Tothis and to him the women courtesied and bowed their heads as he passed. 

"Come with me, " whispered the tall girl with the parasol to Theron; andhe found himself pushing along in her wake until they intercepted thepriest just outside the bedroom door. She touched Father Forbes on thearm. 

"Just to tell you that I am here, " she said. The priest nodded witha grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute or two theworkmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out, and the door was shutbehind them. 

"He is making his confession, " explained the young lady. "Stay here fora minute. "

She moved over to where the woman of the house stood, glum-faced andtearless, and whispered something to her. A confused movement among thecrowd followed, and out of it presently resulted a small table, coveredwith a white cloth, and bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin ofwater, and a spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readinessbefore the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space werekneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click of beadson their rosaries. 

The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the doorway withan uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a purple band over hisshoulders, and on his pale face there shone a tranquil and tender light. 

One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted the twocandles, and bore the table with its contents into the bedroom. Theyoung woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he dumbly followed her intothe chamber of death, making one of the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children, which filled the little room, and overflowednow outward to the street door. He found himself bowing with the othersto receive the sprinkled holy water from the priest's white fingers;kneeling with the others for the prayers; following in impressed silencewith the others the strange ceremonial by which the priest tracedcrosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil with a pieceof cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the invocation toforgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all he was moved bythe rich, novel sound of the Latin as the priest rolled it forth in theASPERGES ME, DOMINE, and MISEREATUR VESTRI OMNIPOTENS DEUS, with itssoft Continental vowels and liquid R's. It seemed to him that he hadnever really heard Latin before. Then the astonishing young woman withthe red hair declaimed the CONFITEOR, vigorously and with a resonantdistinctness of enunciation. It was a different Latin, harsher and moresonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured undertone of theother's prayers, the last moment came. 

Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bedsides; noother final scene had stirred him like this. It must have beenthe girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of the greatnames--BEATUM MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, SANCTOSAPOSTOLOS PETRUM ET PAULUM--invoked with such proud confidence in thissqualid little shanty, which so strangely affected him. 

He came out with the others at last--the candles and the folded handsover the crucifix left behind--and walked as one in a dream. Even bythe time that he had gained the outer doorway, and stood blinking atthe bright light and filling his lungs with honest air once more, it hadbegun to seem incredible to him that he had seen and done all this. 

CHAPTER V

While Mr. Ware stood thus on the doorstep, through a minute offormless musing, the priest and the girl came out, and, somewhat to hisconfusion, made him one of their party. He felt himself flushing underthe idea that they would think he had waited for them--was thrustinghimself upon them. The notion prompted him to bow frigidly in responseto Father Forbes' pleasant "I am glad to meet you, sir, " and hisoutstretched hand. 

"I dropped in by the--the merest accident, " Theron said. "I met thembringing the poor man home, and--and quite without thinking, I obeyedthe impulse to follow them in, and didn't realize--"

He stopped short, annoyed by the reflection that this was his secondapology. The girl smiled placidly at him, the while she put up herparasol. 

"It did me good to see you there, " she said, quite as if she had knownhim all her life. "And so it did the rest of us. "

Father Forbes permitted himself a soft little chuckle, approving ratherthan mirthful, and patted her on the shoulder with the air of beingfifty years her senior instead of fifteen. To the minister's relief, hechanged the subject as the three started together toward the road. 

"Then, again, no doctor was sent for!" he exclaimed, as if resuming afamiliar subject with the girl. Then he turned to Theron. "I dare-sayyou have no such trouble; but with our poorer people it is veryvexing. They will not call in a physician, but hurry off first for theclergyman. I don't know that it is altogether to avoid doctor's bills, but it amounts to that in effect. Of course in this case it made nodifference; but I have had to make it a rule not to go out at nightunless they bring me a physician's card with his assurance that it is agenuine affair. Why, only last winter, I was routed up after midnight, and brought off in the mud and pelting rain up one of the new streetson the hillside there, simply because a factory girl who was laced tootight had fainted at a dance. I slipped and fell into a puddle in thedarkness, ruined a new overcoat, and got drenched to the skin; and whenI arrived the girl had recovered and was dancing away again, thirteento the dozen. It was then that I made the rule. I hope, Mr. Ware, thatOctavius is producing a pleasant impression upon you so far?"

"I scarcely know yet, " answered Theron. The genial talk of the priest, with its whimsical anecdote, had in truth passed over his head. Hismind still had room for nothing but that novel death-bed scene, withthe winged captain of the angelic host, the Baptist, the glorifiedFisherman and the Preacher, all being summoned down in the pomp ofliturgical Latin to help MacEvoy to die. "If you don't mind my sayingso, " he added hesitatingly, "what I have just seen in there DID make avery powerful impression upon me. "

"It is a very ancient ceremony, " said the priest; "probably Persian, like the baptismal form, although, for that matter, we can never digdeep enough for the roots of these things. They all turn up Turanian ifwe probe far enough. Our ways separate here, I'm afraid. I am delightedto have made your acquaintance, Mr. Ware. Pray look in upon me, if youcan as well as not. We are near neighbors, you know. "

Father Forbes had shaken hands, and moved off up another street somedistance, before the voice of the girl recalled Theron to himself. 

"Of course you knew HIM by name, " she was saying, "and he knew youby sight, and had talked of you; but MY poor inferior sex has to beintroduced. I am Celia Madden. My father has the wagon-shops, and I--Iplay the organ at the church. "

"I--I am delighted to make your acquaintance, " said Theron, consciousas he spoke that he had slavishly echoed the formula of the priest. Hecould think of nothing better to add than, "Unfortunately, we have noorgan in our church. "

The girl laughed, as they resumed their walk down the street. "I'mafraid I couldn't undertake two, " she said, and laughed again. Then shespoke more seriously. "That ceremony must have interested you a gooddeal, never having seen it before. I saw that it was all new to you, andso I made bold to take you under my wing, so to speak. "

"You were very kind, " said the young minister. "It was really a greatexperience for me. May--may I ask, is it a part of your functions, inthe church, I mean, to attend these last rites?"

"Mercy, no!" replied the girl, spinning the parasol on her shoulder andsmiling at the thought. "No; it was only because MacEvoy was one of ourworkmen, and really came by his death through father sending him up totrim a tree. Ann MacEvoy will never forgive us that, the longest day shelives. Did you notice her? She wouldn't speak to me. After you came out, I tried to tell her that we would look out for her and the children; butall she would say to me was: 'An' fwat would a wheelwright, an' him thefather of a family, be doin' up a tree?'"

They had come now upon the main street of the village, with itsflagstone sidewalk overhung by a lofty canopy of elm-boughs. Here, forthe space of a block, was concentrated such fashionable elegance ofmansions and ornamental lawns as Octavius had to offer; and it waspresented with the irregularity so characteristic of our restlesscivilization. Two or three of the houses survived untouched from theearlier days--prim, decorous structures, each with its gabled centreand lower wings, each with its row of fluted columns supporting theclassical roof of a piazza across its whole front, each vying with theothers in the whiteness of those wooden walls enveloping its brightgreen blinds. One had to look over picket fences to see these houses, and in doing so caught the notion that they thus railed themselvesoff in pride at being able to remember before the railroad came to thevillage, or the wagon-works were thought of. 

Before the neighboring properties the fences had been swept away, sothat one might stroll from the sidewalk straight across the well-trimmedsward to any one of a dozen elaborately modern doorways. Some of theresidences, thus frankly proffering friendship to the passer-by, were ofwood painted in drabs and dusky reds, with bulging windows which markedthe native yearning for the mediaeval, and shingles that strove to beaccounted tiles. Others--a prouder, less pretentious sort--were of brickor stone, with terra-cotta mouldings set into the walls, and with realslates covering the riot of turrets and peaks and dormer peepholesoverhead. 

Celia Madden stopped in front of the largest and most important-lookingof these new edifices, and said, holding out her hand: "Here I am, oncemore. Good-morning, Mr. Ware. "

Theron hoped that his manner did not betray the flash of surprise hefelt in discovering that his new acquaintance lived in the biggest housein Octavius. He remembered now that some one had pointed it out as theabode of the owner of the wagon factories; but it had not occurred tohim before to associate this girl with that village magnate. It wasstupid of him, of course, because she had herself mentioned her father. He looked at her again with an awkward smile, as he formally shookthe gloved hand she gave him, and lifted his soft hat. The strong noonsunlight, forcing its way down between the elms, and beating upon herparasol of lace-edged, creamy silk, made a halo about her hair and faceat once brilliant and tender. He had not seen before how beautiful shewas. She nodded in recognition of his salute, and moved up the lawnwalk, spinning the sunshade on her shoulder. 

Though the parsonage was only three blocks away, the young minister hadtime to think about a good many things before he reached home. 

First of all, he had to revise in part the arrangement of his notionsabout the Irish. Save for an occasional isolated and taciturn figureamong the nomadic portion of the hired help in the farm country, Theronhad scarcely ever spoken to a person of this curiously alien racebefore. He remembered now that there had been some dozen or more Irishfamilies in Tyre, quartered in the outskirts among the brickyards, but he had never come in contact with any of them, or given to theirexistence even a passing thought. So far as personal acquaintance went, the Irish had been to him only a name. 

But what a sinister and repellent name! His views on this generalsubject were merely those common to his communion and his environment. He took it for granted, for example, that in the large cities most ofthe poverty and all the drunkenness, crime, and political corruptionwere due to the perverse qualities of this foreign people--qualitiesaccentuated and emphasized in every evil direction by the balefulinfluence of a false and idolatrous religion. It is hardly too much tosay that he had never encountered a dissenting opinion on this point. His boyhood had been spent in those bitter days when social, political, and blood prejudices were fused at white heat in the public crucibletogether. When he went to the Church Seminary, it was a matter of coursethat every member of the faculty was a Republican, and that every one ofhis classmates had come from a Republican household. When, later on, heentered the ministry, the rule was still incredulous of exceptions. Onemight as well have looked in the Nedahma Conference for a divergenceof opinion on the Trinity as for a difference in political conviction. Indeed, even among the laity, Theron could not feel sure that he hadever known a Democrat; that is, at all closely. He understood verylittle about politics, it is true. If he had been driven into a corner, and forced to attempt an explanation of this tremendous partisan unityin which he had a share, he would probably have first mentionedthe War--the last shots of which were fired while he was still inpetticoats. Certainly his second reason, however, would have been thatthe Irish were on the other side. 

He had never before had occasion to formulate, even in his own thoughts, this tacit race and religious aversion in which he had been bred. Itrose now suddenly in front of him, as he sauntered from patch to patchof sunlight under the elms, like some huge, shadowy, and symbolicmonument. He looked at it with wondering curiosity, as at somethinghe had heard of all his life, but never seen before--an abhorrentspectacle, truly! The foundations upon which its dark bulk reared itselfwere ignorance, squalor, brutality and vice. Pigs wallowed in the mirebefore its base, and burrowing into this base were a myriad of narrowdoors, each bearing the hateful sign of a saloon, and giving forthfrom its recesses of night the sounds of screams and curses. Above weresculptured rows of lowering, ape-like faces from Nast's and Keppler'scartoons, and out of these sprang into the vague upper gloom--on the oneside, lamp-posts from which negroes hung by the neck, and on the othergibbets for dynamiters and Molly Maguires, and between the two glowed aspectral picture of some black-robed tonsured men, with leering satanicmasks, making a bonfire of the Bible in the public schools. 

Theron stared this phantasm hard in the face, and recognized it for avery tolerable embodiment of what he had heretofore supposed he thoughtabout the Irish. For an instant, the sight of it made him shiver, as ifthe sunny May had of a sudden lapsed back into bleak December. Then hesmiled, and the bad vision went off into space. He saw instead FatherForbes, in the white and purple vestments, standing by poor MacEvoy'sbedside, with his pale, chiselled, luminous, uplifted face, and heheard only the proud, confident clanging of the girl's recital, --BEATUMMICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, PETRUM ETPAULUM--EM!--AM!--UM!--like strokes on a great resonant alarm-bell, attuned for the hearing of heaven. He caught himself on the very vergeof feeling that heaven must have heard. 

Then he smiled again, and laid the matter aside, with a partingadmission that it had been undoubtedly picturesque and impressive, andthat it had been a valuable experience to him to see it. At least theIrish, with all their faults, must have a poetic strain, or they wouldnot have clung so tenaciously to those curious and ancient forms. Herecalled having heard somewhere, or read, it might be, that they werea people much given to songs and music. And the young lady, that veryhandsome and friendly Miss Madden, had told him that she was a musician!He had a new pleasure in turning this over in his mind. Of all theclosed doors which his choice of a career had left along his pathway, noother had for him such a magical fascination as that on which was graventhe lute of Orpheus. He knew not even the alphabet of music, and hisconceptions of its possibilities ran but little beyond the best of thehymn-singing he had heard at Conferences, yet none the less the longingfor it raised on occasion such mutiny in his soul that more than once hehad specifically prayed against it as a temptation. 

Dangerous though some of its tendencies might be, there was nogainsaying the fact that a love for music was in the main an upliftinginfluence--an attribute of cultivation. The world was the sweeter andmore gentle for it. And this brought him to musing upon the odd chancethat the two people of Octavius who had given him the first notion ofpolish and intellectual culture in the town should be Irish. The Romishpriest must have been vastly surprised at his intrusion, yet had beenat the greatest pains to act as if it were quite the usual thing to haveMethodist ministers assist at Extreme Unction. And the young woman--howgracefully, with what delicacy, had she comprehended his position androbbed it of all its possible embarrassments! It occurred to him thatthey must have passed, there in front of her home, the very tree fromwhich the luckless wheelwright had fallen some hours before; and thefact that she had forborne to point it out to him took form in his mindas an added proof of her refinement of nature. 

The midday dinner was a little more than ready when Theron reached home, and let himself in by the front door. On Mondays, owing to the moistureand "clutter" of the weekly washing in the kitchen, the table was laidin the sitting-room, and as he entered from the hall the partner ofhis joys bustled in by the other door, bearing the steaming platter ofcorned beef, dumplings, cabbages, and carrots, with arms bared to theelbows, and a red face. It gave him great comfort, however, to note thatthere were no signs of the morning's displeasure remaining on this face;and he immediately remembered again those interrupted projects of hisabout the piano and the hired girl. 

"Well! I'd just about begun to reckon that I was a widow, " said Alice, putting down her fragrant burden. There was such an obvious suggestionof propitiation in her tone that Theron went around and kissed her. Hethought of saying something about keeping out of the way because it was"Blue Monday, " but held it back lest it should sound like a reproach. 

"Well, what kind of a washerwoman does THIS one turn out to be?" heasked, after they were seated, and he had invoked a blessing and wascutting vigorously into the meat. 

"Oh, so-so, " replied Alice; "she seems to be particular, but she'smortal slow. If I hadn't stood right over her, we shouldn't have had theclothes out till goodness knows when. And of course she's Irish!"

"Well, what of THAT?" asked the minister, with a fine unconcern. 

Alice looked up from her plate, with knife and fork suspended in air. "Why, you know we were talking only the other day of what a pity it wasthat none of our own people went out washing, " she said. "That Welshwoman we heard of couldn't come, after all; and they say, too, that shepresumes dreadfully upon the acquaintance, being a church member, youknow. So we simply had to fall back on the Irish. And even if they dogo and tell their priest everything they see and hear, why, there's onecomfort, they can tell about US and welcome. Of course I see to it shedoesn't snoop around in here. "

Theron smiled. "That's all nonsense about their telling such things totheir priests, " he said with easy confidence. 

"Why, you told me so yourself, " replied Alice, briskly. "And I've alwaysunderstood so, too; they're bound to tell EVERYTHING in confession. That's what gives the Catholic Church such a tremendous hold. You'vespoken of it often. "

"It must have been by way of a figure of speech, " remarked Theron, not with entire directness. "Women are great hands to separate one'sobservations from their context, and so give them meanings quiteunintended. They are also great hands, " he added genially, "or at leastone of them is, at making the most delicious dumplings in the world. Ibelieve these are the best even you ever made. "

Alice was not unmindful of the compliment, but her thoughts were onother things. "I shouldn't like that woman's priest, for example, " shesaid, "to know that we had no piano. "

"But if he comes and stands outside our house every night andlistens--as of course he will, " said Theron, with mock gravity, "it isonly a question of time when he must reach that conclusion for himself. Our only chance, however, is that there are some sixteen hundred otherhouses for him to watch, so that he may not get around to us for quite aspell. Why, seriously, Alice, what on earth do you suppose Father Forbesknows or cares about our poor little affairs, or those of any otherProtestant household in this whole village? He has his work to do, justas I have mine--only his is ten times as exacting in everything exceptsermons--and you may be sure he is only too glad when it is over eachday, without bothering about things that are none of his business. "

"All the same I'm afraid of them, " said Alice, as if argument wereexhausted. 

CHAPTER VI

On the following morning young Mr. Ware anticipated events by inscribingin his diary for the day, immediately after breakfast, these remarks:"Arranged about piano. Began work upon book. "

The date indeed deserved to be distinguished from its fellows. Theronwas so conscious of its importance that he not only prophesied in thelittle morocco-bound diary which Alice had given him for Christmas, butreturned after he had got out upon the front steps of the parsonage tohave his hat brushed afresh by her. 

"Wonders will never cease, " she said jocosely. "With you gettingparticular about your clothes, there isn't anything in this wide worldthat can't happen now!"

"One doesn't go out to bring home a piano every day, " he made answer. "Besides, I want to make such an impression upon the man that he willdeal gently with that first cash payment down. Do you know, " he added, watching her turn the felt brim under the wisp-broom's strokes, "I'mthinking some of getting me a regular silk stove-pipe hat. "

"Why don't you, then?" she rejoined, but without any ring of gladacquiescence in her tone. He fancied that her face lengthened a little, and he instantly ascribed it to recollections of the way in which theroses had been bullied out of her own headgear. 

"You are quite sure, now, pet, " he made haste to change the subject, "that the hired girl can wait just as well as not until fall?"

"Oh, MY, yes!" Alice replied, putting the hat on his head, and smoothingback his hair behind his ears. "She'd only be in the way now. You see, with hot weather coming on, there won't be much cooking. We'll take allour meals out here, and that saves so much work that really what remainsis hardly more than taking care of a bird-cage. And, besides, not havingher will almost half pay for the piano. "

"But when cold weather comes, you're sure you'll consent?" he urged. 

"Like a shot!" she assured him, and, after a happy little caress, hestarted out again on his momentous mission. 

"Thurston's" was a place concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of thevillage to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might moveabout a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But thenagain one might stumble into conversation with one small storekeeperafter another, and learn that they united in resenting the existence of"Thurston's, " as rival farmers might join to curse a protracted drought. Each had his special flaming grievance. The little dry-goods dealersasked mournfully how they could be expected to compete with anestablishment which could buy bankrupt stocks at a hundred differentpoints, and make a profit if only one-third of the articles were soldfor more than they would cost from the jobber? The little boot andshoe dealers, clothiers, hatters, and furriers, the small merchants incarpets, crockery, and furniture, the venders of hardware and householdutensils, of leathern goods and picture-frames, of wall-paper, musicalinstruments, and even toys--all had the same pathetically unanswerablequestion to propound. But mostly they put it to themselves, because theothers were at "Thurston's. "

The Rev. Theron Ware had entertained rather strong views on thissubject, and that only a week or two ago. One of his first acquaintancesin Octavius had been the owner of the principal book-store in theplace--a gentle and bald old man who produced the complete impression ofa bibliophile upon what the slightest investigation showed to be only ameagre acquaintance with publishers' circulars. But at least he had theair of loving his business, and the young minister had enjoyed a longtalk with, or rather, at him. Out of this talk had come the informationthat the store was losing money. Not even the stationery department nowshowed a profit worth mentioning. When Octavius had contained only fivethousand inhabitants, it boasted four book-stores, two of them goodones. Now, with a population more than doubled, only these latter twosurvived, and they must soon go to the wall. The reason? It was in anutshell. A book which sold at retail for one dollar and a half cost thebookseller ninety cents. If it was at all a popular book, "Thurston's"advertised it at eighty-nine cents--and in any case at a profit of onlytwo or three cents. Of course it was done to widen the establishment'spatronage--to bring people into the store. Equally of course, it wasdestroying the book business and debauching the reading tastes of thecommunity. Without the profits from the light and ephemeral popularliterature of the season, the book-store proper could not keep up itsstock of more solid works, and indeed could not long keep open at all. On the other hand, "Thurston's" dealt with nothing save the demand ofthe moment, and offered only the books which were the talk of the week. Thus, in plain words, the book trade was going to the dogs, and it wasthe same with pretty nearly every other trade. 

Theron was indignant at this, and on his return home told Alice thathe desired her to make no purchases whatever at "Thurston's. " Heeven resolved to preach a sermon on the subject of the modern idea ofadmiring the great for crushing the small, and sketched out some notesfor it which he thought solved the problem of flaying the local abusewithout mentioning it by name. They had lain on his desk now for tendays or more, and on only the previous Friday he had speculated uponusing them that coming Sunday. 

On this bright and cheerful Tuesday morning he walked with a blithe stepunhesitatingly down the main street to "Thurston's, " and entered withoutany show of repugnance the door next to the window wherein, flankedby dangling banjos and key-bugles built in pyramids, was displayed thesign, "Pianos on the Instalment Plan. "

He was recognized by some responsible persons, and treated withdistinguished deference. They were charmed with the intelligence that hedesired a piano, and fascinated by his wish to pay for it only a littleat a time. They had special terms for clergymen, and made him feel asif these were being extended to him on a silver charger by kneelingadmirers. 

It was so easy to buy things here that he was a trifle disturbed to findhis flowing course interrupted by his own entire ignorance as to whatkind of piano he wanted. He looked at all they had in stock, and heardthem played upon. They differed greatly in price, and, so he fancied, almost as much in tone. It discouraged him to note, however, thatseveral of those he thought the finest in tone were among the verycheapest in the lot. Pondering this, and staring in hopeless puzzlementfrom one to another of the big black shiny monsters, he suddenly thoughtof something. 

"I would rather not decide for myself, " he said, "I know so little aboutit. If you don't mind, I will have a friend of mine, a skilled musician, step in and make a selection. I have so much confidence in--in herjudgment. " He added hurriedly, "It will involve only a day or two'sdelay. "

The next moment he was sorry he had spoken. What would they think whenthey saw the organist of the Catholic church come to pick out a pianofor the Methodist parsonage? And how could he decorously prefer therequest to her to undertake this task? He might not meet her again forages, and to his provincial notions writing would have seemed out of thequestion. And would it not be disagreeable to have her know that he wasbuying a piano by part payments? Poor Alice's dread of the washerwoman'sgossip occurred to him, at this, and he smiled in spite of himself. Thenall at once the difficulty vanished. Of course it would come all rightsomehow. Everything did. 

He was on firmer ground, buying the materials for the new book, overon the stationery side. His original intention had been to bestow thispatronage upon the old bookseller, but these suavely smart people in"Thurston's" had had the effect of putting him on his honor whenthey asked, "Would there be anything else?" and he had followed themunresistingly. 

He indulged to the full his whim that everything entering into theconstruction of "Abraham" should be spick-and-span. He watched with hisown eyes a whole ream of broad glazed white paper being sliced down bythe cutter into single sheets, and thrilled with a novel ecstasy as helaid his hand upon the spotless bulk, so wooingly did it invite him tobegin. He tried a score of pens before the right one came to hand. When a box of these had been laid aside, with ink and pen-holders and alittle bronze inkstand, he made a sign that the outfit was complete. Or no--there must be some blotting-paper. He had always used thoseblotting-pads given away by insurance companies--his congregations neverfailed to contain one or more agents, who had these to bestow by thearmful--but the book deserved a virgin blotter. 

Theron stood by while all these things were being tied up together in aparcel. The suggestion that they should be sent almost hurt him. Oh, no, he would carry them home himself. So strongly did they appeal to hissanguine imagination that he could not forbear hinting to the man whohad shown him the pianos and was now accompanying him to the door thatthis package under his arm represented potentially the price of thepiano he was going to have. He did it in a roundabout way, with one ofhis droll, hesitating smiles. The man did not understand at all, andTheron had not the temerity to repeat the remark. He strode home withthe precious bundle as fast as he could. 

"I thought it best, after all, not to commit myself to a selection, " heexplained about the piano at dinner-time. "In such a matter as this, the opinion of an expert is everything. I am going to have one of theprincipal musicians of the town go and try them all, and tell me whichwe ought to have. "

"And while he's about it, " said Alice, "you might ask him to make alittle list of some of the new music. I've got way behind the times, being without a piano so long. Tell him not any VERY difficult pieces, you know. "

"Yes, I know, " put in Theron, almost hastily, and began talking of otherthings. His conversation was of the most rambling and desultory sort, because all the while the two lobes of his brain, as it were, kept up adispute as to whether Alice ought to have been told that this "principalmusician" was of her own sex. It would certainly have been better, atthe outset, he decided; but to mention it now would be to invest thefact with undue importance. Yes, that was quite clear; only the clearerit became, from one point of view, the shadier it waxed from the other. The problem really disturbed the young minister's mind throughoutthe meal, and his abstraction became so marked at last that his wifecommented upon it. 

"A penny for your thoughts!" she said, with cheerful briskness. Thisancient formula of the farm-land had always rather jarred on Theron. Itpresented itself now to his mind as a peculiarly aggravating banality. 

"I am going to begin my book this afternoon, " he remarked impressively. "There is a great deal to think about. "

It turned out that there was even more to think about than he hadimagined. After hours of solitary musing at his desk, or of pacing upand down before his open book-shelves, Theron found the first shadows ofa May-day twilight beginning to fall upon that beautiful pile of whitepaper, still unstained by ink. He saw the book he wanted to write beforehim, in his mental vision, much more distinctly than ever, but the ideaof beginning it impetuously, and hurling it off hot and glowing week byweek, had faded away like a dream. 

This long afternoon, spent face to face with a project born of his ownbrain but yesterday, yet already so much bigger than himself, was reallya most fruitful time for the young clergyman. The lessons which cutmost deeply into our consciousness are those we learn from our children. Theron, in this first day's contact with the offspring of his fancy, found revealed to him an unsuspected and staggering truth. It was thathe was an extremely ignorant and rudely untrained young man, whosepretensions to intellectual authority among any educated people would belaughed at with deserved contempt. 

Strangely enough, after he had weathered the first shock, this discoverydid not dismay Theron Ware. The very completeness of the conviction itcarried with it, saturated his mind with a feeling as if the fact hadreally been known to him all along. And there came, too, after a little, an almost pleasurable sense of the importance of the revelation. He hadbeen merely drifting in fatuous and conceited blindness. Now all at oncehis eyes were open; he knew what he had to do. Ignorance was a thing tobe remedied, and he would forthwith bend all his energies to cultivatinghis mind till it should blossom like a garden. In this mood, Theronmentally measured himself against the more conspicuous of his colleaguesin the Conference. They also were ignorant, clownishly ignorant: thedifference was that they were doomed by native incapacity to go on alltheir lives without ever finding it out. It was obvious to him that hiscase was better. There was bright promise in the very fact that he haddiscovered his shortcomings. 

He had begun the afternoon by taking down from their places the variousworks in his meagre library which bore more or less relation to the taskin hand. The threescore books which constituted his printed possessionswere almost wholly from the press of the Book Concern; the fewexceptions were volumes which, though published elsewhere, had come tohim through that giant circulating agency of the General Conference, and wore the stamp of its approval. Perhaps it was the sight of thesehalf-filled shelves which started this day's great revolution inTheron's opinions of himself. He had never thought much before aboutowning books. He had been too poor to buy many, and the conditions ofcanvassing about among one's parishioners which the thrifty Book Concernimposes upon those who would have without buying, had always repelledhim. Now, suddenly, as he moved along the two shelves, he felt ashamedat their beggarly showing. 

"The Land and the Book, " in three portly volumes, was the mostpretentious of the aids which he finally culled from his collection. Beside it he laid out "Bible Lands, " "Rivers and Lakes of Scripture, ""Bible Manners and Customs, " the "Genesis and Exodus" volume of Whedon'sCommentary, some old numbers of the "Methodist Quarterly Review, " and acopy of "Josephus" which had belonged to his grandmother, and hadseen him through many a weary Sunday afternoon in boyhood. He glancedcasually through these, one by one, as he took them down, and began tofear that they were not going to be of so much use as he had thought. Then, seating himself, he read carefully through the thirteen chaptersof Genesis which chronicle the story of the founder of Israel. 

Of course he had known this story from his earliest years. In almostevery chapter he came now upon a phrase or an incident which had servedhim as the basis for a sermon. He had preached about Hagar in thewilderness, about Lot's wife, about the visit of the angels, about theintended sacrifice of Isaac, about a dozen other things suggested by theancient narrative. Somehow this time it all seemed different to him. The people he read about were altered to his vision. Heretofore a poeticlight had shone about them, where indeed they had not glowed in a haloof sanctification. Now, by some chance, this light was gone, and he sawthem instead as untutored and unwashed barbarians, filled with animallusts and ferocities, struggling by violence and foul chicanery tosecure a foothold in a country which did not belong to them--all rudetramps and robbers of the uncivilized plain. 

The apparent fact that Abram was a Chaldean struck him with peculiarforce. How was it, he wondered, that this had never occurred to himbefore? Examining himself, he found that he had supposed vaguely thatthere had been Jews from the beginning, or at least, say, from theflood. But, no, Abram was introduced simply as a citizen of the Chaldeantown of Ur, and there was no hint of any difference in race between himand his neighbors. It was specially mentioned that his brother, Lot'sfather, died in Ur, the city of his nativity. Evidently the familybelonged there, and were Chaldeans like the rest. 

I do not cite this as at all a striking discovery, but it did have acurious effect upon Theron Ware. Up to that very afternoon, his notionof the kind of book he wanted to write had been founded upon a popularbook called "Ruth the Moabitess, " written by a clergyman he knew verywell, the Rev. E. Ray Mifflin. This model performance troubled itselfnot at all with difficult points, but went swimmingly along throughscented summer seas of pretty rhetoric, teaching nothing, it is true, but pleasing a good deal and selling like hot cakes. Now, all at onceTheron felt that he hated that sort of book. HIS work should be of avastly different order. He might fairly assume, he thought, that if thefact that Abram was a Chaldean was new to him, it would fall upon theworld in general as a novelty. Very well, then, there was his chance. He would write a learned book, showing who the Chaldeans were, and howtheir manners and beliefs differed from, and influenced--

It was at this psychological instant that the wave of self-condemnationsuddenly burst upon and submerged the young clergyman. It passed again, leaving him staring fixedly at the pile of books he had taken down fromthe shelves, and gasping a little, as if for breath. Then the humorousside of the thing, perversely enough, appealed to him, and he grinnedfeebly to himself at the joke of his having imagined that he could writelearnedly about the Chaldeans, or anything else. But, no, it shouldn'tremain a joke! His long mobile face grew serious under the new resolve. He would learn what there was to be learned about the Chaldeans. He roseand walked up and down the room, gathering fresh strength of purposeas this inviting field of research spread out its vistas before him. Perhaps--yes, he would incidentally explore the mysteries of theMoabitic past as well, and thus put the Rev. E. Ray Mifflin to confusionon his own subject. That would in itself be a useful thing, becauseMifflin wore kid gloves at the Conference, and affected an intolerablesuperiority of dress and demeanor, and there would be generalsatisfaction among the plainer and worthier brethren at seeing him takendown a peg. 

Now for the first time there rose distinctly in Theron's mind thatcasual allusion which Father Forbes had made to the Turanians. Herecalled, too, his momentary feeling of mortification at not knowing whothe Turanians were, at the time. Possibly, if he had probed this mattermore deeply, now as he walked and pondered in the little living-room, he might have traced the whole of the afternoon's mental experiences tothat chance remark of the Romish priest. But this speculation did notdetain him. He mused instead upon the splendid library Father Forbesmust have. 

"Well, how does the book come on? Have you got to 'my Lady Keturah'yet?'"

It was Alice who spoke, opening the door from the kitchen, and puttingin her head with a pretence of great and solemn caution, but with acorrecting twinkle in her eyes. 

"I haven't got to anybody yet, " answered Theron, absently. "These bigthings must be approached slowly. "

"Come out to supper, then, while the beans are hot, " said Alice. 

The young minister sat through this other meal, again in deepabstraction. His wife pursued her little pleasantry about Keturah, the second wife, urging him with mock gravity to scold her roundly fordaring to usurp Sarah's place, but Theron scarcely heard her, and saidnext to nothing. He ate sparingly, and fidgeted in his seat, waitingwith obvious impatience for the finish of the meal. At last he roseabruptly. 

"I've got a call to make--something with reference to the book, " hesaid. "I'll run out now, I think, before it gets dark. "

He put on his hat, and strode out of the house as if his errand was ofthe utmost urgency. Once upon the street, however, his pace slackened. There was still a good deal of daylight outside, and he loiteredaimlessly about, walking with bowed head and hands clasped behind him, until dusk fell. Then he squared his shoulders, and started straight asthe crow flies toward the residence of Father Forbes. 

CHAPTER VII

The new Catholic church was the largest and most imposing publicbuilding in Octavius. Even in its unfinished condition, with a baldroofing of weather-beaten boards marking on the stunted tower the placewhere a spire was to begin later on, it dwarfed every other edifice ofthe sort in the town, just as it put them all to shame in the matter ofthe throngs it drew, rain or shine, to its services. 

These facts had not heretofore been a source of satisfaction to the Rev. Theron Ware. He had even alluded to the subject in terms which gave hiswife the impression that he actively deplored the strength and size ofthe Catholic denomination in this new home of theirs, and was troubledin his mind about Rome generally. But this evening he walked alongthe extended side of the big structure, which occupied nearly half theblock, and then, turning the corner, passed in review its wide-doored, looming front, without any hostile emotions whatever. In the gatheringdusk it seemed more massive than ever before, but he found himself onlypassively considering the odd statement he had heard that all CatholicChurch property was deeded absolutely in the name of the Bishop of thediocese. 

Only a narrow passage-way separated the church from the pastorate--afine new brick residence standing flush upon the street. Theron mountedthe steps, and looked about for a bell-pull. Search revealed instead alittle ivory button set in a ring of metal work. He picked at this fora time with his finger-nail, before he made out the injunction, printedacross it, to push. Of course! how stupid of him! This was one of thoseelectric bells he had heard so much of, but which had not as yet madetheir way to the class of homes he knew. For custodians of a mediaevalsuperstition and fanaticism, the Catholic clergy seemed very much up todate. This bell made him feel rather more a countryman than ever. 

The door was opened by a tall gaunt woman, who stood in black reliefagainst the radiance of the hall-way while Theron, choosing his wordswith some diffidence, asked if the Rev. Mr. Forbes was in. 

"He is" came the hush-voiced answer. "He's at dinner, though. "

It took the young minister a second or two to bring into association inhis mind this evening hour and this midday meal. Then he began to saythat he would call again--it was nothing special--but the woman suddenlycut him short by throwing the door wide open. 

"It's Mr. Ware, is it not?" she asked, in a greatly altered tone. "Sure, he'd not have you go away. Come inside--do, sir!--I'll tell him. "

Theron, with a dumb show of reluctance, crossed the threshold. He notednow that the woman, who had bustled down the hall on her errand, wasgray-haired and incredibly ugly, with a dark sour face, glowering blackeyes, and a twisted mouth. Then he saw that he was not alone in thehall-way. Three men and two women, all poorly clad and obviously workingpeople, were seated in meek silence on a bench beyond the hat-rack. Theyglanced up at him for an instant, then resumed their patient study ofthe linoleum pattern on the floor at their feet. 

"And will you kindly step in, sir?" the elderly Gorgon had returned toask. She led Mr. Ware along the hall-way to a door near the end, andopened it for him to pass before her. 

He entered a room in which for the moment he could see nothing but acentral glare of dazzling light beating down from a great shadedlamp upon a circular patch of white table linen. Inside this ring ofillumination points of fire sparkled from silver and porcelain, and twobars of burning crimson tracked across the cloth in reflection from tallglasses filled with wine. The rest of the room was vague darkness; butthe gloom seemed saturated with novel aromatic odors, the appetizingscent of which bore clear relation to what Theron's blinking eyes restedupon. 

He was able now to discern two figures at the table, outside the glowingcircle of the lamp. They had both risen, and one came toward him withcordial celerity, holding out a white plump hand in greeting. He tookthis proffered hand rather limply, not wholly sure in the half-lightthat this really was Father Forbes, and began once more that everlastingapology to which he seemed doomed in the presence of the priest. It wasbroken abruptly off by the other's protesting laughter. 

"My dear Mr. Ware, I beg of you, " the priest urged, chuckling withhospitable mirth, "don't, don't apologize! I give you my word, nothingin the world could have pleased us better than your joining us heretonight. It was quite dramatic, your coming in as you did. We werespeaking of you at that very moment. Oh, I forgot--let me make youacquainted with my friend--my very particular friend, Dr. Ledsmar. Letme take your hat; pray draw up a chair. Maggie will have a place laidfor you in a minute. "

"Oh, I assure you--I couldn't think of it--I've just eatenmy--my--dinner, " expostulated Theron. He murmured more inarticulateremonstrances a moment later, when the grim old domestic appeared withplates, serviette, and tableware for his use, but she went on spreadingthem before him as if she heard nothing. Thus committed against a decentshow of resistance, the young minister did eat a little here and thereof what was set before him, and was human enough to regret franklythat he could not eat more. It seemed to him very remarkable cookery, transfiguring so simple a thing as a steak, for example, quite out ofrecognition, and investing the humble potato with a charm he had neverdreamed of. He wondered from time to time if it would be polite to askhow the potatoes were cooked, so that he might tell Alice. 

The conversation at the table was not continuous, or even enlivened. After the lapses into silence became marked, Theron began to suspectthat his refusal to drink wine had annoyed them--the more so as he haddrenched a large section of table-cloth in his efforts to manipulate asiphon instead. He was greatly relieved, therefore, when Father Forbesexplained in an incidental way that Dr. Ledsmar and he customarily atetheir meals almost without a word. 

"It's a philosophic fad of his, " the priest went on smilingly, "and Ihave fallen in with it for the sake of a quiet life; so that when we dohave company--that is to say, once in a blue moon--we display no mannersto speak of. "

"I had always supposed--that is, I've always heard--that it was morehealthful to talk at meals, " said Theron. "Of course--what I mean--Itook it for granted all physicians thought so. "

Dr. Ledsmar laughed. "That depends so much upon the quality of themeals!" he remarked, holding his glass up to the light. 

He seemed a man of middle age and an equable disposition. Theron, stealing stray glances at him around the lampshade, saw most distinctlyof all a broad, impressive dome of skull, which, though obviously theresult of baldness, gave the effect of quite belonging to the face. There were gold-rimmed spectacles, through which shone now and again thevivid sparkle of sharp, alert eyes, and there was a nose of some sortnot easy to classify, at once long and thick. The rest was thin hair andshort round beard, mouse-colored where the light caught them, but losingtheir outlines in the shadows of the background. Theron had not heard ofhim among the physicians of Octavius. He wondered if he might not be adoctor of something else than medicine, and decided upon venturing thequestion. 

"Oh, yes, it is medicine, " replied Ledsmar. "I am a doctor three or fourtimes over, so far as parchments can make one. In some other respects, though, I should think I am probably less of a doctor than anybody elsenow living. I haven't practised--that is, regularly--for many years, andI take no interest whatever in keeping abreast of what the professionregards as its progress. I know nothing beyond what was being taught inthe sixties, and that I am glad to say I have mostly forgotten. "

"Dear me!" said Theron. "I had always supposed that Science was the mostengrossing of pursuits--that once a man took it up he never left it. "

"But that would imply a connection between Science and Medicine!"commented the doctor. "My dear sir, they are not even on speakingterms. "

"Shall we go upstairs?" put in the priest, rising from his chair. "Itwill be more comfortable to have our coffee there--unless indeed, Mr. Ware, tobacco is unpleasant to you?"

"Oh, my, no!" the young minister exclaimed, eager to free himself fromthe suggestion of being a kill-joy. "I don't smoke myself; but I am veryfond of the odor, I assure you. "

Father Forbes led the way out. It could be seen now that he wore a longhouse-gown of black silk, skilfully moulded to his erect, shapely, androunded form. Though he carried this with the natural grace of a proudand beautiful belle, there was no hint of the feminine in his bearing, or in the contour of his pale, firm-set, handsome face. As he movedthrough the hall-way, the five people whom Theron had seen waiting rosefrom their bench, and two of the women began in humble murmurs, "If youplease, Father, " and "Good-evening to your Riverence;" but the priestmerely nodded and passed on up the staircase, followed by his guests. The people sat down on their bench again. 

A few minutes later, reclining at his ease in a huge low chair, andfeeling himself unaccountably at home in the most luxuriously appointedand delightful little room he had ever seen, the Rev. Theron Ware sippedhis unaccustomed coffee and embarked upon an explanation of his errand. Somehow the very profusion of scholarly symbols about him--the greatdark rows of encased and crowded book-shelves rising to the ceiling, the classical engravings upon the wall, the revolving book-case, thereading-stand, the mass of littered magazines, reviews, and papers ateither end of the costly and elaborate writing-desk--seemed to makeit the easier for him to explain without reproach that he neededinformation about Abram. He told them quite in detail the story of hisbook. 

The two others sat watching him through a faint haze of scented smoke, with polite encouragement on their faces. Father Forbes took the addedtrouble to nod understandingly at the various points of the narrative, and when it was finished gave one of his little approving chuckles. 

"This skirts very closely upon sorcery, " he said smilingly. "Doyou know, there is perhaps not another man in the country who knowsAssyriology so thoroughly as our friend here, Dr. Ledsmar. "

"That's putting it too strong, " remarked the Doctor. "I only follow ata distance--a year or two behind. But I daresay I can help you. You arequite welcome to anything I have: my books cover the ground pretty wellup to last year. Delitzsch is very interesting; but Baudissin's 'Studienzur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte' would come closer to what you need. There are several other important Germans--Schrader, Bunsen, Duncker, Hommel, and so on. "

"Unluckily I--I don't read German readily, " Theron explained withdiffidence. 

"That's a pity, " said the doctor, "because they do the best work--notonly in this field, but in most others. And they do so much that themass defies translation. Well, the best thing outside of German ofcourse is Sayce. I daresay you know him, though. "

The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head mournfully. "I don't seem to know anyone, " he murmured. 

The others exchanged glances. 

"But if I may ask, Mr. Ware, " pursued the doctor, regarding their guestwith interest through his spectacles, "why do you specially hit uponAbraham? He is full of difficulties--enough, just now, at any rate, towarn off the bravest scholar. Why not take something easier?"

Theron had recovered something of his confidence. "Oh, no, " he said, "that is just what attracts me to Abraham. I like the complexities andcontradictions in his character. Take for instance all that strangeand picturesque episode of Hagar: see the splendid contrast between thecraft and commercial guile of his dealings in Egypt and with Abimelech, and the simple, straightforward godliness of his later years. No, allthose difficulties only attract me. Do you happen to know--of courseyou would know--do those German books, or the others, give anywhere anyadditional details of the man himself and his sayings and doings--littlethings which help, you know, to round out one's conception of theindividual?"

Again the priest and the doctor stole a furtive glance across the youngminister's head. It was Father Forbes who replied. 

"I fear that you are taking our friend Abraham too literally, Mr. Ware, "he said, in that gentle semblance of paternal tones which seemed to goso well with his gown. "Modern research, you know, quite wipes him outof existence as an individual. The word 'Abram' is merely an eponym--itmeans 'exalted father. ' Practically all the names in the Genesischronologies are what we call eponymous. Abram is not a person at all:he is a tribe, a sept, a clan. In the same way, Shem is not intended fora man; it is the name of a great division of the human race. Heber issimply the throwing back into allegorical substance, so to speak, of theHebrews; Heth of the Hittites; Asshur of Assyria. "

"But this is something very new, this theory, isn't it?" queried Theron. 

The priest smiled and shook his head. "Bless you, no! My dear sir, thereis nothing new. Epicurus and Lucretius outlined the whole Darwiniantheory more than two thousand years ago. As for this eponym thing, whySaint Augustine called attention to it fifteen hundred years ago. Inhis 'De Civitate Dei, ' he expressly says of these genealogical names, 'GENTES NON HOMINES;' that is, 'peoples, not persons. ' It was as obviousto him--as much a commonplace of knowledge--as it was to Ezekiel eighthundred years before him. "

"It seems passing strange that we should not know it now, then, "commented Theron; "I mean, that everybody shouldn't know it. "

Father Forbes gave a little purring chuckle. "Ah, there we get uponcontentious ground, " he remarked. "Why should 'everybody' be supposedto know anything at all? What business is it of 'everybody's' to knowthings? The earth was just as round in the days when people supposed itto be flat, as it is now. So the truth remains always the truth, eventhough you give a charter to ten hundred thousand separate numskulls toexamine it by the light of their private judgment, and report that it isas many different varieties of something else. But of course that wholequestion of private judgment versus authority is No-Man's-Land for us. We were speaking of eponyms. "

"Yes, " said Theron; "it is very interesting. "

"There is a curious phase of the subject which hasn't been worked outmuch, " continued the priest. "Probably the Germans will get at that too, sometime. They are doing the best Irish work in other fields, as it is. I spoke of Heber and Heth, in Genesis, as meaning the Hebrews and theHittites. Now my own people, the Irish, have far more ancient legendsand traditions than any other nation west of Athens; and you find intheir myth of the Milesian invasion and conquest two principal leaderscalled Heber and Ith, or Heth. That is supposed to be comparativelymodern--about the time of Solomon's Temple. But these independent Irishmyths go back to the fall of the Tower of Babel, and they have there anancestor, grandson of Japhet, named Fenius Farsa, and they ascribeto him the invention of the alphabet. They took their ancient name ofFeine, the modern Fenian, from him. Oddly enough, that is the name whichthe Romans knew the Phoenicians by, and to them also is ascribed theinvention of the alphabet. The Irish have a holy salmon of knowledge, just like the Chaldean man-fish. The Druids' tree-worship is identicalwith that of the Chaldeans--those pagan groves, you know, which the Jewswere always being punished for building. You see, there is nothing new. Everything is built on the ruins of something else. Just as the materialearth is made up of countless billions of dead men's bones, so themental world is all alive with the ghosts of dead men's thoughts andbeliefs, the wraiths of dead races' faiths and imaginings. "

Father Forbes paused, then added with a twinkle in his eye: "Thatperoration is from an old sermon of mine, in the days when I used topreach. I remember rather liking it, at the time. "

"But you still preach?" asked the Rev. Mr. Ware, with lifted brows. 

"No! no more! I only talk now and again, " answered the priest, with whatseemed a suggestion of curtness. He made haste to take the conversationback again. "The names of these dead-and-gone things are singularlypertinacious, though. They survive indefinitely. Take the modern nameMarmaduke, for example. It strikes one as peculiarly modern, up-to-date, doesn't it? Well, it is the oldest name on earth--thousands of yearsolder than Adam. It is the ancient Chaldean Meridug, or Merodach. He wasthe young god who interceded continually between the angry, omnipotentEa, his father, and the humble and unhappy Damkina, or Earth, who washis mother. This is interesting from another point of view, becausethis Merodach or Marmaduke is, so far as we can see now, the originalprototype of our 'divine intermediary' idea. I daresay, though, that ifwe could go back still other scores of centuries, we should find wholereceding series of types of this Christ-myth of ours. "

Theron Ware sat upright at the fall of these words, and flung aswift, startled look about the room--the instinctive glance of a manunexpectedly confronted with peril, and casting desperately about formeans of defence and escape. For the instant his mind was aflame withthis vivid impression--that he was among sinister enemies, at the mercyof criminals. He half rose under the impelling stress of this feeling, with the sweat standing on his brow, and his jaw dropped in a scared andbewildered stare. 

Then, quite as suddenly, the sense of shock was gone; and it was as ifnothing at all had happened. He drew a long breath, took another sip ofhis coffee, and found himself all at once reflecting almost pleasurablyupon the charm of contact with really educated people. He leaned back inthe big chair again, and smiled to show these men of the world how muchat his ease he was. It required an effort, he discovered, but he made itbravely, and hoped he was succeeding. 

"It hasn't been in my power to at all lay hold of what the world keepson learning nowadays about its babyhood, " he said. "All I have done isto try to preserve an open mind, and to maintain my faith that the morewe know, the nearer we shall approach the Throne. "

Dr. Ledsmar abruptly scuffled his feet on the floor, and took out hiswatch. "I'm afraid--" he began. 

"No, no! There's plenty of time, " remarked the priest, with his softhalf-smile and purring tones. "You finish your cigar here with Mr. Ware, and excuse me while I run down and get rid of the people in the hall. "

Father Forbes tossed his cigar-end into the fender. Then he took fromthe mantel a strange three-cornered black-velvet cap, with a danglingsilk tassel at the side, put it on his head, and went out. 

Theron, being left alone with the doctor, hardly knew what to do or say. He took up a paper from the floor beside him, but realized that it wouldbe impolite to go farther, and laid it on his knee. Some trace of thatearlier momentary feeling that he was in hostile hands came back, andworried him. He lifted himself upright in the chair, and then becameconscious that what really disturbed him was the fact that Dr. Ledsmarhad turned in his seat, crossed his legs, and was contemplating him witha gravely concentrated scrutiny through his spectacles. 

This uncomfortable gaze kept itself up a long way beyond the point ofgood manners; but the doctor seemed not to mind that at all. 

CHAPTER VIII

When Dr. Ledsmar finally spoke, it was in a kindlier tone than theyoung minister had looked for. "I had half a notion of going to hearyou preach the other evening, " he said; "but at the last minute I backedout. I daresay I shall pluck up the courage, sooner or later, and reallygo. It must be fully twenty years since I last heard a sermon, and I hadsupposed that that would suffice for the rest of my life. But theytell me that you are worth while; and, for some reason or other, I findmyself curious on the subject. "

Involved and dubious though the compliment might be, Theron felt himselfflushing with satisfaction. He nodded his acknowledgment, and changedthe topic. 

"I was surprised to hear Father Forbes say that he did not preach, " heremarked. 

"Why should he?" asked the doctor, indifferently. "I suppose he hasn'tmore than fifteen parishioners in a thousand who would understand himif he did, and of these probably twelve would join in a complaint to hisBishop about the heterodox tone of his sermon. There is no point in hisgoing to all that pains, merely to incur that risk. Nobody wants him topreach, and he has reached an age where personal vanity no longer temptshim to do so. What IS wanted of him is that he should be the paternal, ceremonial, authoritative head and centre of his flock, adviser, monitor, overseer, elder brother, friend, patron, seigneur--whatever youlike--everything except a bore. They draw the line at that. You see howdiametrically opposed this Catholic point of view is to the Protestant. "

"The difference does seem extremely curious to me, " said Theron. "Now, those people in the hall--"

"Go on, " put in the doctor, as the other faltered hesitatingly. "I knowwhat you were going to say. It struck you as odd that he should let themwait on the bench there, while he came up here to smoke. "

Theron smiled faintly. "I WAS thinking that my--my parishioners wouldn'thave taken it so quietly. But of course--it is all so different!"

"As chalk from cheese!" said Dr. Ledsmar, lighting a fresh cigar. "Idaresay every one you saw there had come either to take the pledge, orsee to it that one of the others took it. That is the chief industryin the hall, so far as I have observed. Now discipline is an importantelement in the machinery here. Coming to take the pledge implies thatyou have been drunk and are now ashamed. Both states have their values, but they are opposed. Sitting on that bench tends to develop penitenceto the prejudice of alcoholism. But at no stage would it ever occur tothe occupant of the bench that he was the best judge of how long he wasto sit there, or that his priest should interrupt his dinner or generalpersonal routine, in order to administer that pledge. Now, I daresay youhave no people at all coming to 'swear off. '"

The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head. "No; if a man with us got as bad asall that, he wouldn't come near the church at all. He'd simply drop out, and there would be an end to it. "

"Quite so, " interjected the doctor. "That is the voluntary system. Butthese fellows can't drop out. There's no bottom to the Catholic Church. Everything that's in, stays in. If you don't mind my saying so--ofcourse I view you all impartially from the outside--but it seems logicalto me that a church should exist for those who need its help, and notfor those who by their own profession are so good already that it isthey who help the church. Now, you turn a man out of your church whobehaves badly: that must be on the theory that his remaining in wouldinjure the church, and that in turn involves the idea that it is theexcellent character of the parishioners which imparts virtue to thechurch. The Catholics' conception, you see, is quite the converse. Suchvirtue as they keep in stock is on tap, so to speak, here in the churchitself, and the parishioners come and get some for themselves accordingto their need for it. Some come every day, some only once a year, someperhaps never between their baptism and their funeral. But they allhave a right here, the professional burglar every whit as much as thespeckless saint. The only stipulation is that they oughtn't to comeunder false pretences: the burglar is in honor bound not to pass himselfoff to his priest as the saint. But that is merely a moral obligation, established in the burglar's own interest. It does him no good to comeunless he feels that he is playing the rules of the game, and one ofthese is confession. If he cheats there, he knows that he is cheatingnobody but himself, and might much better have stopped away altogether. "

Theron nodded his head comprehendingly. He had a great many views aboutthe Romanish rite of confession which did not at all square with thisstatement of the case, but this did not seem a specially fit time forbringing them forth. There was indeed a sense of languid repletion inhis mind, as if it had been overfed and wanted to lie down for awhile. He contented himself with nodding again, and murmuring reflectively, "Yes, it is all strangely different. "

His tone was an invitation to silence; and the doctor turned hisattention to the cigar, studying its ash for a minute with an airof deep meditation, and then solemnly blowing out a slow series ofsmoke-rings. Theron watched him with an indolent, placid eye, wonderinglazily if it was, after all, so very pleasant to smoke. 

There fell upon this silence--with a softness so delicate that it camealmost like a progression in the hush--the sound of sweet music. For alittle, strain and source were alike indefinite--an impalpable settingto harmony of the mellowed light, the perfumed opalescence of the air, the luxury and charm of the room. Then it rose as by a sweeping curve ofbeauty, into a firm, calm, severe melody, delicious to the ear, but ascold in the mind's vision as moonlit sculpture. It went on upward withstately collectedness of power, till the atmosphere seemed all alivewith the trembling consciousness of the presence of lofty souls, sternlypure and pitilessly great. 

Theron found himself moved as he had never been before. He almostresented the discovery, when it was presented to him by the prosaic, mechanical side of his brain, that he was listening to organ-music, andthat it came through the open window from the church close by. He wouldfain have reclined in his chair and closed his eyes, and saturatedhimself with the uttermost fulness of the sensation. Yet, in absurddespite of himself, he rose and moved over to the window. 

Only a narrow alley separated the pastorate from the church; Mr. Warecould have touched with a walking-stick the opposite wall. Indirectlyfacing him was the arched and mullioned top of a great window. A dimlight from within shone through the more translucent portions of theglass below, throwing out faint little bars of party-colored radianceupon the blackness of the deep passage-way. He could vaguely trace bythese the outlines of some sort of picture on the window. There werehuman figures in it, and--yes--up here in the centre, nearest him, was awoman's head. There was a halo about it, engirdling rich, flowing wavesof reddish hair, the lights in which glowed like flame. The face itselfwas barely distinguishable, but its half-suggested form raised a curioussense of resemblance to some other face. He looked at it closely, blankly, the noble music throbbing through his brain meanwhile. 

"It's that Madden girl!" he suddenly heard a voice say by his side. Dr. Ledsmar had followed him to the window, and was close at his shoulder. 

Theron's thoughts were upon the puzzling shadowed lineaments on thestained glass. He saw now in a flash the resemblance which had baffledhim. "It IS like her, of course, " he said. 

"Yes, unfortunately, it IS just like her, " replied the doctor, with ahostile note in his voice. "Whenever I am dining here, she always goesin and kicks up that racket. She knows I hate it. "

"Oh, you mean that it is she who is playing, " remarked Theron. "Ithought you referred to--at least--I was thinking of--"

His sentence died off in inconsequence. He had a feeling that he did notwant to talk with the doctor about the stained-glass likeness. The musichad sunk away now into fragmentary and unconnected passages, broken hereand there by abrupt stops. Dr. Ledsmar stretched an arm out past him andshut the window. "Let's hear as little of the row as we can, " he said, and the two went back to their chairs. 

"Pardon me for the question, " the Rev. Mr. Ware said, after a pausewhich began to affect him as constrained, "but something you said aboutdining--you don't live here, then? In the house, I mean?"

The doctor laughed--a characteristically abrupt, dry little laugh, whichstruck Theron at once as bearing a sort of black-sheep relationshipto the priest's habitual chuckle. "That must have been puzzling you noend, " he said--"that notion that the pastorate kept a devil's advocateon the premises. No, Mr. Ware, I don't live here. I inhabit a houseof my own--you may have seen it--an old-fashioned place up beyond therace-course, with a sort of tower at the back, and a big garden. But Idine here three or four times a week. It is an old arrangement of ours. Vincent and I have been friends for many years now. We are quite alonein the world, we two--much to our mutual satisfaction. You must comeup and see me some time; come up and have a look over the books we werespeaking of. "

"I am much obliged, " said Theron, without enthusiasm. The thought of thedoctor by himself did not attract him greatly. 

The reservation in his tone seemed to interest the doctor. "I supposeyou are the first man I have asked in a dozen years, " he remarked, frankly willing that the young minister should appreciate the favorextended him. "It must be fully that since anybody but Vincent Forbeshas been under my roof; that is, of my own species, I mean. "

"You live there quite alone, " commented Theron. 

"Quite--with my dogs and cats and lizards--and my Chinaman. I mustn'tforget him. " The doctor noted the inquiry in the other's lifted brows, and smilingly explained. "He is my solitary servant. Possibly hemight not appeal to you much; but I can assure you he used to interestOctavius a great deal when I first brought him here, ten years ago orso. He afforded occupation for all the idle boys in the village for atwelve-month at least. They used to lie in wait for him all day long, with stones or horse-chestnuts or snowballs, according to the season. The Irishmen from the wagon-works nearly killed him once or twice, buthe patiently lived it all down. The Chinaman has the patience to liveeverything down--the Caucasian races included. He will see us all tobed, will that gentleman with the pigtail!"

The music over in the church had lifted itself again into form andsequence, and defied the closed window. If anything, it was louder thanbefore, and the sonorous roar of the bass-pedals seemed to be shakingthe very walls. It was something with a big-lunged, exultant, triumphingswing in it--something which ought to have been sung on the battlefieldat the close of day by the whole jubilant army of victors. It wasimpossible to pretend not to be listening to it; but the doctorsubmitted with an obvious scowl, and bit off the tip of his third cigarwith an annoyed air. 

"You don't seem to care much for music, " suggested Mr. Ware, when a lullcame. 

Dr. Ledsmar looked up, lighted match in hand. "Say musicians!" hegrowled. "Has it ever occurred to you, " he went on, between puffs at theflame, "that the only animals who make the noises we call music are ofthe bird family--a debased offshoot of the reptilian creation--thevery lowest types of the vertebrata now in existence? I insist uponthe parallel among humans. I have in my time, sir, had considerableopportunities for studying close at hand the various orders of mammaliawho devote themselves to what they describe as the arts. It may sounda harsh judgement, but I am convinced that musicians stand on the verybottom rung of the ladder in the sub-cellar of human intelligence, evenlower than painters and actors. "

This seemed such unqualified nonsense to the Rev. Mr. Ware that heoffered no comment whatever upon it. He tried instead to divert histhoughts to the stormy strains which rolled in through the vibratingbrickwork, and to picture to himself the large, capable figure of MissMadden seated in the half-light at the organ-board, swaying to and froin a splendid ecstasy of power as she evoked at will this superb andordered uproar. But the doctor broke insistently in upon his musings. 

"All art, so-called, is decay, " he said, raising his voice. "When a racebegins to brood on the beautiful--so-called--it is a sign of rot, ofgetting ready to fall from the tree. Take the Jews--those marvellous oldfellows--who were never more than a handful, yet have imposed the ruleof their ideas and their gods upon us for fifteen hundred years. Why?They were forbidden by their most fundamental law to make sculptures orpictures. That was at a time when the Egyptians, when the Assyrians, andother Semites, were running to artistic riot. Every great museum inthe world now has whole floors devoted to statues from the Nile, andmarvellous carvings from the palaces of Sargon and Assurbanipal. Youcan get the artistic remains of the Jews during that whole period intoa child's wheelbarrow. They had the sense and strength to penalize art;they alone survived. They saw the Egyptians go, the Assyrians go, theGreeks go, the late Romans go, the Moors in Spain go--all the artisticpeoples perish. They remained triumphing over all. Now at last theirlong-belated apogee is here; their decline is at hand. I am told that inthis present generation in Europe the Jews are producing a great lot ofyoung painters and sculptors and actors, just as for a century they havebeen producing famous composers and musicians. That means the end of theJews!"

"What! have you only got as far as that?" came the welcome interruptionof a cheery voice. Father Forbes had entered the room, and stood lookingdown with a whimsical twinkle in his eye from one to the other of hisguests. 

"You must have been taken over the ground at a very slow pace, Mr. Ware, " he continued, chuckling softly, "to have arrived merely at thecollapse of the New Jerusalem. I fancied I had given him time enough tobring you straight up to the end of all of us, with that Chinaman ofhis gently slapping our graves with his pigtail. That's where the doctoralways winds up, if he's allowed to run his course. "

"It has all been very interesting, extremely so, I assure you, " falteredTheron. It had become suddenly apparent to him that he desired nothingso much as to make his escape--that he had indeed only been waiting forthe host's return to do so. 

He rose at this, and explained that he must be going. No special effortbeing put forth to restrain him, he presently made his way out, FatherForbes hospitably following him down to the door, and putting a verygracious cordiality into his adieux. 

The night was warm and black. Theron stood still in it the moment thepastorate door had closed; the sudden darkness was so thick that itwas as if he had closed his eyes. His dominant sensation was of a deeprelief and rest after some undue fatigue. It crossed his mind thatdrunken men probably felt like that as they leaned against things ontheir way home. He was affected himself, he saw, by the weariness andhalf-nausea following a mental intoxication. The conceit pleased him, and he smiled to himself as he turned and took the first homeward steps. It must be growing late, he thought. Alice would be wondering as shewaited. 

There was a street lamp at the corner, and as he walked toward it henoted all at once that his feet were keeping step to the movement ofthe music proceeding from the organ within the church--a vaguelyprocessional air, marked enough in measure, but still with a dreamyeffect. It became a pleasure to identify his progress with the quaintrhythm of sound as he sauntered along. He discovered, as he nearedthe light, that he was instinctively stepping over the seams in theflagstone sidewalk as he had done as a boy. He smiled again at this. There was something exceptionally juvenile and buoyant about his mood, now that he examined it. He set it down as a reaction from that doctor'sextravagant and incendiary talk. One thing was certain--he would neverbe caught up at that house beyond the race-course, with its reptiles andits Chinaman. Should he ever even go to the pastorate again? He decidednot to quite definitely answer THAT in the negative, but as he felt now, the chances were all against it. 

Turning the corner, and walking off into the shadows along the sideof the huge church building, Theron noted, almost at the end of theedifice, a small door--the entrance to a porch coming out to thesidewalk--which stood wide open. A thin, pale, vertical line of lightshowed that the inner door, too, was ajar. 

Through this wee aperture the organ-music, reduced and mellowed bydistance, came to him again with that same curious, intimate, personalrelation which had so moved him at the start, before the doctor closedthe window. It was as if it was being played for him alone. 

He paused for a doubting minute or two, with bowed head, listening tothe exquisite harmony which floated out to caress and soothe and enfoldhim. There was no spiritual, or at least pious, effect in it now. He fancied that it must be secular music, or, if not, then somethingadapted to marriage ceremonies--rich, vivid, passionate, a celebrationof beauty and the glory of possession, with its ruling note of joy onlyheightened by soft, wooing interludes, and here and there the tremor ofa fond, timid little sob. 

Theron turned away irresolutely, half frightened at the undreamt-ofimpression this music was making upon him. Then, all at once, he wheeledand stepped boldly into the porch, pushing the inner door open andhearing it rustle against its leathern frame as it swung to behind him. 

He had never been inside a Catholic church before. 

CHAPTER IX

Jeremiah Madden was supposed to be probably the richest man in Octavius. There was no doubt at all about his being its least pretentious citizen. 

The huge and ornate modern mansion which he had built, putting to shameevery other house in the place, gave an effect of ostentation to theMaddens as a family; it seemed only to accentuate the air of humilitywhich enveloped Jeremiah as with a garment. Everybody knew some versionof the many tales afloat which, in a kindly spirit, illustrated theincongruity between him and his splendid habitation. Some had it that heslept in the shed. Others told whimsical stories of his sitting alone inthe kitchen evenings, smoking his old clay pipe, and sorrowing becausethe second Mrs. Madden would not suffer the pigs and chickens to comein and bear him company. But no matter how comic the exaggeration, these legends were invariably amiable. It lay in no man's mouth to speakharshly of Jeremiah Madden. 

He had been born a Connemara peasant, and he would die one. When hewas ten years old he had seen some of his own family, and most of hisneighbors, starve to death. He could remember looking at the stiffenedfigure of a woman stretched on the stones by the roadside, with thegreen stain of nettles on her white lips. A girl five years or soolder than himself, also a Madden and distantly related, had startedin despair off across the mountains to the town where it was said thepoor-law officers were dealing out food. He could recall her coming backnext day, wild-eyed with hunger and the fever; the officers had refusedher relief because her bare legs were not wholly shrunken to the bone. "While there's a calf on the shank, there's no starvation, " they hadexplained to her. The girl died without profiting by this officialapothegm. The boy found it burned ineffaceably upon his brain. Now, after a lapse of more than forty years, it seemed the thing that heremembered best about Ireland. 

He had drifted westward as an unconsidered, unresisting item in thatvast flight of the famine years. Others whom he rubbed against in thatmelancholy exodus, and deemed of much greater promise than himself, haddone badly. Somehow he did well. He learned the wheelwright's trade, and really that seemed all there was to tell. The rest had been calmand sequent progression--steady employment as a journeyman first; thenmarriage and a house and lot; the modest start as a master; the move toOctavius and cheap lumber; the growth of his business, always marked oflate years stupendous--all following naturally, easily, one thing out ofanother. Jeremiah encountered the idea among his fellows, now and again, that he was entitled to feel proud of all this. He smiled to himself atthe thought, and then sent a sigh after the smile. What was it all butempty and transient vanity? The score of other Connemara boys he hadknown--none very fortunate, several broken tragically in prison or thegutter, nearly all now gone the way of flesh--were as good as he. Hecould not have it in his heart to take credit for his success; it wouldhave been like sneering over their poor graves. 

Jeremiah Madden was now fifty-three--a little man of a reddened, weather-worn skin and a meditative, almost saddened, aspect. He had blueeyes, but his scanty iron-gray hair showed raven black in its shadows. The width and prominence of his cheek-bones dominated all one'srecollections of his face. The long vertical upper-lip and irregularteeth made, in repose, an unshapely mouth; its smile, though, sweetenedthe whole countenance. He wore a fringe of stiff, steel-colored beard, passing from ear to ear under his chin. His week-day clothes were assimple as his workaday manners, fitting his short black pipe and hissteadfast devotion to his business. On Sundays he dressed with a certainrigor of respectability, all in black, and laid aside tobacco, at leastto the public view. He never missed going to the early Low Mass, quitealone. His family always came later, at the ten o'clock High Mass. 

There had been, at one time or another, a good many members of thisfamily. Two wives had borne Jeremiah Madden a total of over a dozenchildren. Of these there survived now only two of the first Mrs. Madden's offspring--Michael and Celia--and a son of the present wife, who had been baptized Terence, but called himself Theodore. Thisminority of the family inhabited the great new house on Main Street. Jeremiah went every Sunday afternoon by himself to kneel in the presenceof the majority, there where they lay in Saint Agnes' consecratedground. If the weather was good, he generally extended his walk throughthe fields to an old deserted Catholic burial-field, which had been usedonly in the first years after the famine invasion, and now was cleanforgotten. The old wagon-maker liked to look over the primitive, neglected stones which marked the graves of these earlier exiles. Fullyhalf of the inscriptions mentioned his County Galway--there were twonaming the very parish adjoining his. The latest date on any stone wasof the remoter 'fifties. They had all been stricken down, here in thisstrange land with its bitter winters, while the memory of their ownsoft, humid, gentle west-coast air was fresh within them. Musing uponthe clumsy sculpture, with its "R. I. P. , " or "Pray for the Soul of, " halfto be guessed under the stain and moss of a generation, there would seemto him but a step from this present to that heart-rending, awful past. What had happened between was a meaningless vision--as impersonal as thepassing of the planets overhead. He rarely had an impulse to tearsin the new cemetery, where his ten children were. He never left thisweed-grown, forsaken old God's-acre dry-eyed. 

One must not construct from all this the image of a melancholy man, ashis fellows met and knew him. Mr. Madden kept his griefs, racial andindividual, for his own use. To the men about him in the offices andthe shops he presented day after day, year after year, an imperturbablecheeriness of demeanor. He had been always fortunate in the selection oflieutenants and chief helpers. Two of these had grown now into partners, and were almost as much a part of the big enterprise as Jeremiahhimself. They spoke often of their inability to remember any unjust orpetulant word of his--much less any unworthy deed. Once they had seenhim in a great rage, all the more impressive because he said next tonothing. A thoughtless fellow told a dirty story in the presence ofsome apprentices; and Madden, listening to this, drove the offenderimplacably from his employ. It was years now since any one who knew himhad ventured upon lewd pleasantries in his hearing. Jokes of the sortwhich women might hear he was very fond of though he had not much humorof his own. Of books he knew nothing whatever, and he made only the mostperfunctory pretence now and again of reading the newspapers. 

The elder son Michael was very like his father--diligent, unassuming, kindly, and simple--a plain, tall, thin red man of nearly thirty, whotoiled in paper cap and rolled-up shirt-sleeves as the superintendent inthe saw-mill, and put on no airs whatever as the son of the master. If there was surprise felt at his not being taken into the firm as apartner, he gave no hint of sharing it. He attended to his religiousduties with great zeal, and was President of the Sodality as a matterof course. This was regarded as his blind side; and young employeeswho cultivated it, and made broad their phylacteries under his notice, certainly had an added chance of getting on well in the works. To somefew whom he knew specially well, Michael would confess that if hehad had the brains for it, he should have wished to be a priest. Hedisplayed no inclination to marry. 

The other son, Terence, was some eight years younger, and seemed theproduct of a wholly different race. The contrast between Michael's sandyskin and long gaunt visage and this dark boy's handsome, rounded face, with its prettily curling black hair, large, heavily fringed browneyes, and delicately modelled features, was not more obvious than theirtemperamental separation. This second lad had been away for years atschool, --indeed, at a good many schools, for no one seemed to manageto keep him long. He had been with the Jesuits at Georgetown, with theChristian Brothers at Manhattan; the sectarian Mt. St. Mary's and theseverely secular Annapolis had both been tried, and proved misfits. The young man was home again now, and save that his name had becomeTheodore, he appeared in no wise changed from the beautiful, wilful, bold, and showy boy who had gone away in his teens. He was still rathersmall for his years, but so gracefully moulded in form, and so perfectlytailored, that the fact seemed rather an advantage than otherwise. He never dreamed of going near the wagon-works, but he did go a gooddeal--in fact, most of the time--to the Nedahma Club. His mother spokeoften to her friends about her fears for his health. He never spoke tohis friends about his mother at all. 

The second Mrs. Madden did not, indeed, appeal strongly to the familypride. She had been a Miss Foley, a dress-maker, and an old maid. Jeremiah had married her after a brief widowerhood, principallybecause she was the sister of his parish priest, and had a considerablereputation for piety. It was at a time when the expansion of hisbusiness was promising certain wealth, and suggesting the removal toOctavius. He was conscious of a notion that his obligations to socialrespectability were increasing; it was certain that the embarrassmentsof a motherless family were. Miss Foley had shown a good deal ofattention to his little children. She was not ill-looking; she boreherself with modesty; she was the priest's sister--the niece onceremoved of a vicar-general. And so it came about. 

Although those most concerned did not say so, everybody could see fromthe outset the pity of its ever having come about at all. The piousand stiffly respectable priest's sister had been harmless enough asa spinster. It made the heart ache to contemplate her as a wife. Incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, suspicious, vain, and sour-tempered, she must have driven a less equable and well-rooted man than JeremiahMadden to drink or flight. He may have had his temptations, but theymade no mark on the even record of his life. He only worked the harder, concentrating upon his business those extra hours which another sort ofhome-life would have claimed instead. The end of twenty years found hima rich man, but still toiling pertinaciously day by day, as if he hadhis wage to earn. In the great house which had been built to please, orrather placate, his wife, he kept to himself as much as possible. Thepopular story of his smoking alone in the kitchen was more or lesstrue; only Michael as a rule sat with him, too weak-lunged for tobaccohimself, but reading stray scraps from the papers to the lonely old man, and talking with him about the works, the while Jeremiah meditativelysucked his clay pipe. One or two evenings in the week the twain spent upin Celia's part of the house, listening with the awe of simple, honestmechanics to the music she played for them. 

Celia was to them something indefinably less, indescribably more, thana daughter and sister. They could not think there had ever been anythinglike her before in the world; the notion of criticising any deed or wordof hers would have appeared to them monstrous and unnatural. 

She seemed to have come up to this radiant and wise and marvellouslytalented womanhood of hers, to their minds, quite spontaneously. Therehad been a little Celia--a red-headed, sulky, mutinous slip of a girl, always at war with her step-mother, and affording no special comfort orhope to the rest of the family. Then there was a long gap, during whichthe father, four times a year, handed Michael a letter he had receivedfrom the superioress of a distant convent, referring with cold formalityto the studies and discipline by which Miss Madden might profit more ifshe had been better brought up, and enclosing a large bill. Then all atonce they beheld a big Celia, whom they spoke of as being home again, but who really seemed never to have been there before--a tall, handsome, confident young woman, swift of tongue and apprehension, appearing toknow everything there was to be known by the most learned, able to paintpictures, carve wood, speak in divers languages, and make music for thegods, yet with it all a very proud lady, one might say a queen. 

The miracle of such a Celia as this impressed itself even upon thestep-mother. Mrs. Madden had looked forward with a certain grimtightening of her combative jaws to the home-coming of the "red-head. "She felt herself much more the fine lady now than she had been when thegirl went away. She had her carriage now, and the magnificent new housewas nearly finished, and she had a greater number of ailments, andspent far more money on doctor's bills, than any other lady in thewhole section. The flush of pride in her greatest achievement up todate--having the most celebrated of New York physicians brought up toOctavius by special train--still prickled in her blood. It was inall the papers, and the admiration of the flatterers and"soft-sawdherers"--wives of Irish merchants and smaller professional menwho formed her social circle--was raising visions in her poor head ofgoing next year with Theodore to Saratoga, and fastening the attentionof the whole fashionable republic upon the variety and resources of herinvalidism. Mrs. Madden's fancy did not run to the length of seeing herstep-daughter also at Saratoga; it pictured her still as the sullenand hated "red-head, " moping defiantly in corners, or courting byher insolence the punishments which leaped against their leash in thestep-mother's mind to get at her. 

The real Celia, when she came, fairly took Mrs. Madden's breath away. The peevish little plans for annoyance and tyranny, the resolutions bornof ignorant and jealous egotism, found themselves swept out of sight bythe very first swirl of Celia's dress-train, when she came down from herroom robed in peacock blue. The step-mother could only stare. 

Now, after two years of it, Mrs. Madden still viewed her step-daughterwith round-eyed uncertainty, not unmixed with wrathful fear. She stilldrove about behind two magnificent horses; the new house had becomealmost tiresome by familiarity; her pre-eminence in the interested mindsof the Dearborn County Medical Society was as towering as ever, butsomehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadaysin Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up underher multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in thesympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed nolonger to look at her and her equipage at all. Worst of all, somethingof the meaning of this managed to penetrate her own mind. She caught nowand again a dim glimpse of herself as others must have been seeing herfor years--as a stupid, ugly, boastful, and bad-tempered old nuisance. And it was always as if she saw this in a mirror held up by Celia. 

Of open discord there had been next to none. Celia would not permit it, and showed this so clearly from the start that there was scarcely needfor her saying it. It seemed hardly necessary for her to put into wordsany of her desires, for that matter. All existing arrangements in theMadden household seemed to shrink automatically and make room for her, whichever way she walked. A whole quarter of the unfinished house setitself apart for her. Partitions altered themselves; door-ways movedacross to opposite sides; a recess opened itself, tall and deep, for itknew not what statue--simply because, it seemed, the Lady Celia willedit so. 

When the family moved into this mansion, it was with a consciousnessthat the only one who really belonged there was Celia. She alone couldbehave like one perfectly at home. It seemed entirely natural to theothers that she should do just what she liked, shut them off from herportion of the house, take her meals there if she felt disposed, andkeep such hours as pleased her instant whim. If she awakened them atmidnight by her piano, or deferred her breakfast to the late afternoon, they felt that it must be all right, since Celia did it. She had oneroom furnished with only divans and huge, soft cushions, its wallscovered with large copies of statuary not too strictly clothed, whichshe would suffer no one, not even the servants, to enter. Michaelfancied sometimes, when he passed the draped entrance to this sacredchamber, that the portiere smelt of tobacco, but he would not havespoken of it, even had he been sure. Old Jeremiah, whose establishedhabit it was to audit minutely the expenses of his household, coveredover round sums to Celia's separate banking account, upon the mereplayful hint of her holding her check-book up, without a dream ofquestioning her. 

That the step-mother had joy, or indeed anything but gall and wormwood, out of all this is not to be pretended. There lingered along in therecollection of the family some vague memories of her having tried toassert an authority over Celia's comings and goings at the outset, butthey grouped themselves as only parts of the general disorder of movingand settling, which a fort-night or so quite righted. Mrs. Maddenstill permitted herself a certain license of hostile comment when herstep-daughter was not present, and listened with gratification to whatthe women of her acquaintance ventured upon saying in the same spirit;but actual interference or remonstrance she never offered nowadays. The two rarely met, for that matter, and exchanged only the baldest andcurtest forms of speech. 

Celia Madden interested all Octavius deeply. This she must have donein any case, if only because she was the only daughter of its richestcitizen. But the bold, luxuriant quality of her beauty, the originaland piquant freedom of her manners, the stories told in gossip abouther lawlessness at home, her intellectual attainments, and artisticvagaries--these were even more exciting. The unlikelihood of hermarrying any one--at least any Octavian--was felt to add a certainromantic zest to the image she made on the local perceptions. There wasno visible young Irishman at all approaching the social and financialstandard of the Maddens; it was taken for granted that a mixed marriagewas quite out of the question in this case. She seemed to have morebusiness about the church than even the priest. She was always playingthe organ, or drilling the choir, or decorating the altars with flowers, or looking over the robes of the acolytes for rents and stains, or goingin or out of the pastorate. Clearly this was not the sort of girl totake a Protestant husband. 

The gossip of the town concerning her was, however, exclusivelyProtestant. The Irish spoke of her, even among themselves, but seldom. There was no occasion for them to pretend to like her: they did not knowher, except in the most distant and formal fashion. Even the members ofthe choir, of both sexes, had the sense of being held away from herat haughty arm's length. No single parishioner dreamed of calling herfriend. But when they referred to her, it was always with a cautious andrespectful reticence. For one thing, she was the daughter of their chiefman, the man they most esteemed and loved. For another, reservationsthey may have had in their souls about her touched close upon adelicately sore spot. It could not escape their notice that theirProtestant neighbors were watching her with vigilant curiosity, and witha certain tendency to wink when her name came into conversation alongwith that of Father Forbes. It had never yet got beyond a tendency--thebarest fluttering suggestion of a tempted eyelid--but the whole Irishpopulation of the place felt themselves to be waiting, with clenchedfists but sinking hearts, for the wink itself. 

The Rev. Theron Ware had not caught even the faintest hint of theseovertures to suspicion. 

When he had entered the huge, dark, cool vault of the church, he couldsee nothing at first but a faint light up over the gallery, far at theother end. Then, little by little, his surroundings shaped themselvesout of the gloom. To his right was a rail and some broad steps risingtoward a softly confused mass of little gray vertical bars and the paletwinkle of tiny spots of gilded reflection, which he made out in thedusk to be the candles and trappings of the altar. Overhead the greatarches faded away from foundations of dimly discernible capitalsinto utter blackness. There was a strange medicinal odor--as of cubebcigarettes--in the air. 

After a little pause, he tiptoed noiselessly up the side aisle towardthe end of the church--toward the light above the gallery. This radiancefrom a single gas-jet expanded as he advanced, and spread itself upwardover a burnished row of monster metal pipes, which went towering intothe darkness like giants. They were roaring at him now--a sonorous, deafening, angry bellow, which made everything about him vibrate. Thegallery balustrade hid the keyboard and the organist from view. Therewere only these jostling brazen tubes, as big round as trees and astall, trembling with their own furious thunder. It was for all the worldas if he had wandered into some vast tragical, enchanted cave, and wasbeing drawn against his will--like fascinated bird and python--towardfate at the savage hands of these swollen and enraged genii. 

He stumbled in the obscure light over a kneeling-bench, making aconsiderable racket. On the instant the noise from the organ ceased, andhe saw the black figure of a woman rise above the gallery-rail and lookdown. 

"Who is it?" the indubitable voice of Miss Madden demanded sharply. 

Theron had a sudden sheepish notion of turning and running. With thebest grace he could summon, he called out an explanation instead. 

"Wait a minute. I'm through now. I'm coming down, " she returned. Hethought there was a note of amusement in her tone. 

She came to him a moment later, accompanied by a thin, tall man, whomTheron could barely see in the dark, now that the organ-light too wasgone. This man lighted a match or two to enable them to make their wayout. 

When they were on the sidewalk, Celia spoke: "Walk on ahead, Michael!"she said. "I have some matters to speak of with Mr. Ware. "

CHAPTER X

"Well, what did you think of Dr. Ledsmar?"

The girl's abrupt question came as a relief to Theron. They were walkingalong in a darkness so nearly complete that he could see next to nothingof his companion. For some reason, this seemed to suggest a sort ofimpropriety. He had listened to the footsteps of the man ahead--whomhe guessed to be a servant--and pictured him as intent upon getting upearly next morning to tell everybody that the Methodist minister hadstolen into the Catholic church at night to walk home with Miss Madden. That was going to be very awkward--yes, worse than awkward! It mightmean ruin itself. She had mentioned aloud that she had matters to talkover with him: that of course implied confidences, and the man mightput heaven only knew what construction on that. It was notorious thatservants did ascribe the very worst motives to those they worked for. The bare thought of the delight an Irish servant would have in alsodragging a Protestant clergyman into the thing was sickening. And whatcould she want to talk to him about, anyway? The minute of silencestretched itself out upon his nerves into an interminable period ofanxious unhappiness. Her mention of the doctor at last somehow, seemedto lighten the situation. 

"Oh, I thought he was very smart. " he made haste to answer. "Wouldn'tit be better--to--keep close to your man? He--may--think we've gone someother way. "

"It wouldn't matter if he did, " remarked Celia. She appeared tocomprehend his nervousness and take pity on it, for she added, "It ismy brother Michael, as good a soul as ever lived. He is quite used to myways. "

The Rev. Mr. Ware drew a long comforting breath. "Oh, I see! He wentwith you to--bring you home. "

"To blow the organ, " said the girl in the dark, correctingly. "But aboutthat doctor; did you like him?"

"Well, " Theron began, "'like' is rather a strong word for so shortan acquaintance. He talked very well; that is, fluently. But he is sodifferent from any other man I have come into contact with that--"

"What I wanted you to say was that you hated him, " put in Celia, firmly. 

"I don't make a practice of saying that of anybody, " returned Theron, somuch at his ease again that he put an effect of gentle, smiling reproofinto the words. "And why specially should I make an exception for him?"

"Because he's a beast!"

Theron fancied that he understood. "I noticed that he seemed not to havemuch of an ear for music, " he commented, with a little laugh. "He shutdown the window when you began to play. His doing so annoyed me, becauseI--I wanted very much to hear it all. I never heard such music before. I--I came into the church to hear more of it; but then you stopped!"

"I will play for you some other time, " Celia said, answering thereproach in his tone. "But tonight I wanted to talk with you instead. "

She kept silent, in spite of this, so long now that Theron was on thepoint of jestingly asking when the talk was to begin. Then she put aquestion abruptly--

"It is a conventional way of putting it, but are you fond of poetry, Mr. Ware?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I am, " replied Theron, much mystified. "I can'tsay that I am any great judge; but I like the things that I like--and--"

"Meredith, " interposed Celia, "makes one of his women, Emilia inEngland, say that poetry is like talking on tiptoe; like animals incages, always going to one end and back again. Does it impress you thatway?"

"I don't know that it does, " said he, dubiously. It seemed, however, to be her whim to talk literature, and he went on: "I've hardly readMeredith at all. I once borrowed his 'Lucile, ' but somehow I never gotinterested in it. I heard a recitation of his once, though--a pieceabout a dead wife, and the husband and another man quarrelling as towhose portrait was in the locket on her neck, and of their going up tosettle the dispute, and finding that it was the likeness of a third man, a young priest--and though it was very striking, it didn't give me athirst to know his other poems. I fancied I shouldn't like them. ButI daresay I was wrong. As I get older, I find that I take less narrowviews of literature--that is, of course, of light literature--andthat--that--"

Celia mercifully stopped him. "The reason I asked you was--" she began, and then herself paused. "Or no, --never mind that--tell me somethingelse. Are you fond of pictures, statuary, the beautiful things of theworld? Do great works of art, the big achievements of the big artists, appeal to you, stir you up?"

"Alas! that is something I can only guess at myself, " answered Theron, humbly. "I have always lived in little places. I suppose, from yourpoint of view, I have never seen a good painting in my life. I can onlysay this, though--that it has always weighed on my mind as a great andsore deprivation, this being shut out from knowing what others mean whenthey talk and write about art. Perhaps that may help you to get at whatyou are after. If I ever went to New York, I feel that one of the firstthings I should do would be to see all the picture galleries; is thatwhat you meant? And--would you mind telling me--why you--?"

"Why I asked you?" Celia supplied his halting question. "No, I DON'Tmind. I have a reason for wanting to know--to satisfy myself whether Ihad guessed rightly or not--about the kind of man you are. I mean in thematter of temperament and bent of mind and tastes. "

The girl seemed to be speaking seriously, and without intent to offend. Theron did not find any comment ready, but walked along by her side, wondering much what it was all about. 

"I daresay you think me 'too familiar on short acquaintance, '" shecontinued, after a little. 

"My dear Miss Madden!" he protested perfunctorily. 

"No; it is a matter of a good deal of importance, " she went on. "I cansee that you are going to be thrown into friendship, close contact, withFather Forbes. He likes you, and you can't help liking him. There isnobody else in this raw, overgrown, empty-headed place for you and himTO like, nobody except that man, that Dr. Ledsmar. And if you like HIM, I shall hate you! He has done mischief enough already. I am counting onyou to help undo it, and to choke him off from doing more. It would bedifferent if you were an ordinary Orthodox minister, all encased likea terrapin in prejudices and nonsense. Of course, if you had been THATkind, we should never have got to know you at all. But when I saw you inMacEvoy's cottage there, it was plain that you were one of US--I mean aMAN, and not a marionette or a mummy. I am talking very frankly to you, you see. I want you on my side, against that doctor and his heartless, bloodless science. "

"I feel myself very heartily on your side, " replied Theron. She had settheir progress at a slower pace, now that the lights of the mainstreet were drawing near, as if to prolong their talk. All his earlierreservations had fled. It was almost as if she were a parishioner ofhis own. "I need hardly tell you that the doctor's whole attitudetoward--toward revelation--was deeply repugnant to me. It doesn't makeit any the less hateful to call it science. I am afraid, though, " hewent on hesitatingly, "that there are difficulties in the way of myhelping, as you call it. You see, the very fact of my being a Methodistminister, and his being a Catholic priest, rather puts my interferenceout of the question. "

"No; that doesn't matter a button, " said Celia, lightly. "None of usthink of that at all. "

"There is the other embarrassment, then, " pursued Theron, diffidently, "that Father Forbes is a vastly broader and deeper scholar--in all thesematters--than I am. How could I possibly hope to influence him by mypoor arguments? I don't know even the alphabet of the language he thinksin--on these subjects, I mean. "

"Of course you don't!" interposed the girl, with a confidence which theother, for all his meekness, rather winced under. "That wasn't whatI meant at all. We don't want arguments from our friends: we wantsympathies, sensibilities, emotional bonds. The right person's silenceis worth more for companionship than the wisest talk in the world fromanybody else. It isn't your mind that is needed here, or what you know;it is your heart, and what you feel. You are full of poetry, of ideals, of generous, unselfish impulses. You see the human, the warm-bloodedside of things. THAT is what is really valuable. THAT is how you canhelp!"

"You overestimate me sadly, " protested Theron, though with considerabletolerance for her error in his tone. "But you ought to tell me somethingabout this Dr. Ledsmar. He spoke of being an old friend of the pr--ofFather Forbes. "

"Oh, yes, they've always known each other; that is, for many years. Theywere professors together in a college once, heaven only knows how longago. Then they separated, I fancy they quarrelled, too, before theyparted. The doctor came here, where some relative had left him theplace he lives in. Then in time the Bishop chanced to send Father Forbeshere--that was about three years ago, --and the two men after a whilerenewed their old relations. They dine together; that is the doctor'sstronghold. He knows more about eating than any other man alive, Ibelieve. He studies it as you would study a language. He has taughtold Maggie, at the pastorate there, to cook like the mother of allthe Delmonicos. And while they sit and stuff themselves, or loll aboutafterward like gorged snakes, they think it is smart to laugh at all thesweet and beautiful things in life, and to sneer at people who believein ideals, and to talk about mankind being merely a fortuitous productof fermentation, and twaddle of that sort. It makes me sick!"

"I can readily see, " said Theron, with sympathy, "how such a cold, material, and infidel influence as that must shock and revolt anessentially religious temperament like yours. "

Miss Madden looked up at him. They had turned into the main street, andthere was light enough for him to detect something startlingly like agrin on her beautiful face. 

"But I'm not religious at all, you know, " he heard her say. "I'm asPagan as--anything! Of course there are forms to be observed, and so on;I rather like them than otherwise. I can make them serve very well formy own system; for I am myself, you know, an out-an-out Greek. "

"Why, I had supposed that you were full blooded Irish, " the Rev. Mr. Ware found himself remarking, and then on the instant was overwhelmed bythe consciousness that he had said a foolish thing. Precisely where thefolly lay he did not know, but it was impossible to mistake the gestureof annoyance which his companion had instinctively made at his words. She had widened the distance between them now, and quickened her step. They went on in silence till they were within a block of her house. Several people had passed them who Theron felt sure must have recognizedthem both. 

"What I meant was, " the girl all at once began, drawing nearer again, and speaking with patient slowness, "that I find myself much more insympathy with the Greek thought, the Greek theology of the beautifuland the strong, the Greek philosophy of life, and all that, than what istaught nowadays. Personally, I take much more stock in Plato than Ido in Peter. But of course it is a wholly personal affair; I had nobusiness to bother you with it. And for that matter, I oughtn't to havetroubled you with any of our--"

"I assure you, Miss Madden!" the young minister began, with fervor. 

"No, " she broke in, in a resigned and even downcast tone; "let it all beas if I hadn't spoken. Don't mind anything I have said. If it is to be, it will be. You can't say more than that, can you?"

She looked into his face again, and her large eyes produced animpression of deep melancholy, which Theron found himself somehowimpelled to share. Things seemed all at once to have become very sadindeed. 

"It is one of my unhappy nights, " she explained, in gloomy confidence. "I get them every once in a while--as if some vicious planet or otherwas crossing in front of my good star--and then I'm a caution to snakes. I shut myself up--that's the only thing to do--and have it out withmyself I didn't know but the organ-music would calm me down, but ithasn't. I shan't sleep a wink tonight, but just rage around from oneroom to another, piling all the cushions from the divans on to thefloor, and then kicking them away again. Do YOU ever have fits likethat?"

Theron was able to reply with a good conscience in the negative. Itoccurred to him to add, with jocose intent: "I am curious to know, do these fits, as you call them, occupy a prominent part in Grecianphilosophy as a general rule?"

Celia gave a little snort, which might have signified amusement, but didnot speak until they were upon her own sidewalk. "There is my brother, waiting at the gate, " she said then, briefly. 

"Well, then, I will bid you good-night here, I think, " Theron remarked, coming to a halt, and offering his hand. "It must be getting verylate, and my--that is--I have to be up particularly early tomorrow. Sogood-night; I hope you will be feeling ever so much better in spirits inthe morning. "

"Oh, that doesn't matter, " replied the girl, listlessly. "It's a verypaltry little affair, this life of ours, at the best of it. Luckily it'ssoon done with--like a bad dream. "

"Tut! Tut! I won't have you talk like that!" interrupted Theron, with aswift and smart assumption of authority. "Such talk isn't sensible, andit isn't good. I have no patience with it!"

"Well, try and have a little patience with ME, anyway, just fortonight, " said Celia, taking the reproof with gentlest humility, ratherto her censor's surprise. "I really am unhappy tonight, Mr. Ware, veryunhappy. It seems as if all at once the world had swelled out in sizea thousandfold, and that poor me had dwindled down to the merest weelittle red-headed atom--the most helpless and forlorn and lonesome ofatoms at that. " She seemed to force a sorrowful smile on her face as sheadded: "But all the same it has done me good to be with you--I am sureit has--and I daresay that by tomorrow I shall be quite out of theblues. Good-night, Mr. Ware. Forgive my making such an exhibition ofmyself I WAS going to be such a fine early Greek, you know, and I haveturned out only a late Milesian--quite of the decadence. I shall dobetter next time. And good-night again, and ever so many thanks. "

She was walking briskly away toward the gate now, where the shadowyMichael still patiently stood. Theron strode off in the oppositedirection, taking long, deliberate steps, and bowing his head inthought. He had his hands behind his back, as was his wont, and thesense of their recent contact with her firm, ungloved hands was, curiously enough, the thing which pushed itself uppermost in his mind. There had been a frank, almost manly vigor in her grasp; he saidto himself that of course that came from her playing so much on thekeyboard; the exercise naturally would give her large, robust hands. 

Suddenly he remembered about the piano; he had quite forgotten tosolicit her aid in selecting it. He turned, upon the impulse, to goback. She had not entered the gate as yet, but stood, shiningly visibleunder the street lamp, on the sidewalk, and she was looking in hisdirection. He turned again like a shot, and started homeward. 

The front door of the parsonage was unlocked, and he made his way ontiptoe through the unlighted hall to the living-room. The stuffy airhere was almost suffocating with the evil smell of a kerosenelamp turned down too low. Alice sat asleep in her old farmhouserocking-chair, with an inelegant darning-basket on the table by herside. The whole effect of the room was as bare and squalid to Theron'snewly informed eye as the atmosphere was offensive to his nostrils. Hecoughed sharply, and his wife sat up and looked at the clock. It wasafter eleven. 

"Where on earth have you been?" she asked, with a yawn, turning up thewick of her sewing-lamp again. 

"You ought never to turn down a light like that, " said Theron, with acomplaining note in his voice. "It smells up the whole place. I neverdreamed of your sitting up for me like this. You ought to have gone tobed. "

"But how could I guess that you were going to be so late?, " sheretorted. "And you haven't told me where you were. Is this book of yoursgoing to keep you up like this right along?"

The episode of the book was buried in the young minister's mind beneathsuch a mass of subsequent experiences that it required an effort for himto grasp what she was talking about. It seemed as if months had elapsedsince he was in earnest about that book; and yet he had left the housefull of it only a few hours before. He shook his wits together, and madeanswer--

"Oh, bless you, no! Only there arose a very curious question. You haveno idea, literally no conception, of the interesting and importantproblems which are raised by the mere fact of Abraham leaving the cityof Ur. It's amazing, I assure you. I hadn't realized it myself. "

"Well, " remarked Alice, rising--and with good-humor and petulancestruggling sleepily ill her tone--"all I've got to say is, that ifAbraham hasn't anything better to do than to keep young ministers of thegospel out, goodness knows where, till all hours of the night, I wish togracious he'd stayed in the city of Ur right straight along. "

"You have no idea what a scholarly man Dr. Ledsmar is, " Theron suddenlyfound himself inspired to volunteer. "He has the most marvellouscollection of books--a whole library devoted to this very subject--andhe has put them all quite freely at my disposal. Extremely kind of him, isn't it?"

"Ledsmar? Ledsmar?" queried Alice. "I don't seem to remember the name. He isn't the little man with the birthmark, who sits in the pew behindthe Lovejoys, is he? I think some one said he was a doctor. "

"Yes, a horse doctor!" said Theron, with a sniff. "No; you haven't seenthis Dr. Ledsmar at all. I--I don't know that he attends any churchregularly. I scraped his acquaintance quite by accident. He is really acharacter. He lives in the big house, just beyond the race-course, youknow--the one with the tower at the back--"

"No, I don't know. How should I? I've hardly poked my nose outside ofthe yard since I have been here. "

"Well, you shall go, " said the husband, consolingly. "You HAVE beencooped up here too much, poor girl. I must take you out more, really. I don't know that I could take you to the doctor's place--without aninvitation, I mean. He is very queer about some things. He lives thereall alone, for instance, with only a Chinaman for a servant. He toldme I was almost the only man he had asked under his roof for years. Heisn't a practising physician at all, you know. He is a scientist; hemakes experiments with lizards--and things. "

"Theron, " the wife said, pausing lamp in hand on her way to the bedroom, "do you be careful, now! For all you know this doctor may be a looseman, or pretty near an infidel. You've got to be mighty particular insuch matters, you know, or you'll have the trustees down on you like a'thousand of bricks. '"

"I will thank the trustees to mind their own business, " said Theron, stiffly, and the subject dropped. 

The bedroom window upstairs was open, and upon the fresh night airwas borne in the shrill, jangling sound of a piano, being played offsomewhere in the distance, but so vehemently that the noise imposeditself upon the silence far and wide. Theron listened to this as heundressed. It proceeded from the direction of the main street, and heknew, as by instinct, that it was the Madden girl who was playing. Theincongruity of the hour escaped his notice. He mused instead upon thewild and tropical tangle of moods, emotions, passions, which had grownup in that strange temperament. He found something very pathetic inthat picture she had drawn of herself in forecast, roaming disconsolatethrough her rooms the livelong night, unable to sleep. The woful moan ofinsomnia seemed to make itself heard in every strain from her piano. 

Alice heard it also, but being unillumined, she missed the romanticpathos. "I call it disgraceful, " she muttered from her pillow, "forfolks to be banging away on a piano at this time of night. There oughtto be a law to prevent it. "

"It may be some distressed soul, " said Theron, gently, "seeking relieffrom the curse of sleeplessness. "

The wife laughed, almost contemptuously. "Distressed fiddlesticks!" washer only other comment. 

The music went on for a long time--rising now to strident heights, nowsinking off to the merest tinkling murmur, and broken ever and again byintervals of utter hush. It did not prevent Alice from at once fallingsound asleep; but Theron lay awake, it seemed to him, for hours, listening tranquilly, and letting his mind wander at will through thepleasant antechambers of Sleep, where are more unreal fantasies thanDreamland itself affords. 

PART II

CHAPTER XI

For some weeks the Rev. Theron Ware saw nothing of either the priest orthe doctor, or the interesting Miss Madden. 

There were, indeed, more urgent matters to think about. June had come;and every succeeding day brought closer to hand the ordeal of his firstQuarterly Conference in Octavius. The waters grew distinctly rougher ashis pastoral bark neared this difficult passage. 

He would have approached the great event with an easier mind if he couldhave made out just how he stood with his congregation. Unfortunatelynothing in his previous experiences helped him in the least to measureor guess at the feelings of these curious Octavians. Their Methodismseemed to be sound enough, and to stick quite to the letter of theDiscipline, so long as it was expressed in formulae. It was its spiritwhich he felt to be complicated by all sorts of conditions wholly novelto him. 

The existence of a line of street-cars in the town, for example, wouldnot impress the casual thinker as likely to prove a rock in the path ofpeaceful religion. Theron, in his simplicity, had even thought, when hefirst saw these bobtailed cars bumping along the rails in the middle ofthe main street, that they must be a great convenience to people livingin the outskirts, who wished to get in to church of a Sunday morning. Hewas imprudent enough to mention this in conversation with one of his newparishioners. Then he learned, to his considerable chagrin, that whenthis line was built, some years before, a bitter war of words had beenfought upon the question of its being worked on the Sabbath day. Thethen occupant of the Methodist pulpit had so distinguished himselfabove the rest by the solemnity and fervor of his protests against thisinsolent desecration of God's day that the Methodists of Octaviusstill felt themselves peculiarly bound to hold this horse-car line, itsmanagement, and everything connected with it, in unbending aversion. Atleast once a year they were accustomed to expect a sermon denouncing itand all its impious Sunday patrons. Theron made a mental resolve thatthis year they should be disappointed. 

Another burning problem, which he had not been called upon before toconfront, he found now entangled with the mysterious line which divideda circus from a menagerie. Those itinerant tent-shows had never come hisway heretofore, and he knew nothing of that fine balancing proportionbetween ladies in tights on horseback and cages full of deeplyeducational animals, which, even as the impartial rain, was designedto embrace alike the just and the unjust. There had arisen inside theMethodist society of Octavius some painful episodes, connected withmembers who took their children "just to see the animals, " and wereconvicted of having also watched the Rose-Queen of the Arena, in herunequalled flying leap through eight hoops, with an ardent and unashamedeye. One of these cases still remained on the censorial docket of thechurch; and Theron understood that he was expected to name a committeeof five to examine and try it. This he neglected to do. 

He was no longer at all certain that the congregation as a whole likedhis sermons. The truth was, no doubt, that he had learned enough tocease regarding the congregation as a whole. He could still rely uponcarrying along with him in his discourses from the pulpit a largemajority of interested and approving faces. But here, unhappily, was acase where the majority did not rule. The minority, relatively small innumbers, was prodigious in virile force. 

More than twenty years had now elapsed since that minor schism in theMethodist Episcopal Church, the result of which was the independent bodyknown as Free Methodists, had relieved the parent flock of its principaldisturbing element. The rupture came fittingly at that time when all the"isms" of the argumentative fifties were hurled violently together intothe melting-pot of civil war. The great Methodist Church, South, hadbroken bodily off on the question of State Rights. The smaller anddomestic fraction of Free Methodism separated itself upon an issuewhich may be most readily described as one of civilization. The secedersresented growth in material prosperity; they repudiated the introductionof written sermons and organ-music; they deplored the increasing laxityin meddlesome piety, the introduction of polite manners in the pulpitand classroom, and the development of even a rudimentary desire amongthe younger people of the church to be like others outside in dress andspeech and deportment. They did battle as long as they could, insidethe fold, to restore it to the severely straight and narrow path ofprimitive Methodism. When the adverse odds became too strong for them, they quitted the church and set up a Bethel for themselves. 

Octavius chanced to be one of the places where they were able to holdtheir own within the church organization. The Methodism of the town hadgone along without any local secession. It still held in full fellowshipthe radicals who elsewhere had followed their unbridled bent into thestrongest emotional vagaries--where excited brethren worked themselvesup into epileptic fits, and women whirled themselves about in weirdreligious ecstasies, like dervishes of the Orient, till theyfell headlong in a state of trance. Octavian Methodism was sparedextravagances of this sort, it is true, but it paid a price for theimmunity. The people whom an open split would have taken away remainedto leaven and dominate the whole lump. This small advanced section, withits men of a type all the more aggressive from its narrowness, and womenwho went about solemnly in plain gray garments, with tight-fitting, unadorned, mouse-colored sunbonnets, had not been able wholly toenforce its views upon the social life of the church members, but of itscontrolling influence upon their official and public actions there couldbe no doubt. 

The situation had begun to unfold itself to Theron from the outset. He had recognized the episodes of the forbidden Sunday milk and of theflowers in poor Alice's bonnet as typical of much more that was tocome. No week followed without bringing some new fulfilment of thisforeboding. Now, at the end of two months, he knew well enough thatthe hitherto dominant minority was hostile to him and his ministry, andwould do whatever it could against him. 

Though Theron at once decided to show fight, and did not at all waverin that resolve, his courage was in the main of a despondent sort. Sometimes it would flutter up to the point of confidence, or atleast hopefulness, when he met with substantial men of the church whoobviously liked him, and whom he found himself mentally ranging on hisside, in the struggle which was to come. But more often it was blanklyapparent to him that, the moment flags were flying and drums on theroll, these amiable fair-weather friends would probably take to theirheels. 

Still, such as they were, his sole hope lay in their support. He mustmake the best of them. He set himself doggedly to the task of gatheringtogether all those who were not his enemies into what, when the propertime came, should be known as the pastor's party. There was plenty ofapostolic warrant for this. If there had not been, Theron felt that themere elementary demands of self-defence would have justified his use ofstrategy. 

The institution of pastoral calling, particularly that inquisitorialform of it laid down in the Discipline, had never attracted Theron. He and Alice had gone about among their previous flocks in quite ahaphazard fashion, without thought of system, much less of deliberatepurpose. Theron made lists now, and devoted thought and examination tothe personal tastes and characteristics of the people to be cultivated. There were some, for example, who would expect him to talk pretty muchas the Discipline ordained--that is, to ask if they had family prayer, to inquire after their souls, and generally to minister grace to hishearers--and these in turn subdivided themselves into classes, rangingfrom those who would wish nothing else to those who needed only a mildspiritual flavor. There were others whom he would please much better bynot talking shop at all. Although he could ill afford it, he subscribednow for a daily paper that he might have a perpetually renewed source ofgood conversational topics for these more worldly calls. He also boughtseveral pounds of candy, pleasing in color, but warranted to be entirelyharmless, and he made a large mysterious mark on the inside of his newsilk hat to remind him not to go out calling without some of this in hispocket for the children. 

Alice, he felt, was not helping him in this matter as effectively as hecould have wished. Her attitude toward the church in Octavius might bestbe described by the word "sulky. " Great allowance was to be made, herealized, for her humiliation over the flowers in her bonnet. That mightjustify her, fairly enough, in being kept away from meeting now andagain by headaches, or undefined megrims. But it ought not to preventher from going about and making friends among the kindlier parishionerswho would welcome such a thing, and whom he from time to time indicatedto her. She did go to some extent, it is true, but she produced, in doing so, an effect of performing a duty. He did not find tracesanywhere of her having created a brilliant social impression. When theywent out together, he was peculiarly conscious of having to do the workunaided. 

This was not at all like the Alice of former years, of other charges. Why, she had been, beyond comparison, the most popular young woman inTyre. What possessed her to mope like this in Octavius?

Theron looked at her attentively nowadays, when she was unaware of hisgaze, to try if her face offered any answer to the riddle. It could notbe suggested that she was ill. Never in her life had she been looking sowell. She had thrown herself, all at once, and with what was to himan unaccountable energy, into the creation and management of aflower-garden. She was out the better part of every day, rain or shine, digging, transplanting, pruning, pottering generally about among herplants and shrubs. This work in the open air had given her an aspect ofphysical well-being which it was impossible to be mistaken about. 

Her husband was glad, of course, that she had found some occupationwhich at once pleased her and so obviously conduced to health. This wasso much a matter of course, in fact, that he said to himself over andover again that he was glad. Only--only, sometimes the thought WOULDforce itself upon his attention that if she did not spend so much of hertime in her own garden, she would have more time to devote to winningfriends for them in the Garden of the Lord--friends whom they were goingto need badly. 

The young minister, in taking anxious stock of the chances for andagainst him, turned over often in his mind the fact that he had alreadywon rank as a pulpit orator. His sermons had attracted almost universalattention at Tyre, and his achievement before the Conference atTecumseh, if it did fail to receive practical reward, had admittedlydistanced all the other preaching there. It was a part of the evil luckpursuing him that here in this perversely enigmatic Octavius his specialgift seemed to be of no use whatever. There were times, indeed, when hewas tempted to think that bad preaching was what Octavius wanted. 

Somewhere he had heard of a Presbyterian minister, in charge of a bigcity church, who managed to keep well in with a watchfully Orthodoxcongregation, and at the same time establish himself in the affectionsof the community at large, by simply preaching two kinds of sermons. Inthe morning, when almost all who attended were his own communicants, he gave them very cautious and edifying doctrinal discourses, treadingloyally in the path of the Westminster Confession. To the eveningassemblages, made up for the larger part of outsiders, he addressedbroadly liberal sermons, literary in form, and full of respectfulallusions to modern science and the philosophy of the day. Thus hefilled the church at both services, and put money in its treasury andhis own fame before the world. There was of course the obvious dangerthat the pious elders who in the forenoon heard infant damnationvigorously proclaimed, would revolt when they heard after supper thatthere was some doubt about even adults being damned at all. But eitherbecause the same people did not attend both services, or because theminister's perfect regularity in the morning was each week regarded as aretraction of his latest vagaries of an evening, no trouble ever came. 

Theron had somewhat tentatively tried this on in Octavius. It was nogood. His parishioners were of the sort who would have come to churcheight times a day on Sunday, instead of two, if occasion offered. Thehope that even a portion of them would stop away, and that their placeswould be taken in the evening by less prejudiced strangers who wishedfor intellectual rather than theological food, fell by the wayside. Theyearned-for strangers did not come; the familiar faces of the morningservice all turned up in their accustomed places every evening. Theywere faces which confused and disheartened Theron in the daytime. Under the gaslight they seemed even harder and more unsympathetic. Hetimorously experimented with them for an evening or two, then abandonedthe effort. 

Once there had seemed the beginning of a chance. The richest banker inOctavius--a fat, sensual, hog-faced old bachelor--surprised everybodyone evening by entering the church and taking a seat. Theron happenedto know who he was; even if he had not known, the suppressed excitementvisible in the congregation, the way the sisters turned round tolook, the way the more important brethren put their heads together andexchanged furtive whispers--would have warned him that big game was inview. He recalled afterward with something like self-disgust the eager, almost tremulous pains he himself took to please this banker. There wasa part of the sermon, as it had been written out, which might easilygive offence to a single man of wealth and free notions of life. Withthe alertness of a mental gymnast, Theron ran ahead, excised thisportion, and had ready when the gap was reached some very pretty generalremarks, all the more effective and eloquent, he felt, for havingbeen extemporized. People said it was a good sermon; and afterthe benediction and dispersion some of the officials and principalpew-holders remained to talk over the likelihood of a capture havingbeen effected. Theron did not get away without having this mentionedto him, and he was conscious of sharing deeply the hope of thebrethren--with the added reflection that it would be a personal triumphfor himself into the bargain. He was ashamed of this feeling a littlelater, and of his trick with the sermon. But this chastening productof introspection was all the fruit which the incident bore. The bankernever came again. 

Theron returned one afternoon, a little earlier than usual, from a groupof pastoral calls. Alice, who was plucking weeds in a border at theshady side of the house, heard his step, and rose from her labors. Hewas walking slowly, and seemed weary. He took off his high hat, ashe saw her, and wiped his brow. The broiling June sun was still highoverhead. Doubtless it was its insufferable heat which was accountablefor the worn lines in his face and the spiritless air which the wife'seye detected. She went to the gate, and kissed him as he entered. 

"I believe if I were you, " she said, "I'd carry an umbrella suchscorching days as this. Nobody'd think anything of it. I don't see why aminister shouldn't carry one as much as a woman carries a parasol. "

Theron gave her a rueful, meditative sort of smile. "I suppose peoplereally do think of us as a kind of hybrid female, " he remarked. Then, holding his hat in his hand, he drew a long breath of relief at findinghimself in the shade, and looked about him. 

"Why, you've got more posies here, on this one side of the house alone, than mother had in her whole yard, " he said, after a little. "Let'ssee--I know that one: that's columbine, isn't it? And that's Londonpride, and that's ragged robin. I don't know any of the others. "

Alice recited various unfamiliar names, as she pointed out the severalplants which bore them, and he listened with a kindly semblance ofinterest. 

They strolled thus to the rear of the house, where thick clumps offragrant pinks lined both sides of the path. She picked some of thesefor him, and gave him more names with which to label the considerablenumber of other plants he saw about him. 

"I had no idea we were so well provided as all this, " he commented atlast. "Those Van Sizers must have been tremendous hands for flowers. Youwere lucky in following such people. "

"Van Sizers!" echoed Alice, with contempt. "All they left was old tomatocans and clamshells. Why, I've put in every blessed one of these myself, all except those peonies, there, and one brier on the side wall. "

"Good for you!" exclaimed Theron, approvingly. Then it occurred to himto ask, "But where did you get them all? Around among our friends?"

"Some few, " responded Alice, with a note of hesitation in her voice. "Sister Bult gave me the verbenas, there, and the white pinks werea present from Miss Stevens. But most of them Levi Gorringe was goodenough to send me--from his garden. "

"I didn't know that Gorringe had a garden, " said Theron. "I thought helived over his law-office, in the brick block, there. "

"Well, I don't know that it's exactly HIS, " explained Alice; "but it's abig garden somewhere outside, where he can have anything he likes. " Shewent on with a little laugh: "I didn't like to question him too closely, for fear he'd think I was looking a gift horse in the mouth--or elsehinting for more. It was quite his own offer, you know. He picked themall out for me, and brought them here, and lent me a book telling mejust what to do with each one. And in a few days, now, I am to haveanother big batch of plants--dahlias and zinnias and asters and so on;I'm almost ashamed to take them. But it's such a change to find some onein this Octavius who isn't all self!"

"Yes, Gorringe is a good fellow, " said Theron. "I wish he was aprofessing member. " Then some new thought struck him. "Alice, " heexclaimed, "I believe I'll go and see him this very afternoon. I don'tknow why it hasn't occurred to me before: he's just the man whose adviceI need most. He knows these people here; he can tell me what to do. "

"Aren't you too tired now?" suggested Alice, as Theron put on his hat. 

"No, the sooner the better, " he replied, moving now toward the gate. 

"Well, " she began, "if I were you, I wouldn't say too much about--thatis, I--but never mind. "

"What is it?" asked her husband. 

"Nothing whatever, " replied Alice, positively. "It was only somenonsense of mine;" and Theron, placidly accepting the feminine whim, went off down the street again. 

CHAPTER XII

The Rev. Mr. Ware found Levi Gorringe's law-office readily enough, butits owner was not in. He probably would be back again, though, in aquarter of an hour or so, the boy said, and the minister at once decidedto wait. 

Theron was interested in finding that this office-boy was no other thanHarvey--the lad who brought milk to the parsonage every morning. Heremembered now that he had heard good things of this urchin, as to thehard work he did to help his mother, the Widow Semple, in her struggleto keep a roof over her head; and also bad things, in that he didnot come regularly either to church or Sunday-school. The clergymanrecalled, too, that Harvey had impressed him as a character. 

"Well, sonny, are you going to be a lawyer?" he asked, as he seatedhimself by the window, and looked about him, first at the dusty litterof old papers, pamphlets, and tape-bound documents in bundles whichcrowded the stuffy chamber, and then at the boy himself. 

Harvey was busy at a big box--a rough pine dry-goods box which bore theflaring label of an express company, and also of a well-known seed firmin a Western city, and which the boy had apparently just opened. He waslifting from it, and placing on the table after he had shaken off thesawdust and moss in which they were packed, small parcels of what lookedin the fading light to be half-dried plants. 

"Well, I don't know--I rather guess not, " he made answer, as he pursuedhis task. "So far as I can make out, this wouldn't be the place to startin at, if I WAS going to be a lawyer. A boy can learn here first-ratehow to load cartridges and clean a gun, and braid trout-flies on toleaders, but I don't see much law laying around loose. Anyway, " he wenton, "I couldn't afford to read law, and not be getting any wages. I haveto earn money, you know. "

Theron felt that he liked the boy. "Yes, " he said, with a kindly tone;"I've heard that you are a good, industrious youngster. I daresay Mr. Gorringe will see to it that you get a chance to read law, and get wagestoo. "

"Oh, I can read all there is here and welcome, " the boy explained, stepping toward the window to decipher the label on a bundle of rootsin his hand, "but that's no good unless there's regular practice cominginto the office all the while. THAT'S how you learn to be a lawyer. ButGorringe don't have what I call a practice at all. He just sees men inthe other room there, with the door shut, and whatever there is to do hedoes it all himself. "

The minister remembered a stray hint somewhere that Mr. Gorringe wasa money-lender--what was colloquially called a "note-shaver. " To hisrustic sense, there was something not quite nice about that occupation. It would be indecorous, he felt, to encourage further talk about it fromthe boy. 

"What are you doing there?" he inquired, to change the subject. 

"Sorting out some plants, " replied Harvey. "I don't know what's gotinto Gorringe lately. This is the third big box he's had since I've beenhere--that is, in six weeks--besides two baskets full of rose-bushes. I don't know what he does with them. He carries them off himselfsomewhere. I've had kind of half a notion that he's figurin' on gettingmarried. I can't think of anything else that would make a man spendmoney like water--just for flowers and bushes. They do get foolish, youknow, when they've got marriage on the brain. "

Theron found himself only imperfectly following the theories of theyoung philosopher. It was his fact that monopolized the minister'sattention. 

"But as I understand it, " he remarked hesitatingly, "BrotherGorringe--or rather Mr. Gorringe--gets all the plants he wants, everything he likes, from a big garden somewhere outside. I don'tknow that it is exactly his; but I remember hearing something to thateffect. "

The boy slapped the last litter off his hands, and, as he came to thewindow, shook his head. "These don't come from no garden outside, " hedeclared. "They come from the dealers', and he pays solid cash for 'em. The invoice for this lot alone was thirty-one dollars and sixty cents. There it is on the table. You can see it for yourself. "

Mr. Ware did not offer to look. "Very likely these are for the garden Iwas speaking of, " he said. "Of course you can't go on taking plants outof a garden indefinitely without putting others in. "

"I don't know anything about any garden that he takes plants out of, "answered Harvey, and looked meditatively for a minute or two out uponthe street below. Then he turned to the minister. "Your wife's doing agood deal of gardening this spring, I notice, " he said casually. "You'dhardly think it was the same place, she's fixed it up so. If she wantsany extra hoeing done, I can always get off Saturday afternoons. "

"I will remember, " said Theron. He also looked out of the window; andnothing more was said until, a few moments later, Mr. Gorringe himselfcame in. 

The lawyer seemed both surprised and pleased at discovering theidentity of his visitor, with whom he shook hands in almost an excess ofcordiality. He spread a large newspaper over the pile of seedling plantson the table, pushed the packing-box under the table with his foot, andsaid almost peremptorily to the boy, "You can go now!" Then he turnedagain to Theron. 

"Well, Mr. Ware, I'm glad to see you, " he repeated, and drew up a chairby the window. "Things are going all right with you, I hope. "

Theron noted again the waving black hair, the dark skin, and thecarefully trimmed mustache and chin-tuft which gave the lawyer's facea combined effect of romance and smartness. No; it was the eyes, cool, shrewd, dark-gray eyes, which suggested this latter quality. Therecollection of having seen one of them wink, in deliberate hostilityof sarcasm, when those other trustees had their backs turned, camemercifully at the moment to recall the young minister to his errand. 

"I thought I would drop in and have a chat with you, " he said, gettingbetter under way as he went on. "Quarterly Conference is only afortnight off, and I am a good deal at sea about what is going tohappen. "

"I'm not a church member, you know, " interposed Gorringe. "That shuts meout of the Quarterly Conference. "

"Alas, yes!" said Theron. "I wish it didn't. I'm afraid I'm not going tohave any friends to spare there. "

"What are you afraid of?" asked the lawyer, seeming now to be wholly athis ease again "They can't eat you. "

"No, they keep me too lean for that, " responded Theron, with a pensivesmile. "I WAS going to ask, you know, for an increase of salary, or anextra allowance. I don't see how I can go on as it is. The sum fixed bythe last Quarterly Conference of the old year, and which I am gettingnow, is one hundred dollars less than my predecessor had. That isn'tfair, and it isn't right. But so far from its looking as if I could getan increase, the prospect seems rather that they will make me pay forthe gas and that sidewalk. I never recovered more than about half of mymoving expenses, as you know, and--and, frankly, I don't know which wayto turn. It keeps me miserable all the while. "

"That's where you're wrong, " said Mr. Gorringe. "If you let thingslike that worry you, you'll keep a sore skin all your life. You takemy advice and just go ahead your own gait, and let other folks do theworrying. They ARE pretty close-fisted here, for a fact, but youcan manage to rub along somehow. If you should get into any realdifficulties, why, I guess--" the lawyer paused to smile in ahesitating, significant way--"I guess some road out can be found allright. The main thing is, don't fret, and don't allow your wife to--tofret either. "

He stopped abruptly. Theron nodded in recognition of his amiable tone, and the found the nod lengthening itself out into almost a bow as thethought spread through his mind that this had been nothing more nor lessthan a promise to help him with money if worst came to worst. He lookedat Levi Gorringe, and said to himself that the intuition of women waswonderful. Alice had picked him out as a friend of theirs merely byseeing him pass the house. 

"Yes, " he said; "I am specially anxious to keep my wife from worrying. She was surrounded in her girlhood by a good deal of what, relatively, we should call luxury, and that makes it all the harder for her to be apoor minister's wife. I had quite decided to get her a hired girl, comewhat might, but she thinks she'd rather get on without one. Her healthis better, I must admit, than it was when we came here. She works out inher garden a great deal, and that seems to agree with her. "

"Octavius is a healthy place--that's generally admitted, " replied thelawyer, with indifference. He seemed not to be interested in Mrs. Ware'shealth, but looked intently out through the window at the buildingsopposite, and drummed with his fingers on the arms of his chair. 

Theron made haste to revert to his errand. "Of course, your not being inthe Quarterly Conference, " he said, "renders certain things impossible. But I didn't know but you might have some knowledge of how matters aregoing, what plans the officials of the church had; they seem to haveagreed to tell me nothing. "

"Well, I HAVE heard this much, " responded Gorringe. "They're figuring ongetting the Soulsbys here to raise the debt and kind o' shake things upgenerally. I guess that's about as good as settled. Hadn't you heard ofit?"

"Not a breath!" exclaimed Theron, mournfully. "Well, " he added uponreflection, "I'm sorry, downright sorry. The debt-raiser seems to meabout the lowest-down thing we produce. I've heard of those Soulsbys; Ithink I saw HIM indeed once at Conference, but I believe SHE is the headof the firm. "

"Yes; she wears the breeches, I understand, " said Gorringesententiously. 

"I HAD hoped, " the young minister began with a rueful sigh, "in fact, Ifelt quite confident at the outset that I could pay off this debt, andput the church generally on a new footing, by giving extra attention tomy pulpit work. It is hardly for me to say it, but in other places whereI have been, my preaching has been rather--rather a feature in the townitself I have always been accustomed to attract to our services a goodmany non-members, and that, as you know, helps tremendously from a moneypoint of view. But somehow that has failed here. I doubt if the averagecongregations are a whit larger now than they were when I came in April. I know the collections are not. "

"No, " commented the lawyer, slowly; "you'll never do anything in thatline in Octavius. You might, of course, if you were to stay here andwork hard at it for five or six years--"

"Heaven forbid!" groaned Mr. Ware. 

"Quite so, " put in the other. "The point is that the Methodists hereare a little set by themselves. I don't know that they like one anotherspecially, but I do know that they are not what you might call popularwith people outside. Now, a new preacher at the Presbyterian church, or even the Baptist--he might have a chance to create talk, and makea stir. But Methodist--no! People who don't belong won't come near theMethodist church here so long as there's any other place with a roof onit to go to. Give a dog a bad name, you know. Well, the Methodists herehave got a bad name; and if you could preach like Henry Ward Beecherhimself you wouldn't change it, or get folks to come and hear you. "

"I see what you mean, " Theron responded. "I'm not particularly surprisedmyself that Octavius doesn't love us, or look to us for intellectualstimulation. I myself leave that pulpit more often than otherwisefeeling like a wet rag--utterly limp and discouraged. But, if you don'tmind my speaking of it, YOU don't belong, and yet YOU come. "

It was evident that the lawyer did not mind. He spoke freely in reply. "Oh, yes, I've got into the habit of it. I began going when I first camehere, and--and so it grew to be natural for me to go. Then, of course, being the only lawyer you have, a considerable amount of my business ismixed up in one way or another with your membership; you see those arereally the things which settle a man in a rut, and keep him there. "

"I suppose your people were Methodists, " said Theron, to fill in thepause, "and that is how you originally started with us. "

Levi Gorringe shook his head. He leaned back, half closed his eyes, put his finger-tips together, and almost smiled as if something inretrospect pleased and moved him. 

"No, " he said; "I went to the church first to see a girl who used togo there. It was long before your time. All her family moved away yearsago. You wouldn't know any of them. I was younger then, and I didn'tknow as much as I do now. I worshipped the very ground that girl walkedon, and like a fool I never gave her so much as a hint of it. Lookingback now, I can see that I might have had her if I'd asked her. ButI went instead and sat around and looked at her at church andSunday-school and prayer-meetings Thursday nights, and class-meetingsafter the sermon. She was devoted to religion and church work; and, thinking it would please her, I joined the church on probation. Men canfool themselves easier than they can other people. I actually believedat the time that I had experienced religion. I felt myself full of allsorts of awakenings of the soul and so forth. But it was really thatgirl. You see I'm telling you the thing just as it was. I was veryhappy. I think it was the happiest time of my life. I remember there wasa love-feast while I was on probation; and I sat down in front, rightbeside her, and we ate the little square chunks of bread and drank thewater together, and I held one corner of her hymn-book when we stood upand sang. That was the nearest I ever got to her, or to full membershipin the church. That very next week, I think it was, we learned that shehad got engaged to the minister's son--a young man who had just becomea minister himself. They got married, and went away--and I--somehow Inever took up my membership when the six months' probation was over. That's how it was. "

"It is very interesting, " remarked Theron, softly, after a littlesilence--"and very full of human nature. "

"Well, now you see, " said the lawyer, "what I mean when I say that therehasn't been another minister here since, that I should have felt liketelling this story to. They wouldn't have understood it at all. Theywould have thought it was blasphemy for me to say straight out thatwhat I took for experiencing religion was really a girl. But you aredifferent. I felt that at once, the first time I saw you. In a pulpit orout of it, what I like in a human being is that he SHOULD be human. "

"It pleases me beyond measure that you should like me, then" returnedthe young minister, with frank gratification shining on his face. "Theworld is made all the sweeter and more lovable by these--these elementsof romance. I am not one of those who would wish to see them banished orfrowned upon. I don't mind admitting to you that there is a good deal inMethodism--I mean the strict practice of its letter which you find herein Octavius--that is personally distasteful to me. I read the other dayof an English bishop who said boldly, publicly, that no modern nationcould practise the principles laid down in the Sermon on the Mount andsurvive for twenty-four hours. "

"Ha, ha! That's good!" laughed the lawyer. 

"I felt that it was good, too, " pursued Theron. "I am getting to seea great many things differently, here in Octavius. Our MethodistDiscipline is like the Beatitudes--very helpful and beautiful, iftreated as spiritual suggestion, but more or less of a stumbling-blockif insisted upon literally. I declare!" he added, sitting up in hischair, "I never talked like this to a living soul before in all my life. Your confidences were contagious. "

The Rev. Mr. Ware rose as he spoke, and took up his hat. 

"Must you be going?" asked the lawyer, also rising. "Well, I'm glad Ihaven't shocked you. Come in oftener when you are passing. And if yousee anything I can help you in, always tell me. "

The two men shook hands, with an emphatic and lingering clasp. 

"I am glad, " said Theron, "that you didn't stop coming to church justbecause you lost the girl. "

Levi Gorringe answered the minister's pleasantry with a smile whichcurled his mustache upward, and expanded in little wrinkles at the endsof his eyes. "No, " he said jestingly. "I'm death on collecting debts;and I reckon that the church still owes me a girl. I'll have one yet. "

So, with merriment the echoes of which pleasantly accompanied Therondown the stairway, the two men parted. 

CHAPTER XIII

Though time lagged in passing with a slowness which seemed born ofstudied insolence, there did arrive at last a day which had somethingdefinitive about it to Theron's disturbed and restless mind. It was aThursday, and the prayer-meeting to be held that evening would be thelast before the Quarterly Conference, now only four days off. 

For some reason, the young minister found himself dwelling upon thisfact, and investing it with importance. But yesterday the QuarterlyConference had seemed a long way ahead. Today brought it alarminglyclose to hand. He had not heretofore regarded the weekly assemblagefor prayer and song as a thing calling for preparation, or for anypreliminary thought. Now on this Thursday morning he went to his deskafter breakfast, which was a sign that he wanted the room to himself, quite as if he had the task of a weighty sermon before him. He sat atthe desk all the forenoon, doing no writing, it is true, but rememberingevery once in a while, when his mind turned aside from the book in hishands, that there was that prayer-meeting in the evening. 

Sometimes he reached the point of vaguely wondering why this strictlycommonplace affair should be forcing itself thus upon his attention. Then, with a kind of mental shiver at the recollection that this wasThursday, and that the great struggle came on Monday, he would go backto his book. 

There were a half-dozen volumes on the open desk before him. He hadtaken them out from beneath a pile of old "Sunday-School Advocates" andchurch magazines, where they had lain hidden from Alice's view most ofthe week. If there had been a locked drawer in the house, he would haveused it instead to hold these books, which had come to him in a neatparcel, which also contained an amiable note from Dr. Ledsmar, recallinga pleasant evening in May, and expressing the hope that the accompanyingworks would be of some service. Theron had glanced at the backs of theuppermost two, and discovered that their author was Renan. Then he hadhastily put the lot in the best place he could think of to escape hiswife's observation. 

He realized now that there had been no need for this secrecy. Of theother four books, by Sayce, Budge, Smith, and Lenormant, three indeedrevealed themselves to be published under religious auspices. As forRenan, he might have known that the name would be meaningless to Alice. The feeling that he himself was not much wiser in this matter than hiswife may have led him to pass over the learned text-books on Chaldeanantiquity, and even the volume of Renan which appeared to be devotedto Oriental inscriptions, and take up his other book, entitled inthe translation, "Recollections of my Youth. " This he rather glancedthrough, at the outset, following with a certain inattention theintroductory sketches and essays, which dealt with an unfamiliar, and, to his notion, somewhat preposterous Breton racial type. Then, little bylittle, it dawned upon him that there was a connected story in all this;and suddenly he came upon it, out in the open, as it were. It wasthe story of how a deeply devout young man, trained from his earliestboyhood for the sacred office, and desiring passionately nothing butto be worthy of it, came to a point where, at infinite cost of pain tohimself and of anguish to those dearest to him, he had to declare thathe could no longer believe at all in revealed religion. 

Theron Ware read this all with an excited interest which no book hadever stirred in him before. Much of it he read over and over again, tomake sure that he penetrated everywhere the husk of French habits ofthought and Catholic methods in which the kernel was wrapped. He brokeoff midway in this part of the book to go out to the kitchen to dinner, and began the meal in silence. To Alice's questions he replied brieflythat he was preparing himself for the evening's prayer-meeting. Shelifted her brows in such frank surprise at this that he made a furtherand somewhat rambling explanation about having again taken up the workon his book--the book about Abraham. 

"I thought you said you'd given that up altogether, " she remarked. 

"Well, " he said, "I WAS discouraged about it for a while. But a mannever does anything big without getting discouraged over and over againwhile he's doing it. I don't say now that I shall write preciselyTHAT book--I'm merely reading scientific works about the period, justnow--but if not that, I shall write some other book. Else how will youget that piano?" he added, with an attempt at a smile. 

"I thought you had given that up, too!" she replied ruefully. Thenbefore he could speak, she went on: "Never mind the piano; that canwait. What I've got on my mind just now isn't piano; it's potatoes. Do you know, I saw some the other day at Rasbach's, splendidpotatoes--these are some of them--and fifteen cents a bushel cheaperthan those dried-up old things Brother Barnum keeps, and so I bought twobushels. And Sister Barnum met me on the street this morning, and threwit in my face that the Discipline commands us to trade with each other. Is there any such command?"

"Yes, " said the husband. "It's Section 33. Don't you remember? I lookedit up in Tyre. We are to 'evidence our desire of salvation by doinggood, especially to them that are of the household of faith, or groaningso to be; by employing them preferably to others; buying one of another;helping each other in business'--and so on. Yes, it's all there. "

"Well, I told her I didn't believe it was, " put in Alice, "and I saidthat even if it was, there ought to be another section about sellingpotatoes to their minister for more than they're worth--potatoes thatturn all green when you boil them, too. I believe I'll read up that oldDiscipline myself, and see if it hasn't got some things that I can talkback with. "

"The very section before that, Number 32, enjoins members against'uncharitable or unprofitable conversation--particularly speaking evilof magistrates or ministers. ' You'd have 'em there, I think. " Theron hadbegun cheerfully enough, but the careworn, preoccupied look returned nowto his face. "I'm sorry if we've fallen out with the Barnums, " he said. "His brother-in-law, Davis, the Sunday-school superintendent, is amember of the Quarterly Conference, you know, and I've been hoping thathe was on my side. I've been taking a good deal of pains to make up tohim. "

He ended with a sigh, the pathos of which impressed Alice. "If you thinkit will do any good, " she volunteered, "I'll go and call on the Davisesthis very afternoon. I'm sure to find her at home, --she's tied handand foot with that brood of hers--and you'd better give me some of thatcandy for them. "

Theron nodded his approval and thanks, and relapsed into silence. Whenthe meal was over, he brought out the confectionery to his wife, andwithout a word went back to that remarkable book. 

When Alice returned toward the close of day, to prepare the simple teawhich was always laid a half-hour earlier on Thursdays and Sundays, she found her husband where she had left him, still busy with those newscientific works. She recounted to him some incidents of her callupon Mrs. Davis, as she took off her hat and put on the big kitchenapron--how pleased Mrs. Davis seemed to be; how her affection forher sister-in-law, the grocer's wife, disclosed itself to be not evenskin-deep; how the children leaped upon the candy as if they had neverseen any before; and how, in her belief, Mr. Davis would be heart andsoul on Theron's side at the Conference. 

To her surprise, the young minister seemed not at all interested. He hardly looked at her during her narrative, but reclined in theeasy-chair with his head thrown back, and an abstracted gaze wanderingaimlessly about the ceiling. When she avowed her faith in theSunday-school superintendent's loyal partisanship, which she did witha pardonable pride in having helped to make it secure, her husband evenclosed his eyes, and moved his head with a gesture which plainly bespokeindifference. 

"I expected you'd be tickled to death, " she remarked, with evidentdisappointment. 

"I've a bad headache, " he explained, after a minute's pause. 

"No wonder!" Alice rejoined, sympathetically enough, but with a note ofreproof as well. "What can you expect, staying cooped up in here all daylong, poring over those books? People are all the while remarking thatyou study too much. I tell them, of course, that you're a great hand forreading, and always were; but I think myself it would be better if yougot out more, and took more exercise, and saw people. You know lotsand slathers more than THEY do now, or ever will, if you never openedanother book. "

Theron regarded her with an expression which she had never seen on hisface before. "You don't realize what you are saying, " he replied slowly. He sighed as he added, with increased gravity, "I am the most ignorantman alive!"

Alice began a little laugh of wifely incredulity, and then let it dieaway as she recognized that he was really troubled and sad in his mind. She bent over to kiss him lightly on the brow, and tiptoed her way outinto the kitchen. 

"I believe I will let you make my excuses at the prayer-meeting thisevening, " he said all at once, as the supper came to an end. Hehad eaten next to nothing during the meal, and had sat in a sort ofbrown-study from which Alice kindly forbore to arouse him. "I don'tknow--I hardly feel equal to it. They won't take it amiss--for once--ifyou explain to them that I--I am not at all well. "

"Oh, I do hope you're not coming down with anything!" Alice had risentoo, and was gazing at him with a solicitude the tenderness of which atonce comforted, and in some obscure way jarred on his nerves. "Is thereanything I can do--or shall I go for a doctor? We've got mustard in thehouse, and senna--I think there's some senna left--and Jamaica ginger. "

Theron shook his head wearily at her. "Oh, no, --no!" he expostulated. "It isn't anything that needs drugs, or doctors either. It's just mentalworry and fatigue, that's all. An evening's quiet rest in the big chair, and early to bed--that will fix me up all right. "

"But you'll read; and that will make your head worse, " said Alice. 

"No, I won't read any more, " he promised her, walking slowly into thesitting-room, and settling himself in the big chair, the while shebrought out a pillow from the adjoining best bedroom, and adjusted itbehind his head. "That's nice! I'll just lie quiet here, and perhapsdoze a little till you come back. I feel in the mood for the rest; itwill do me all sorts of good. "

He closed his eyes; and Alice, regarding his upturned face anxiously, decided that already it looked more at peace than awhile ago. 

"Well, I hope you'll be better when I get back, " she said, as she beganpreparations for the evening service. These consisted in combingstiffly back the strands of light-brown hair which, during the day, hadexuberantly loosened themselves over her temples into somethingalmost like curls; in fastening down upon this rebellious hair a plainbrown-straw bonnet, guiltless of all ornament save a binding ribbon ofdull umber hue; and in putting on a thin dark-gray shawl and a pairof equally subdued lisle-thread gloves. Thus attired, she made amischievous little grimace of dislike at her puritanical image inthe looking-glass over the mantel, and then turned to announce herdeparture. 

"Well, I'm off, " she said. Theron opened his eyes to take in this figureof his wife dressed for prayer-meeting, and then closed them againabruptly. "All right, " he murmured, and then he heard the door shutbehind her. 

Although he had been alone all day, there seemed to be quite a uniquevalue and quality in this present solitude. He stretched out his legs onthe opposite chair, and looked lazily about him, with the feeling thatat last he had secured some leisure, and could think undisturbed to hisheart's content. There were nearly two hours of unbroken quiet beforehim; and the mere fact of his having stepped aside from the routine ofhis duty to procure it; marked it in his thoughts as a special occasion, which ought in the nature of things to yield more than the ordinaryharvest of mental profit. 

Theron's musings were broken in upon from time to time by rumblingoutbursts of hymn-singing from the church next door. Surely, he said tohimself, there could be no other congregation in the Conference, or inall Methodism, which sang so badly as these Octavians did. The noise, as it came to him now and again, divided itself familiarly into a mainstrain of hard, high, sharp, and tinny female voices, with three or fourconcurrent and clashing branch strains of part-singing by men who didnot know how. How well he already knew these voices! Through two woodenwalls he could detect the conceited and pushing note of Brother Lovejoy, who tried always to drown the rest out, and the lifeless, unmeasuredweight of shrill clamor which Sister Barnum hurled into every chorus, half closing her eyes and sticking out her chin as she did so. Theydrawled their hymns too, these people, till Theron thought he understoodthat injunction in the Discipline against singing too slowly. It hadpuzzled him heretofore; now he felt that it must have been meant inprophecy for Octavius. 

It was impossible not to recall in contrast that other church musiche had heard, a month before, and the whole atmosphere of that otherpastoral sitting room, from which he had listened to it. The startledand crowded impressions of that strange evening had been lying hiddenin his mind all this while, driven into a corner by the pressure of moreordinary, everyday matters. They came forth now, and passed acrosshis brain--no longer confusing and distorted, but in orderly andintelligible sequence. Their earlier effect had been one of frightenedfascination. Now he looked them over calmly as they lifted themselves, one by one, and found himself not shrinking at all, or evading anything, but dwelling upon each in turn as a natural and welcome part of the mostimportant experience of his life. 

The young minister had arrived, all at once, at this conclusion. He didnot question at all the means by which he had reached it. Nothing wasclearer to his mind than the conclusion itself--that his meeting, withthe priest and the doctor was the turning-point in his career. They hadlifted him bodily out of the slough of ignorance, of contact with lowminds and sordid, narrow things, and put him on solid ground. This bookhe had been reading--this gentle, tender, lovable book, which had asmuch true piety in it as any devotional book he had ever read, and yet, unlike all devotional books, put its foot firmly upon everything whichcould not be proved in human reason to be true--must be merely one of athousand which men like Father Forbes and Dr. Ledsmar knew by heart. Thevery thought that he was on the way now to know them, too, made Therontremble. The prospect wooed him, and he thrilled in response, with thewistful and delicate eagerness of a young lover. 

Somehow, the fact that the priest and the doctor were not religious men, and that this book which had so impressed and stirred him was nothingmore than Renan's recital of how he, too, ceased to be a religious man, did not take a form which Theron could look square in the face. It worethe shape, instead, of a vague premise that there were a great manydifferent kinds of religions--the past and dead races had multipliedthese in their time literally into thousands--and that each no doubt hadits central support of truth somewhere for the good men who were in it, and that to call one of these divine and condemn all the others wasa part fit only for untutored bigots. Renan had formally repudiatedCatholicism, yet could write in his old age with the deepest filialaffection of the Mother Church he had quitted. Father Forbes could talkcoolly about the "Christ-myth" without even ceasing to be a priest, and apparently a very active and devoted priest. Evidently there was anintellectual world, a world of culture and grace, of lofty thoughtsand the inspiring communion of real knowledge, where creeds were not ofimportance, and where men asked one another, not "Is your soul saved?"but "Is your mind well furnished?" Theron had the sensation of havingbeen invited to become a citizen of this world. The thought so dazzledhim that his impulses were dragging him forward to take the new oathof allegiance before he had had time to reflect upon what it was he wasabandoning. 

The droning of the Doxology from the church outside stirred Theronsuddenly out of his revery. It had grown quite dark, and he rose and litthe gas. "Blest be the Tie that Binds, " they were singing. He paused, with hand still in air, to listen. That well-worn phrase arrested hisattention, and gave itself a new meaning. He was bound to those people, it was true, but he could never again harbor the delusion that the tiebetween them was blessed. There was vaguely present in his mind theconsciousness that other ties were loosening as well. Be that as itmight, one thing was certain. He had passed definitely beyond pretendingto himself that there was anything spiritually in common between him andthe Methodist Church of Octavius. The necessity of his keeping up thepretence with others rose on the instant like a looming shadow beforehis mental vision. He turned away from it, and bent his brain to thinkof something else. 

The noise of Alice opening the front door came as a pleasant digression. A second later it became clear from the sound of voices that she hadbrought some one back with her, and Theron hastily stretched himself outagain in the armchair, with his head back in the pillow, and his feeton the other chair. He had come mighty near forgetting that he was aninvalid, and he protected himself the further now by assuming an air oflassitude verging upon prostration. 

"Yes; there's a light burning. It's all right, " he heard Alice say. Sheentered the room, and Theron's head was too bad to permit him to turnit, and see who her companion was. 

"Theron dear, " Alice began, "I knew you'd be glad to see HER, even ifyou were out of sorts; and I persuaded her just to run in for a minute. Let me introduce you to Sister Soulsby. Sister Soulsby--my husband. "

The Rev. Mr. Ware sat upright with an energetic start, and fastened uponthe stranger a look which conveyed anything but the satisfaction hiswife had been so sure about. It was at the first blush an undisguisedscowl, and only some fleeting memory of that reflection about needingnow to dissemble, prevented him from still frowning as he rose to hisfeet, and perfunctorily held out his hand. 

"Delighted, I'm sure, " he mumbled. Then, looking up, he discovered thatSister Soulsby knew he was not delighted, and that she seemed not tomind in the least. 

"As your good lady said, I just ran in for a moment, " she remarked, shaking his limp hand with a brisk, business-like grasp, and droppingit. "I hate bothering sick people, but as we're to be thrown togethera good deal this next week or so, I thought I'd like to lose no time insaying 'howdy. ' I won't keep you up now. Your wife has been sweet enoughto ask me to move my trunk over here in the morning, so that you'll seeenough of me and to spare. "

Theron looked falteringly into her face, as he strove for words whichshould sufficiently mask the disgust this intelligence stirred withinhim. A debt-raiser in the town was bad enough! A debt-raiser quarteredin the very parsonage!--he ground his teeth to think of it. 

Alice read his hesitation aright. "Sister Soulsby went to the hotel, "she hastily put in; "and Loren Pierce was after her to come and stay athis house, and I ventured to tell her that I thought we could make hermore comfortable here. " She accompanied this by so daring a grimaceand nod that her husband woke up to the fact that a point in Conferencepolitics was involved. 

He squeezed a doubtful smile upon his features. "We shall both do ourbest, " he said. It was not easy, but he forced increasing amiabilityinto his glance and tone. "Is Brother Soulsby here, too?" he asked. 

The debt-raiser shook her head--again the prompt, decisive movement, solike a busy man of affairs. "No, " she answered. "He's doing supplydown on the Hudson this week, but he'll be here in time for the Sundaymorning love-feast. I always like to come on ahead, and see how the landlies. Well, good-night! Your head will be all right in the morning. "

Precisely what she meant by this assurance, Theron did not attempt toguess. He received her adieu, noted the masterful manner in whichshe kissed his wife, and watched her pass out into the hall, with thefeeling uppermost that this was a person who decidedly knew her wayabout. Much as he was prepared to dislike her, and much as he detestedthe vulgar methods her profession typified, he could not deny that sheseemed a very capable sort of woman. 

This mental concession did not prevent his fixing upon Alice, when shereturned to the room, a glance of obvious disapproval. 

"Theron, " she broke forth, to anticipate his reproach, "I did it for thebest. The Pierces would have got her if I hadn't cut in. I thought itwould help to have her on our side. And, besides, I like her. She's thefirst sister I've seen since we've been in this hole that's had a kindword for me--or--or sympathized with me! And--and--if you're going to beoffended--I shall cry!"

There were real tears on her lashes, ready to make good the threat. "Oh, I guess I wouldn't, " said Theron, with an approach to his old, half-playful manner. "If you like her, that's the chief thing. "

Alice shook her tear-drops away. "No, " she replied, with a wistfulsmile; "the chief thing is to have her like you. She's as smart as asteel trap--that woman is--and if she took the notion, I believe shecould help get us a better place. "

CHAPTER XIV

The ensuing week went by with a buzz and whirl, circling about TheronWare's dizzy consciousness like some huge, impalpable teetotum sentspinning under Sister Soulsby's resolute hands. Whenever his vagrantmemory recurred to it, in after months, he began by marvelling, andended with a shudder of repulsion. 

It was a week crowded with events, which seemed to him to shoot pastso swiftly that in effect they came all of a heap. He never essayed thetask, in retrospect, of arranging them in their order of sequence. Theyhad, however, a definite and interdependent chronology which it is worththe while to trace. 

Mrs. Soulsby brought her trunk round to the parsonage bright and earlyon Friday morning, and took up her lodgement in the best bedroom, and her headquarters in the house at large, with a cheerful andbusiness-like manner. She desired nothing so much, she said, as thatpeople should not put themselves out on her account, or allow her toget in their way. She appeared to mean this, too, and to have very goodideas about securing its realization. 

During both Friday and the following day, indeed, Theron saw her only atthe family meals. There she displayed a hearty relish for all that wasset before her which quite won Mrs. Ware's heart, and though she talkedrather more than Theron found himself expecting from a woman, he couldnot deny that her conversation was both seemly and entertaining. She hadevidently been a great traveller, and referred to things she had seen inSavannah or Montreal or Los Angeles in as matter-of-fact fashion ashe could have spoken of a visit to Tecumseh. Theron asked her manyquestions about these and other far-off cities, and her answers wereall so pat and showed so keen and clear an eye that he began in spite ofhimself to think of her with a certain admiration. 

She in turn plied him with inquiries about the principal pew-holdersand members of his congregation--their means, their disposition, and themeasure of their devotion. She put these queries with such intelligence, and seemed to assimilate his replies with such an alert understanding, that the young minister was spurred to put dashes of character inhis descriptions, and set forth the idiosyncrasies and distinguishingearmarks of his flock with what he felt afterward might have been toofree a tongue. But at the time her fine air of appreciation led himcaptive. He gossiped about his parishioners as if he enjoyed it. Hemade a specially happy thumb-nail sketch for her of one of his trustees, Erastus Winch, the loud-mouthed, ostentatiously jovial, and reallycold-hearted cheese-buyer. She was particularly interested in hearingabout this man. The personality of Winch seemed to have impressed her, and she brought the talk back to him more than once, and prompted Theronto the very threshold of indiscretion in his confidences on the subject. 

Save at meal-times, Sister Soulsby spent the two days out around amongthe Methodists of Octavius. She had little or nothing to say aboutwhat she thus saw and heard, but used it as the basis for still furtherinquiries. She told more than once, however, of how she had been pressedhere or there to stay to dinner or supper, and how she had excusedherself. "I've knocked about too much, " she would explain to the Wares, "not to fight shy of random country cooking. When I find such a borncook as you are--well I know when I'm well off. " Alice flushed withpleased pride at this, and Theron himself felt that their visitor showedgreat good sense. By Saturday noon, the two women were calling eachother by their first names. Theron learned with a certain interest thatSister Soulsby's Christian name was Candace. 

It was only natural that he should give even more thought to her than toher quaint and unfamiliar old Ethiopian name. She was undoubtedly a verysmart woman. To his surprise she had never introduced in her talk any ofthe stock religious and devotional phrases which official Methodistsso universally employed in mutual converse. She might have been aninsurance agent, or a school-teacher, visiting in a purely secularhousehold, so little parade of cant was there about her. 

He caught himself wondering how old she was. She seemed to have beenpretty well over the whole American continent, and that must take yearsof time. Perhaps, however, the exertion of so much travel would tendto age one in appearance. Her eyes were still youthful--decidedlywise eyes, but still juvenile. They had sparkled with almost girlishmerriment at some of his jokes. She turned them about a good deal whenshe spoke, making their glances fit and illustrate the things she said. He had never met any one whose eyes played so constant and prominent apart in their owner's conversation. Theron had never seen a play; buthe had encountered the portraits of famous queens of the drama severaltimes in illustrated papers or shop windows, and it occurred to him thatsome of the more marked contortions of Sister Soulsby's eyes--notablya trick she had of rolling them swiftly round and plunging them, so tospeak, into an intent, yearning, one might almost say devouring, gazeat the speaker--were probably employed by eminent actresses like Ristoriand Fanny Davenport. 

The rest of Sister Soulsby was undoubtedly subordinated in interest tothose eyes of hers. Sometimes her face seemed to be reviving temporarilya comeliness which had been constant in former days; then again it wouldlook decidedly, organically, plain. It was the worn and loose-skinnedface of a nervous, middle-aged woman, who had had more than her share oftrouble, and drank too much tea. She wore the collar of her dress ratherlow; and Theron found himself wondering at this, because, though longand expansive, her neck certainly showed more cords and cavities thanconsorted with his vague ideal of statuesque beauty. Then he wondered athimself for thinking about it, and abruptly reined up his fancy, only tofind that it was playing with speculations as to whether her yellowishcomplexion was due to that tea-drinking or came to her as a legacy ofSouthern blood. 

He knew that she was born in the South because she said so. From thesame source he learned that her father had been a wealthy planter, whowas ruined by the war, and sank into a premature grave under the weightof his accumulated losses. The large dark rings around her eyesgrew deeper still in their shadows when she told about this, and herordinarily sharp voice took on a mellow cadence, with a soft, drawlingaccent, turning U's into O's, and having no R's to speak of. Theron hadimbibed somewhere in early days the conviction that the South was theland of romance, of cavaliers and gallants and black eyes flashingbehind mantillas and outspread fans, and somehow when Sister Soulsbyused this intonation she suggested all these things. 

But almost all her talk was in another key--a brisk, direct, idiomaticmanner of speech, with an intonation hinting at no section inparticular. It was merely that of the city-dweller as distinguished fromthe rustic. She was of about Alice's height, perhaps a shade taller. It did not escape the attention of the Wares that she wore clothes of amore stylish cut and a livelier arrangement of hues than any Alice hadever dared own, even in lax-minded Tyre. The two talked of this in theirroom on Friday night; and Theron explained that congregations wouldtolerate things of this sort with a stranger which would be sharplyresented in the case of local folk whom they controlled. It was on thisoccasion that Alice in turn told Theron she was sure Mrs. Soulsby hadfalse teeth--a confidence which she immediately regretted as an act oftreachery to her sex. 

On Saturday afternoon, toward evening, Brother Soulsby arrived, and wasguided to the parsonage by his wife, who had gone to the depot to meethim. They must have talked over the situation pretty thoroughly on theway, for by the time the new-comer had washed his face and hands andput on a clean collar, Sister Soulsby was ready to announce her plan ofcampaign in detail. 

Her husband was a man of small stature and, like herself, of uncertainage. He had a gentle, if rather dry, clean-shaven face, and wore hisdust-colored hair long behind. His little figure was clad in blackclothes of a distinctively clerical fashion, and he had a whiteneck-cloth neatly tied under his collar. The Wares noted that he lookedclean and amiable rather than intellectually or spiritually powerful, ashe took the vacant seat between theirs, and joined them in concentratingattention upon Mrs. Soulsby. 

This lady, holding herself erect and alert on the edge of the low, bigeasy-chair had the air of presiding over a meeting. 

"My idea is, " she began, with an easy implication that no one else'sidea was needed, "that your Quarterly Conference, when it meets onMonday, must be adjourned to Tuesday. We will have the people all outtomorrow morning to love-feast, and announcement can be made there, andat the morning service afterward, that a series of revival meetings areto be begun that same evening. Mr. Soulsby and I can take charge in theevening, and we'll see to it that THAT packs the house--fills the churchto overflowing Monday evening. Then we'll quietly turn the meeting intoa debt-raising convention, before they know where they are, and we'llwipe off the best part of the load. Now, don't you see, " she turned hereyes full upon Theron as she spoke, "you want to hold your QuarterlyConference AFTER this money's been raised, not before. "

"I see what you mean, " Mr. Ware responded gravely. "But--"

"But what!" Sister Soulsby interjected, with vivacity. 

"Well, " said Theron, picking his words, "in the first place, it restswith the Presiding Elder to say whether an adjournment can be made untilTuesday, not with me. "

"That's all right. Leave that to me, " said the lady. 

"In the second place, " Theron went on, still more hesitatingly, "thereseems a certain--what shall I say?--indirection in--in--"

"In getting them together for a revival, and springing a debt-raising onthem?" Sister Soulsby put in. "Why, man alive, that's the best part ofit. You ought to be getting some notion by this time what these Octaviusfolks of yours are like. I've only been here two days, but I've gottheir measure down to an allspice. Supposing you were to announcetomorrow that the debt was to be raised Monday. How many men withbank-accounts would turn up, do you think? You could put them all inyour eye, sir--all in your eye!"

"Very possibly you're right, " faltered the young minister. 

"Right? Why, of course I'm right, " she said, with placid confidence. "You've got to take folks as you find them; and you've got to find themthe best way you can. One place can be worked, managed, in one way, and another needs quite a different way, and both ways would be deadfrosts--complete failures--in a third. "

Brother Soulsby coughed softly here, and shuffled his feet for aninstant on the carpet. His wife resumed her remarks with slightly abatedanimation, and at a slower pace. 

"My experience, " she said, "has shown me that the Apostle was right. To properly serve the cause, one must be all things to all men. I haveknown very queer things indeed turn out to be means of grace. Yousimply CAN'T get along without some of the wisdom of the serpent. We arecommanded to have it, for that matter. And now, speaking of that, doyou know when the Presiding Elder arrives in town today, and where he isgoing to eat supper and sleep?"

Theron shook his head. "All I know is he isn't likely to come here, " hesaid, and added sadly, "I'm afraid he's not an admirer of mine. "

"Perhaps that's not all his fault, " commented Sister Soulsby. "I'll tellyou something. He came in on the same train as my husband, and that oldtrustee Pierce of yours was waiting for him with his buggy, and I sawlike a flash what was in the wind, and the minute the train stopped Icaught the Presiding Elder, and invited him in your name to comeright here and stay; told him you and Alice were just set on hiscoming--wouldn't take no for an answer. Of course he couldn't come--Iknew well enough he had promised old Pierce--but we got in ourinvitation anyway, and it won't do you any harm. Now, that's what I callhaving some gumption--wisdom of the serpent, and so on. "

"I'm sure, " remarked Alice, "I should have been mortified to death if hehad come. We lost the extension-leaf to our table in moving, and four isall it'll seat decently. "

Sister Soulsby smiled winningly into the wife's honest face. "Don't yousee, dear, " she explained patiently, "I only asked him because I knewhe couldn't come. A little butter spreads a long way, if it's onlyintelligently warmed. "

"It was certainly very ingenious of you, " Theron began almost stiffly. Then he yielded to the humanities, and with a kindling smile added, "And it was as kind as kind could be. I'm afraid you're wrong aboutit's doing me any good, but I can see how well you meant it, and I'mgrateful. "

"We COULD have sneaked in the kitchen table, perhaps, while he was outin the garden, and put on the extra long tablecloth, " interjected Alice, musingly. 

Sister Soulsby smiled again at Sister Ware, but without any words thistime; and Alice on the instant rose, with the remark that she must begoing out to see about supper. 

"I'm going to insist on coming out to help you, " Mrs. Soulsby declared, "as soon as I've talked over one little matter with your husband. Oh, yes, you must let me this time. I insist!"

As the kitchen door closed behind Mrs. Ware, a swift and apparentlysignificant glance shot its way across from Sister Soulsby's roving, eloquent eyes to the calmer and smaller gray orbs of her husband. Herose to his feet, made some little explanation about being a gardenerhimself, and desiring to inspect more closely some rhododendrons he hadnoticed in the garden, and forthwith moved decorously out by the otherdoor into the front hall. They heard his footsteps on the gravel beneaththe window before Mrs. Soulsby spoke again. 

"You're right about the Presiding Elder, and you're wrong, " she said. "He isn't what one might call precisely in love with you. Oh, I know thestory--how you got into debt at Tyre, and he stepped in and insisted onyour being denied Tecumseh and sent here instead. "

"HE was responsible for that, then, was he?" broke in Theron, withcontracted brows. 

"Why, don't you make any effort to find out anything at ALL?" she askedpertly enough, but with such obvious good-nature that he could not buthave pleasure in her speech. "Why, of course he did it! Who else did yousuppose?"

"Well, " said the young minister, despondently, "if he's as much againstme as all that, I might as well hang up my fiddle and go home. "

Sister Soulsby gave a little involuntary groan of impatience. Shebent forward, and, lifting her eyes, rolled them at him in a curve ofdownward motion which suggested to his fancy the image of two eagles ina concerted pounce upon a lamb. 

"My friend, " she began, with a new note of impressiveness in her voice, "if you'll pardon my saying it, you haven't got the spunk of a mouse. If you're going to lay down, and let everybody trample over you just asthey please, you're right! You MIGHT as well go home. But now here, thisis what I wanted to say to you: Do you just keep your hands off thesenext few days, and leave this whole thing to me. I'll pull it intoshipshape for you. No--wait a minute--don't interrupt now. I have takena liking to you. You've got brains, and you've got human nature in you, and heart. What you lack is SABE--common-sense. You'll get that, too, intime, and meanwhile I'm not going to stand by and see you cut up and fedto the dogs for want of it. I'll get you through this scrape, and putyou on your feet again, right-side-up-with care, because, as I said, Ilike you. I like your wife, too, mind. She's a good, honest little soul, and she worships the very ground you tread on. Of course, as long aspeople WILL marry in their teens, the wrong people will get yoked uptogether. But that's neither here nor there. She's a kind sweet littlebody, and she's devoted to you, and it isn't every intellectual manthat gets even that much. But now it's a go, is it? You promise to keepquiet, do you, and leave the whole show absolutely to me? Shake hands onit. "

Sister Soulsby had risen, and stood now holding out her hand in a frank, manly fashion. Theron looked at the hand, and made mental notes thatthere were a good many veins discernible on the small wrist, and thatthe forearm seemed to swell out more than would have been expected in awoman producing such a general effect of leanness. He caught theshine of a thin bracelet-band of gold under the sleeve. A delicate, significant odor just hinted its presence in the air about thisoutstretched arm--something which was not a perfume, yet deserved asgracious a name. 

He rose to his feet, and took the proffered hand with a deliberategesture, as if he had been cautiously weighing all the possiblearguments for and against this momentous compact. 

"I promise, " he said gravely, and the two palms squeezed themselvestogether in an earnest clasp. 

"Right you are, " exclaimed the lady, once more with cheery vivacity. "Mind, when it's all over, I'm going to give you a good, serious, downright talking to--a regular hoeing-over. I'm not sure I shan't giveyou a sound shaking into the bargain. You need it. And now I'm going outto help Alice. "

The Reverend Mr. Ware remained standing after his new friend hadleft the room, and his meditative face wore an even unusual air ofabstraction. He strolled aimlessly over, after a time, to the desk bythe window, and stood there looking out at the slight figure of BrotherSoulsby, who was bending over and attentively regarding some pinkblossoms on a shrub through what seemed to be a pocket magnifying-glass. 

What remained uppermost in his mind was not this interesting woman'sconfident pledge of championship in his material difficulties. He foundhimself dwelling instead upon her remark about the incongruous resultsof early marriages. He wondered idly if the little man in the whitetie, fussing out there over that rhododendron-bush, had figured in herthoughts as an example of these evils. Then he reflected that they hadbeen mentioned in clear relation to talk about Alice. 

Now that he faced this question, it was as if he had been consciouslyignoring and putting it aside for a long time. How was it, he askedhimself now, that Alice, who had once seemed so bright and keen-witted, who had in truth started out immeasurably his superior in swiftness ofapprehension and readiness in humorous quips and conceits, shouldhave grown so dull? For she was undoubtedly slow to understand thingsnowadays. Her absurd lugging in of the extension-table problem, whenthe great strategic point of that invitation foisted upon thePresiding Elder came up, was only the latest sample of a score of theseheavy-minded exhibitions that recalled themselves to him. And outsiderswere apparently beginning to notice it. He knew by intuition whatthose phrases, "good, honest little soul" and "kind, sweet little body"signified, when another woman used them to a husband about his wife. Thevery employment of that word "little" was enough, considering that therewas scarcely more than a hair's difference between Mrs. Soulsby andAlice, and that they were both rather tall than otherwise, as thestature of women went. 

What she had said about the chronic misfortunes of intellectual men insuch matters gave added point to those meaning phrases. Nobody coulddeny that geniuses and men of conspicuous talent had as a rule, allthrough history, contracted unfortunate marriages. In almost every casewhere their wives were remembered at all, it was on account of theirabnormal stupidity, or bad temper, or something of that sort. TakeXantippe, for example, and Shakespeare's wife, and--and--well, there wasByron, and Bulwer-Lytton, and ever so many others. 

Of course there was nothing to be done about it. These things happened, and one could only put the best possible face on them, and live one'sappointed life as patiently and contentedly as might be. And Aliceundoubtedly merited all the praise which had been so generously bestowedupon her. She was good and honest and kindly, and there could be nodoubt whatever as to her utter devotion to him. These were tangible, solid qualities, which must always secure respect for her. It was truethat she no longer seemed to be very popular among people. He questionedwhether men, for instance, like Father Forbes and Dr. Ledsmar would caremuch about her. Visions of the wifeless and academic calm in whichthese men spent their lives--an existence consecrated to literature andknowledge and familiarity with all the loftiest and noblest thoughts ofthe past--rose and enveloped him in a cloud of depression. No suchlot would be his! He must labor along among ignorant and spitefulnarrow-minded people to the end of his days, pocketing their insults andfawning upon the harsh hands of jealous nonentities who happened tobe his official masters, just to keep a roof over his head--or ratherAlice's. He must sacrifice everything to this, his ambitions, hispassionate desires to do real good in the world on a large scale, his mental freedom, yes, even his chance of having truly elevating, intellectual friendships. For it was plain enough that the men whosefriendship would be of genuine and stimulating profit to him would notlike her. Now that he thought of it, she seemed latterly to make nofriends at all. 

Suddenly, as he watched in a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby takeout a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against thefence, something occurred to him. There was a curious exception tothat rule of Alice's isolation. She had made at least one friend. LeviGorringe seemed to like her extremely. 

As if his mind had been a camera, Theron snapped a shutter down uponthis odd, unbidden idea, and turned away from the window. 

The sounds of an active, almost strenuous conversation in female voicescame from the kitchen. Theron opened the door noiselessly, and put inhis head, conscious of something furtive in his intention. 

"You must dreen every drop of water off the spinach, mind, before youput it over, or else--"

It was Sister Soulsby's sharp and penetrating tones which came to him. Theron closed the door again, and surrendered himself once more to thecircling whirl of his thoughts. 

CHAPTER XV

A love-feast at nine in the morning opened the public services of aSunday still memorable in the annals of Octavius Methodism. 

This ceremony, which four times a year preceded the sessions of theQuarterly Conference, was not necessarily an event of importance. Itwas an occasion upon which the brethren and sisters who clung to theold-fashioned, primitive ways of the itinerant circuit-riders, letthemselves go with emphasized independence, putting up more vehementprayers than usual, and adding a special fervor of noise to their"Amens!" and other interjections--and that was all. 

It was Theron's first love-feast in Octavius, and as the big class-roomin the church basement began to fill up, and he noted how the men withultra radical views and the women clad in the most ostentatious drabsand grays were crowding into the front seats, he felt his spiritssinking. He had literally to force himself from sentence to sentence, when the time came for him to rise and open the proceedings with anexhortation. He had eagerly offered this function to the PresidingElder, the Rev. Aziel P. Larrabee, who sat in severe silence on thelittle platform behind him, but had been informed that the dignitarywould lead off in giving testimony later on. So Theron, feeling all thewhile the hostile eyes of the Elder burning holes in his back, draggedhimself somehow through the task. He had never known any such difficultyof speech before. The relief was almost overwhelming when he came tothe customary part where all are adjured to be as brief as possible inwitnessing for the Lord, because the time belongs to all the people, andthe Discipline forbids the feast to last more than ninety minutes. Hedelivered this injunction to brevity with marked earnestness, and thensat down abruptly. 

There was some rather boisterous singing, during which the stewards, beginning with the platform, passed plates of bread cut in smallcubes, and water in big plated pitchers and tumblers, about amongthe congregation, threading their way between the long wooden benchesordinarily occupied at this hour by the children of the Sunday-school, and helping each brother and sister in turn. They held by the oldcustom, here in Octavius, and all along the seats the sexes alternated, as they do at a polite dinner-table. 

Theron impassively watched the familiar scene. The early nervousness hadpassed away. He felt now that he was not in the least afraid of thesepeople, even with the Presiding Elder thrown in. Folks who sang withsuch unintelligence, and who threw themselves with such undignifiedfervor into this childish business of the bread and water, could notbe formidable antagonists for a man of intellect. He had never realizedbefore what a spectacle the Methodist love-feast probably presented tooutsiders. What must they think of it!

He had noticed that the Soulsbys sat together, in the centre and towardthe front. Next to Brother Soulsby sat Alice. He thought she looked paleand preoccupied, and set it down in passing to her innate distaste forthe somber garments she was wearing, and for the company she perforcefound herself in. Another head was in the way, and for a time Theron didnot observe who sat beside Alice on the other side. When at last he sawthat it was Levi Gorringe, his instinct was to wonder what the lawyermust be saying to himself about these noisy and shallow enthusiasts. Arecurring emotion of loyalty to the simple people among whom, after all, he had lived his whole life, prompted him to feel that it wasn't whollynice of Gorringe to come and enjoy this revelation of their foolishside, as if it were a circus. There was some vague memory in his mindwhich associated Gorringe with other love-feasts, and with a cynicalattitude toward them. Oh, yes! he had told how he went to one just forthe sake of sitting beside the girl he admired--and was pursuing. 

The stewards had completed their round, and the loud, discordant singingcame to an end. There ensued a little pause, during which Theron turnedto the Presiding Elder with a gesture of invitation to take chargeof the further proceedings. The Elder responded with another gesture, calling his attention to something going on in front. 

Brother and Sister Soulsby, to the considerable surprise of everybody, had risen to their feet, and were standing in their places, quitemotionless, and with an air of professional self-assurance dimlydiscernible under a large show of humility. They stood thus untilcomplete silence had been secured. Then the woman, lifting her head, began to sing. The words were "Rock of Ages, " but no one present hadheard the tune to which she wedded them. Her voice was full and verysweet, and had in it tender cadences which all her hearers foundtouching. She knew how to sing, and she put forth the words so that eachwas distinctly intelligible. There came a part where Brother Soulsby, lifting his head in turn, took up a tuneful second to her air. Althoughthe two did not, as one could hear by listening closely, sing the samewords at the same time, they produced none the less most moving anddelightful harmonies of sound. 

The experience was so novel and charming that listeners ran ahead intheir minds to fix the number of verses there were in the hymn, andto hope that none would be left out. Toward the end, when some of theintolerably self-conceited local singers, fancying they had caught thetune, started to join in, they were stopped by an indignant "sh-h!"which rose from all parts of the class-room; and the Soulsbys, with apatient and pensive kindliness written on their uplifted faces, gavethat verse over again. 

What followed seemed obviously restrained and modified by the effect ofthis unlooked-for and tranquillizing overture. The Presiding Elderwas known to enjoy visits to old-fashioned congregations like thatof Octavius, where he could indulge to the full his inner passion forhigh-pitched passionate invocations and violent spiritual demeanor, butthis time he spoke temperately, almost soothingly. The most tempestuousof the local witnesses for the Lord gave in their testimony inrelatively pacific tones, under the influence of the spell which goodmusic had laid upon the gathering. There was the deepest interest as towhat the two visitors would do in this way. Brother Soulsby spoke first, very briefly and in well rounded and well-chosen, if conventional, phrases. His wife, following him, delivered in a melodious monotone someequally hackneyed remarks. The assemblage, listening in rapt attention, felt the suggestion of reserved power in every sentence she uttered, andburst forth, as she dropped into her seat, in a loud chorus of approvingejaculations. The Soulsbys had captured Octavius with their first outerskirmish line. 

Everything seemed to move forward now with a new zest and spontaneity. Theron had picked out for the occasion the best of those sermons whichhe had prepared in Tyre, at the time when he was justifying his ambitionto be accounted a pulpit orator. It was orthodox enough, but had beenplanned as the framework for picturesque and emotional rhetoric ratherthan doctrinal edification. He had never dreamed of trying it onOctavius before, and only on the yesterday had quavered at his owndaring in choosing it now. Nothing but the desire to show Sister Soulsbywhat was in him had held him to the selection. 

Something of this same desire no doubt swayed and steadied him now inthe pulpit. The labored slowness of his beginning seemed to him to bedue to nervous timidity, until suddenly, looking down into those bigeyes of Sister Soulsby's, which were bent gravely upon him from whereshe sat beside Alice in the minister's pew, he remembered that it wasinstead the studied deliberation which art had taught him. He went on, feeling more and more that the skill and histrionic power of his bestdays were returning to him, were as marked as ever--nay, had nevertriumphed before as they were triumphing now. The congregation watchedand listened with open, steadfast eyes and parted lips. For the firsttime in all that weary quarter, their faces shone. The sustainingsparkle of their gaze lifted him to a peroration unrivalled in his ownrecollection of himself. 

He sat down, and bent his head forward upon the open Bible, breathinghard, but suffused with a glow of satisfaction. His ears caught themusic of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks aprofound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, fromdrumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbingwith excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he stillbent thus before his people, to whisper to his own heart, "At last!--Thedogs!"

The announcement that in the evening a series of revival meetings was tobe inaugurated, had been made at the love-feast, and it was repeatednow from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the oncethe class-meetings usually following this morning service would besuspended. Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashionthat the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulderand spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more orless important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibuleto shake hands and tell him how much they had enjoyed the sermon. Hismind perversely kept hold of the thought that all this came too late. Hepolitely smiled his way along out, and, overtaking the Soulsbys and hiswife near the parsonage gate, went in with them. 

At the cold, picked-up noonday meal which was the Sunday rule of thehouse, Theron rather expected that his guests would talk about thesermon, or at any rate about the events of the morning. A Sabbath chillseemed to have settled upon both their tongues. They ate almost insilence, and their sparse remarks touched upon topics far removed fromchurch affairs. Alice too, seemed strangely disinclined to conversation. The husband knew her face and its varying moods so well that he couldsee she was laboring under some very powerful and deep emotion. No doubtit was the sermon, the oratorical swing of which still tingled in hisown blood, that had so affected her. If she had said so, it would havepleased him, but she said nothing. 

After dinner, Brother Soulsby disappeared in his bedroom, with theremark that he guessed he would lie down awhile. Sister Soulsby puton her bonnet, and, explaining that she always prepared herself for anevening's work by a long solitary walk, quitted the house. Alice, aftershe had put the dinner things away, went upstairs, and stayed there. Left to himself, Theron spent the afternoon in the easy-chair, and, in the intervals of confused introspection, read "Recollections of myYouth" through again from cover to cover. 

He went through the remarkable experiences attending the opening of therevival, when evening came, as one in a dream. Long before the hour forthe service arrived, the sexton came in to tell him that the church wasalready nearly full, and that it was going to be impossible to presentany distinction in the matter of pews. When the party from the parsonagewent over--after another cold and mostly silent meal--it was to find theinterior of the church densely packed, and people being turned away fromthe doors. 

Theron was supposed to preside over what followed, and he did sit onthe central chair in the pulpit, between the Presiding Elder and BrotherSoulsby, and on the several needful occasions did rise and perfunctorilymake the formal remarks required of him. The Elder preached a short, but vigorously phrased sermon. The Soulsbys sang three or four times--oneach occasion with familiar hymnal words set to novel, concertedmusic--and then separately exhorted the assemblage. The husband's partseemed well done. If his speech lacked some of the fire of the divinegirdings which older Methodists recalled, it still led straight, andwith kindling fervency, up to a season of power. The wife took up theword as he sat down. She had risen from one of the side-seats; and, speaking as she walked, she moved forward till she stood within thealtar-rail, immediately under the pulpit, and from this place, facingthe listening throng, she delivered her harangue. Those who watchedher words most intently got the least sense of meaning from them. The phrases were all familiar enough--"Jesus a very present help, ""Sprinkled by the Blood, " "Comforted by the Word, " "Sanctified by theSpirit, " "Born into the Kingdom, " and a hundred others--but it was as inthe case of her singing: the words were old; the music was new. 

What Sister Soulsby said did not matter. The way she said it--thesplendid, searching sweep of her great eyes; the vibrating roll ofher voice, now full of tears, now scornful, now boldly, jubilantlytriumphant; the sympathetic swaying of her willowy figure under thestress of her eloquence--was all wonderful. When she had finished, andstood, flushed and panting, beneath the shadow of the pulpit, sheheld up a hand deprecatingly as the resounding "Amens!" and "Bless theLords!" began to well up about her. 

"You have heard us sing, " she said, smiling to apologize for hershortness of breath. "Now we want to hear you sing!"

Her husband had risen as she spoke, and on the instant, with a fargreater volume of voice than they had hitherto disclosed, the two began"From Greenland's Icy Mountains, " in the old, familiar tune. It didnot need Sister Soulsby's urgent and dramatic gesture to lift people totheir feet. The whole assemblage sprang up, and, under the guidance ofthese two powerful leading voices, thundered the hymn out as Octaviushad never heard it before. 

While its echoes were still alive, the woman began speaking again. "Don't sit down!" she cried. "You would stand up if the President of theUnited States was going by, even if he was only going fishing. How muchmore should you stand up in honor of living souls passing forward tofind their Saviour!"

The psychological moment was upon them. Groans and cries arose, anda palpable ferment stirred the throng. The exhortation to sinnersto declare themselves, to come to the altar, was not only on therevivalist's lips: it seemed to quiver in the very air, to be borne onevery inarticulate exclamation in the clamor of the brethren. A youngwoman, with a dazed and startled look in her eyes, rose in the body ofthe church tremblingly hesitated for a moment, and then, with bowed headand blushing cheeks, pressed her way out from the end of a crowdedpew and down the aisle to the rail. A triumphant outburst of welcomingejaculations swelled to the roof as she knelt there, and under itsimpetus others followed her example. With interspersed snatches of songand shouted encouragements the excitement reached its height only whentwoscore people, mostly young, were tightly clustered upon their kneesabout the rail, and in the space opening upon the aisle. Above theconfusion of penitential sobs and moans, and the hysterical murmuringsof members whose conviction of entire sanctity kept them in their seats, could be heard the voices of the Presiding Elder, the Soulsbys, andthe elderly deacons of the church, who moved about among the kneelingmourners, bending over them and patting their shoulders, and callingout to them: "Fasten your thoughts on Jesus!" "Oh, the Precious Blood!""Blessed be His Name!" "Seek Him, and you shall find Him!" "Cling toJesus, and Him Crucified!"

The Rev. Theron Ware did not, with the others, descend from the pulpit. Seated where he could not see Sister Soulsby, he had failed utterly tobe moved by the wave of enthusiasm she had evoked. What he heard her saydisappointed him. He had expected from her more originality, more spiceof her own idiomatic, individual sort. He viewed with a cold sense ofaloofness the evidences of her success when they began to come forwardand abase themselves at the altar. The instant resolve that, come whatmight, he would not go down there among them, sprang up ready-made inhis mind. He saw his two companions pass him and descend the pulpitstairs, and their action only hardened his resolution. If an excuse wereneeded, he was presiding, and the place to preside in was the pulpit. But he waived in his mind the whole question of an excuse. 

After a little, he put his hand over his face, leaning the elbow forwardon the reading-desk. The scene below would have thrilled him to themarrow six months--yes, three months ago. He put a finger across hiseyes now, to half shut it out. The spectacle of these silly young"mourners"--kneeling they knew not why, trembling at they could not tellwhat, pledging themselves frantically to dogmas and mysteries they knewnothing of, under the influence of a hubbub of outcries as meaninglessin their way, and inspiring in much the same way, as the racket of afife and drum corps--the spectacle saddened and humiliated him now. He was conscious of a dawning sense of shame at being even tacitlyresponsible for such a thing. His fancy conjured up the idea of Dr. Ledsmar coming in and beholding this maudlin and unseemly scene, and hefelt his face grow hot at the bare thought. 

Looking through his fingers, Theron all at once saw something whichcaught at his breath with a sharp clutch. Alice had risen from theminister's pew--the most conspicuous one in the church--and was movingdown the aisle toward the rail, her uplifted face chalk-like in itswhiteness, and her eyes wide-open, looking straight ahead. 

The young pastor could scarcely credit his sight. He thrust aside hishand, and bent forward, only to see his wife sink upon her knees amongthe rest, and to hear this notable accession to the "mourners" hailedby a tumult of approving shouts. Then, remembering himself, he drew backand put up his hand, shutting out the strange scene altogether. To seenothing at all was a relief, and under cover he closed his eyes, and bithis teeth together. 

A fresh outburst of thanksgivings, spreading noisily through thecongregation, prompted him to peer through his fingers again. LeviGorringe was making his way down the aisle--was at the moment quite infront. Theron found himself watching this man with the stern composureof a fatalist. The clamant brethren down below were stirred to newexcitement by the thought that the sceptical lawyer, so long with them, yet not of them, had been humbled and won by the outpourings of theSpirit. Theron's perceptions were keener. He knew that Gorringe wascoming forward to kneel beside Alice; The knowledge left him curiouslyundisturbed. He saw the lawyer advance, gently insinuate himself pastthe form of some kneeling mourner who was in his way, and drop on hisknees close beside the bowed figure of Alice. The two touched shouldersas they bent forward beneath Sister Soulsby's outstretched hands, heldover them as in a blessing. Theron looked fixedly at them, and professedto himself that he was barely interested. 

A little afterward, he was standing up in his place, and reading alouda list of names which one of the stewards had given him. They were thenames of those who had asked that evening to be taken into the churchas members on probation. The sounds of the recent excitement were allhushed now, save as two or three enthusiasts in a corner raised theirvoices in abrupt greeting of each name in its turn, but Theron feltsomehow that this noise had been transferred to the inside of his head. A continuous buzzing went on there, so that the sound of his voice wasfar-off and unfamiliar in his ears. 

He read through the list--comprising some fifteen items--and pronouncedthe names with great distinctness. It was necessary to take pains withthis, because the only name his blurred eyes seemed to see anywhere onthe foolscap sheet was that of Levi Gorringe. When he had finished andwas taking his seat, some one began speaking to him from the body of thechurch. He saw that this was the steward, who was explaining to him thatthe most important name of the lot--that of Brother Gorringe--had notbeen read out. 

Theron smiled and shook his head. Then, when the Presiding Elder touchedhim on the arm, and assured him that he had not mentioned the name inquestion, he replied quite simply, and with another smile, "I thought itwas the only name I did read out. "

Then he sat down abruptly, and let his head fall to one side. Therewere hurried movements inside the pulpit, and people in the audience hadbegun to stand up wonderingly, when the Presiding Elder, with upliftedhands, confronted them. 

"We will omit the Doxology, and depart quietly after the benediction, "he said. "Brother Ware seems to have been overcome by the heat. "

CHAPTER XVI

When Theron woke next morning, Alice seemed to have dressed and left theroom--a thing which had never happened before. 

This fact connected itself at once in his brain with the recollectionof her having made an exhibition of herself the previous evening--goingforward before all eyes to join the unconverted and penitent sinners, asif she were some tramp or shady female, instead of an educated lady, aprofessing member from her girlhood, and a minister's wife. It crossedhis mind that probably she had risen and got away noiselessly, for veryshame at looking him in the face, after such absurd behavior. 

Then he remembered more, and grasped the situation. He had fainted inchurch, and had been brought home and helped to bed. Dim memories ofunaccustomed faces in the bedroom, of nauseous drugs and hushed voices, came to him out of the night-time. Now that he thought of it, he was asick man. Having settled this, he went off to sleep again, a feverishand broken sleep, and remained in this state most of the time for thefollowing twenty-four hours. In the brief though numerous intervals ofwaking, he found certain things clear in his mind. One was that he wasannoyed with Alice, but would dissemble his feelings. Another was thatit was much pleasanter to be ill than to be forced to attend and takepart in those revival meetings. These two ideas came and went in a lazy, drowsy fashion, mixing themselves up with other vagrant fancies, yetalways remaining on top. 

In the evening the singing from the church next door filled his room. The Soulsbys' part of it was worth keeping awake for. He turned over anddeliberately dozed when the congregation sang. 

Alice came up a number of times during the day to ask how he felt, andto bring him broth or toast-water. On several occasions, when he heardher step, the perverse inclination mastered him to shut his eyes, andpretend to be asleep, so that she might tip-toe out again. She had adepressed and thoughtful air, and spoke to him like one whose mind wason something else. Neither of them alluded to what had happened theprevious evening. Toward the close of the long day, she came to ask himwhether he would prefer her to remain in the house, instead of attendingthe meeting. 

"Go, by all means, " he said almost curtly. 

The Presiding Elder and the Sunday-school superintendent called earlyTuesday morning at the parsonage to make brotherly inquiries, andTheron was feeling so much better that he himself suggested theircoming upstairs to see him. The Elder was in good spirits; hesmiled approvingly, and even put in a jocose word or two while thesuperintendent sketched for the invalid in a cheerful way the leadingincidents of the previous evening. 

There had been an enormous crowd, even greater than that of Sundaynight, and everybody had been looking forward to another notable andexciting season of grace. These expectations were especially heightenedwhen Sister Soulsby ascended the pulpit stairs and took charge of theproceedings. She deferred to Paul's views about women preachers onSundays, she said; but on weekdays she had just as much right to snatchbrands from the burning as Paul, or Peter, or any other man. She wenton like that, in a breezy, off-hand fashion which tickled the audienceimmensely, and led to the liveliest anticipations of what would happenwhen she began upon the evening's harvest of souls. 

But it was something else that happened. At a signal from Sister Soulsbythe steward got up, and, in an unconcerned sort of way, went through thethrong to the rear of the church, locked the doors, and put the keysin their pockets. The sister dryly explained now to the surprisedcongregation that there was a season for all things, and that on thepresent occasion they would suspend the glorious work of redeemingfallen human nature, and take up instead the equally noble task ofraising some fifteen hundred dollars which the church needed in itsbusiness. The doors would only be opened again when this had beenaccomplished. 

The brethren were much taken aback by this trick, and they permittedthemselves to exchange a good many scowling and indignant glances, thewhile their professional visitors sang another of their delightfullynovel sacred duets. Its charm of harmony for once fell uponunsympathetic ears. But then Sister Soulsby began another monologue, defending this way of collecting money, chaffing the assemblage withbright-eyed impudence on their having been trapped, and scoring, one after another, neat and jocose little personal points on localcharacteristics, at which everybody but the individual touched grinnedbroadly. She was so droll and cheeky, and withal effective in her talk, that she quite won the crowd over. She told a story about a woodchuckwhich fairly brought down the house. 

"A man, " she began, with a quizzical twinkle in her eye, "told me onceabout hunting a woodchuck with a pack of dogs, and they chased it sohard that it finally escaped only by climbing a butternut-tree. 'But, myfriend, ' I said to him, 'woodchucks can't climb trees--butternut-treesor any other kind--and you know it!' All he said in reply to me was:'This woodchuck had to climb a tree!' And that's the way with thiscongregation. You think you can't raise $1, 500, but you've GOT to. "

So it went on. She set them all laughing; and then, with a twist of theeyes and a change of voice, lo, and behold, she had them nearly cryingin the same breath. Under the pressure of these jumbled emotions, brethren began to rise up in their pews and say what they would give. The wonderful woman had something smart and apt to say about each freshcontribution, and used it to screw up the general interest a notchfurther toward benevolent hysteria. With songs and jokes and impromptuexhortations and prayers she kept the thing whirling, until a sort ofduel of generosity began between two of the most unlikely men--ErastusWinch and Levi Gorringe. Everybody had been surprised when Winch gavehis first $50; but when he rose again, half an hour afterward, and saidthat, owing to the high public position of some of the new members onprobation, he foresaw a great future for the church, and so felt movedto give another $25, there was general amazement. Moved by a commoninstinct, all eyes were turned upon Levi Gorringe, and he, without theslightest hesitation, stood up and said he would give $100. There wassomething in his tone which must have annoyed Brother Winch, for he shotup like a dart, and called out, "Put me down for fifty more;" and thatbrought Gorringe to his feet with an added $50, and then the two wenton raising each other till the assemblage was agape with admiringstupefaction. 

This gladiatorial combat might have been going on till now, theSunday-school superintendent concluded, if Winch hadn't subsided. Theamount of the contributions hadn't been figured up yet, for SisterSoulsby kept the list; but there had been a tremendous lot of moneyraised. Of that there could be no doubt. 

The Presiding Elder now told Theron that the Quarterly Conference hadbeen adjourned yesterday till today. He and Brother Davis were even nowon their way to attend the session in the church next door. The Elderadded, with an obvious kindly significance, that though Theron was tooill to attend it, he guessed his absence would do him no harm. Then thetwo men left the room, and Theron went to sleep again. 

Another almost blank period ensued, this time lasting for forty-eighthours. The young minister was enfolded in the coils of a fever of somesort, which Brother Soulsby, who had dabbled considerably in medicine, admitted that he was puzzled about. Sometimes he thought that it wastyphoid, and then again there were symptoms which looked suspiciouslylike brain fever. The Methodists of Octavius counted no physician amongtheir numbers, and when, on the second day, Alice grew scared, anddecided, with Brother Soulsby's assent, to call in professional advice, the only doctor's name she could recall was that of Ledsmar. She wasconscious of an instinctive dislike for the vague image of him her fancyhad conjured up, but the reflection that he was Theron's friend, and soprobably would be more moderate in his charges, decided her. 

Brother Soulsby showed a most comforting tact and swiftness ofapprehension when Alice, in mentioning Dr. Ledsmar's name, disclosed byher manner a fear that his being sent for would create talk among thechurch people. He volunteered at once to act as messenger himself, and, with no better guide than her dim hints at direction, found the doctorand brought him back to the parsonage. 

Dr. Ledsmar expressly disclaimed to Soulsby all pretence of professionalskill, and made him understand that he went along solely becausehe liked Mr. Ware, and was interested in him, and in any case wouldprobably be of as much use as the wisest of strange physicians--a viewwhich the little revivalist received with comprehending nods of tacitacquiescence. Ledsmar came, and was taken up to the sick-room. He saton the bedside and talked with Theron awhile, and then went downstairsagain. To Alice's anxious inquiries, he replied that it seemed to himmerely a case of over-work and over-worry, about which there was not theslightest occasion for alarm. 

"But he says the strangest things, " the wife put in. "He has been quitedelirious at times. "

"That means only that his brain is taking a rest as well as his body, "remarked Ledsmar. "That is Nature's way of securing an equilibrium ofrepose--of recuperation. He will come out of it with his mind all thefresher and clearer. "

"I don't believe he knows shucks!" was Alice's comment when she closedthe street door upon Dr. Ledsmar. "Anybody could have come in and lookedat a sick man and said, 'Leave him alone. ' You expect something morefrom a doctor. It's his business to say what to do. And I suppose he'llcharge two dollars for just telling me that my husband was resting!"

"No, " said Brother Soulsby, "he said he never practised, and that hewould come only as a friend. "

"Well, it isn't my idea of a friend--not to prescribe a single thing, "protested Alice. 

Yet it seemed that no prescription was needed, after all. The nextmorning Theron woke to find himself feeling quite restored in spiritsand nerves. He sat up in bed, and after an instant of weakly giddiness, recognized that he was all right again. Greatly pleased, he got up, and proceeded to dress himself. There were little recurring hints offaintness and vertigo, while he was shaving, but he had the senseto refer these to the fact that he was very, very hungry. He wentdownstairs, and smiled with the pleased pride of a child at the surprisewhich his appearance at the door created. Alice and the Soulsbys wereat breakfast. He joined them, and ate voraciously, declaring that it wasworth a month's illness to have things taste so good once more. 

"You still look white as a sheet, " said Alice, warningly. "If I wereyou, I'd be careful in my diet for a spell yet. "

For answer, Theron let Sister Soulsby help him again to ham and eggs. He talked exclusively to Sister Soulsby, or rather invited her byhis manner to talk to him, and listened and watched her with indolentcontent. There was a sort of happy and purified languor in his physicaland mental being, which needed and appreciated just this--to sit next abright and attractive woman at a good breakfast, and be ministered to byher sprightly conversation, by the flash of her informing and inspiringeyes, and the nameless sense of support and repose which her nearproximity exhaled. He felt himself figuratively leaning against SisterSoulsby's buoyant personality, and resting. 

Brother Soulsby, like the intelligent creature he was, ate his breakfastin peace; but Alice would interpose remarks from time to time. Theronwas conscious of a certain annoyance at this, and knew that he wasshowing it by an exaggerated display of interest in everything SisterSoulsby said, and persisted in it. There trembled in the background ofhis thoughts ever and again the recollection of a grievance againsthis wife--an offence which she had committed--but he put it aside assomething to be grappled and dealt with when he felt again like takingup the serious and disagreeable things of life. For the moment, hedesired only to be amused by Sister Soulsby. Her casual mention of thefact that she and her husband were taking their departure that very day, appealed to him as an added reason for devoting his entire attention toher. 

"You mustn't forget that famous talking-to you threatened me with--that'regular hoeing-over, ' you know, " he reminded her, when he foundhimself alone with her after breakfast. He smiled as he spoke, in frankenjoyment of the prospect. 

Sister Soulsby nodded, and aided with a roll of her eyes the effect ofmock-menace in her uplifted forefinger. "Oh, never fear, " she cried. "You'll catch it hot and strong. But that'll keep till afternoon. Tell me, do you feel strong enough to go in next door and attend thetrustees' meeting this forenoon? It's rather important that you shouldbe there, if you can spur yourself up to it. By the way, you haven'tasked what happened at the Quarterly Conference yesterday. "

Theron sighed, and made a little grimace of repugnance. "If you knew howlittle I cared!" he said. "I did hope you'd forget all about mentioningthat--and everything else connected with--the next door. You talk somuch more interestingly about other things. "

"Here's gratitude for you!" exclaimed Sister Soulsby, with a gaysimulation of despair. "Why, man alive, do you know what I've done foryou? I got around on the Presiding Elder's blind side, I captured oldPierce, I wound Winch right around my little finger, I worked two orthree of the class-leaders--all on your account. The result was youwent through as if you'd had your ears pinned back, and been greased allover. You've got an extra hundred dollars added to your salary; do youhear? On the sixth question of the order of business the Elder ruledthat the recommendation of the last conference's estimating committeecould be revised (between ourselves he was wrong, but that doesn'tmatter), and so you're in clover. And very friendly things were saidabout you, too. "

"It was very kind of you, " said Theron. "I am really extremely gratefulto you. " He shook her by the hand to make up for what he realized to bea lack of fervor in his tones. 

"Well, then, " Sister Soulsby replied, "you pull yourself together, andtake your place as chairman of the trustees' meeting, and see to itthat, whatever comes up, you side with old Pierce and Winch. "

"Oh, THEY'RE my friends now, are they?" asked Theron, with a faint playof irony about his lips. 

"Yes, that's your ticket this election, " she answered briskly, "and mindyou vote it straight. Don't bother about reasons now. Just take it fromme, as the song says, 'that things have changed since Willie died. 'That's all. And then come back here, and this afternoon we'll have agood old-fashioned jaw. "

The Rev. Mr. Ware, walking with ostentatious feebleness, and forcinga conventional smile upon his wan face, duly made his unexpectedappearance at the trustees' meeting in one of the smaller classrooms. Hereceived their congratulations gravely, and shook hands with all three. It required an effort to do this impartially, because, upon sight ofLevi Gorringe, there rose up suddenly within him an emotion of fiercedislike and enmity. In some enigmatic way his thoughts had keptthemselves away from Gorringe ever since Sunday evening. Now theyconcentrated with furious energy and swiftness upon him. Theronseemed able in a flash of time to coordinate many recollections ofGorringe--the early liking Alice had professed for him, the mystery ofthose purchased plants in her garden, the story of the girl he had lostin church, his offer to lend him money, the way in which he had satbeside Alice at the love-feast and followed her to the altar-rail inthe evening. These raced abreast through the young minister's brain, yetwith each its own image, and its relation to the others clearly defined. 

He found the nerve, all the same, to take this third trustee by thehand, and to thank him for his congratulations, and even to say, with asurface smile of welcome, "It is BROTHER Gorringe, now, I remember. "

The work before the meeting was chiefly of a routine kind. In mostplaces this would have been transacted by the stewards; but in Octaviusthese minor officials had degenerated into mere ceremonial abstractions, who humbly ratified, or by arrangement anticipated, the will of thepowerful, mortgage-owning trustees. Theron sat languidly at the headof the table while these common-place matters passed in their course, noting the intonations of Gorringe's voice as he read from hissecretary's book, and finding his ear displeased by them. No issue aroseupon any of these trivial affairs, and the minister, feeling faintand weary in the heat, wondered why Sister Soulsby had insisted on hiscoming. 

All at once he sat up straight, with an instinctive warning in hismind that here was the thing. Gorringe had taken up the subject of the"debt-raising" evening, and read out its essentials as they had beenembodied in a report of the stewards. The gross sum obtained, in cashand promises, was $1, 860. The stewards had collected of this a trifleless than half, but hoped to get it all in during the ensuing quarter. There were, also, the bill of Mr. And Mrs. Soulsby for $150, and theincreases of $100 in the pastor's salary and $25 in the apportionedcontribution of the charge toward the Presiding Elder's maintenance, thetwo latter items of which the Quarterly Conference had sanctioned. 

"I want to hear the names of the subscribers and their amounts readout, " put in Brother Pierce. 

When this was done, it became apparent that much more than half of theentire amount had been offered by two men. Levi Gorringe's $450 andErastus Winch's $425 left only $985 to be divided up among some seventyor eighty other members of the congregation. 

Brother Pierce speedily stopped the reading of these subordinate names. "They're of no concern whatever, " he said, despite the fact that hisown might have been reached in time. "Those first names are what I wasgetting at. Have those two first amounts, the big ones, be'n paid?"

"One has--the other not, " replied Gorringe. 

"PRE-cisely, " remarked the senior trustee. "And I'm goin' to move thatit needn't be paid, either. When Brother Winch, here, began hollerin'out those extra twenty-fives and fifties, that evening, it was under acomplete misapprehension. He'd be'n on the Cheese Board that same Mondayafternoon, and he'd done what he thought was a mighty big stroke ofbusiness, and he felt liberal according. I know just what that feelin'is myself. If I'd be'n makin' a mint o' money, instead o' losin' all thewhile, as I do, I'd 'a' done just the same. But the next day, lo, andbehold, Brother Winch found that it was all a mistake--he hadn't made asingle penny. "

"Fact is, I lost by the whole transaction, " put in Erastus Winch, defiantly. 

"Just so, " Brother Pierce went on. "He lost money. You have his own wordfor it. Well, then, I say it would be a burning shame for us to consentto touch one penny of what he offered to give, in the fullness of hisheart, while he was laborin' under that delusion. And I move he be notasked for it. We've got quite as much as we need, without it. I put mymotion. "

"That is, YOU don't put it, " suggested Winch, correctingly. "You moveit, and Brother Ware, whom we're all so glad to see able to come andpreside--he'll put it. "

There was a moment's silence. "You've heard the motion, " said Theron, tentatively, and then paused for possible remarks. He was not going tomeddle in this thing himself, and Gorringe was the only other who mighthave an opinion to offer. The necessities of the situation forced himto glance at the lawyer inquiringly. He did so, and turned his eyes awayagain like a shot. Gorringe was looking him squarely in the face, andthe look was freighted with satirical contempt. 

The young minister spoke between clinched teeth. "All those in favorwill say aye. "

Brothers Pierce and Winch put up a simultaneous and confident "Aye. "

"No, you don't!" interposed the lawyer, with deliberate, sneeringemphasis. "I decidedly protest against Winch's voting. He's directlyinterested, and he mustn't vote. Your chairman knows that perfectlywell. "

"Yes, I think Brother Winch ought not to vote, " decided Theron, withgreat calmness. He saw now what was coming, and underneath his surfacecomposure there were sharp flutterings. 

"Very well, then, " said Gorringe. "I vote no, and it's a tie. It restswith the chairman now to cast the deciding vote, and say whether thisinteresting arrangement shall go through or not. "

"Me?" said Theron, eying the lawyer with a cool self-control which hadcome all at once to him. "Me? Oh, I vote Aye. "

CHAPTER XVII

"Well, I did what you told me to do, " Theron Ware remarked to SisterSoulsby, when at last they found themselves alone in the sitting-roomafter the midday meal. 

It had taken not a little strategic skirmishing to secure the room tothemselves for the hospitable Alice, much touched by the thought of hernew friend's departure that very evening had gladly proposed to let allthe work stand over until night, and devote herself entirely to SisterSoulsby. When, finally, Brother Soulsby conceived and deftly executedthe coup of interesting her in the budding of roses, and then leadingher off into the garden to see with her own eyes how it was done, Theronhad a sense of being left alone with a conspirator. The notion impelledhim to plunge at once into the heart of their mystery. 

"I did what you told me to do, " he repeated, looking up from his loweasy-chair to where she sat by the desk; "and I dare say you won't besurprised when I add that I have no respect for myself for doing it. "

"And yet you would go and do it right over again, eh?" the womansaid, in bright, pert tones, nodding her head, and smiling at him withroguish, comprehending eyes. "Yes, that's the way we're built. We spendour lives doing that sort of thing. "

"I don't know that you would precisely grasp my meaning, " said the youngminister, with a polite effort in his words to mask the untoward side ofthe suggestion. "It is a matter of conscience with me; and I am painedand shocked at myself. "

Sister Soulsby drummed for an absent moment with her thin, nervousfingers on the desk-top. "I guess maybe you'd better go and lie downagain, " she said gently. "You're a sick man, still, and it's no goodyour worrying your head just now with things of this sort. You'll seethem differently when you're quite yourself again. "

"No, no, " pleaded Theron. "Do let us have our talk out! I'm all right. My mind is clear as a bell. Truly, I've really counted on this talk withyou. "

"But there's something else to talk about, isn't there, besides--besidesyour conscience?" she asked. Her eyes bent upon him a kindly pressure asshe spoke, which took all possible harshness from her meaning. 

Theron answered the glance rather than her words. "I know that you aremy friend, " he said simply. 

Sister Soulsby straightened herself, and looked down upon him with a newintentness. "Well, then, " she began, "let's thrash this thing out rightnow, and be done with it. You say it's hurt your conscience to dojust one little hundredth part of what there was to be done here. Askyourself what you mean by that. Mind, I'm not quarrelling, and I'm notthinking about anything except just your own state of mind. You thinkyou soiled your hands by doing what you did. That is to say, you wantedALL the dirty work done by other people. That's it, isn't it?"

"The Rev. Mr. Ware sat up, in turn, and looked doubtingly into hiscompanion's face. 

"Oh, we were going to be frank, you know, " she added, with a pleasantplay of mingled mirth and honest liking in her eyes. 

"No, " he said, picking his words, "my point would rather be that--thatthere ought not to have been any of what you yourself call this--this'dirty work. ' THAT is my feeling. "

"Now we're getting at it, " said Sister Soulsby, briskly. "My dearfriend, you might just as well say that potatoes are unclean and unfitto eat because manure is put into the ground they grow in. Just look atthe case. Your church here was running behind every year. Your peoplehad got into a habit of putting in nickels instead of dimes, and lettingyou sweat for the difference. That's a habit, like tobacco, or bitingyour fingernails, or anything else. Either you were all to come to smashhere, or the people had to be shaken up, stood on their heads, brokenof their habit. It's my business--mine and Soulsby's--to do that sortof thing. We came here and we did it--did it up brown, too. We notonly raised all the money the church needs, and to spare, but I took apersonal shine to you, and went out of my way to fix up things foryou. It isn't only the extra hundred dollars, but the whole tone ofthe congregation is changed toward you now. You'll see that they'll beasking to have you back here, next spring. And you're solid with yourPresiding Elder, too. Well, now, tell me straight--is that worth while, or not?"

"I've told you that I am very grateful, " answered the minister, "and Isay it again, and I shall never be tired of repeating it. But--but itwas the means I had in mind. "

"Quite so, " rejoined the sister, patiently. "If you saw the way a hoteldinner was cooked, you wouldn't be able to stomach it. Did you ever seea play? In a theatre, I mean. I supposed not. But you'll understand whenI say that the performance looks one way from where the audience sit, and quite a different way when you are behind the scenes. THERE you seethat the trees and houses are cloth, and the moon is tissue paper, and the flying fairy is a middle-aged woman strung up on a rope. That doesn't prove that the play, out in front, isn't beautiful andaffecting, and all that. It only shows that everything in this world isproduced by machinery--by organization. The trouble is that you'vebeen let in on the stage, behind the scenes, so to speak, and you're sogreen--if you'll pardon me--that you want to sit down and cry becausethe trees ARE cloth, and the moon IS a lantern. And I say, don't be sucha goose!"

"I see what you mean, " Theron said, with an answering smile. He added, more gravely, "All the same, the Winch business seems to me--"

"Now the Winch business is my own affair, " Sister Soulsby broke inabruptly. "I take all the responsibility for that. You need know nothingabout it. You simply voted as you did on the merits of the case as hepresented them--that's all. "

"But--" Theron began, and then paused. Something had occurred to him, and he knitted his brows to follow its course of expansion in his mind. Suddenly he raised his head. "Then you arranged with Winch to make thosebogus offers--just to lead others on?" he demanded. 

Sister Soulsby's large eyes beamed down upon him in reply, at first inopen merriment, then more soberly, till their regard was almost pensive. 

"Let us talk of something else, " she said. "All that is past and gone. It has nothing to do with you, anyway. I've got some advice to give youabout keeping up this grip you've got on your people. "

The young minister had risen to his feet while she spoke. He put hishands in his pockets, and with rounded shoulders began slowly pacing theroom. After a turn or two he came to the desk, and leaned against it. 

"I doubt if it's worth while going into that, " he said, in the solemntone of one who feels that an irrevocable thing is being uttered. Shewaited to hear more, apparently. "I think I shall go away--give up theministry, " he added. 

Sister Soulsby's eyes revealed no such shock of consternation as he, unconsciously, had looked for. They remained quite calm; and when shespoke, they deepened, to fit her speech, with what he read to be agaze of affectionate melancholy--one might say pity. She shook her headslowly. 

"No--don't let any one else hear you say that, " she replied. "My pooryoung friend, it's no good to even think it. The real wisdom is toschool yourself to move along smoothly, and not fret, and get the bestof what's going. I've known others who felt as you do--of course thereare times when every young man of brains and high notions feels thatway--but there's no help for it. Those who tried to get out only brokethemselves. Those who stayed in, and made the best of it--well, one ofthem will be a bishop in another ten years. "

Theron had started walking again. "But the moral degradation of it!"he snapped out at her over his shoulder. "I'd rather earn the meanestliving, at an honest trade, and be free from it. "

"That may all be, " responded Sister Soulsby. "But it isn't a question ofwhat you'd rather do. It's what you can do. How could you earn a living?What trade or business do you suppose you could take up now, and get aliving out of? Not one, my man, not one. "

Theron stopped and stared at her. This view of his capabilities cameupon him with the force and effect of a blow. 

"I don't discover, myself, " he began stumblingly, "that I'm soconspicuously inferior to the men I see about me who do make livings, and very good ones, too. "

"Of course you're not, " she replied with easy promptness; "you'regreatly the other way, or I shouldn't be taking this trouble with you. But you're what you are because you're where you are. The moment you tryon being somewhere else, you're done for. In all this world nobody elsecomes to such unmerciful and universal grief as the unfrocked priest. "

The phrase sent Theron's fancy roving. "I know a Catholic priest, " hesaid irrelevantly, "who doesn't believe an atom in--in things. "

"Very likely, " said Sister Soulsby. "Most of us do. But you don't hearhim talking about going and earning his living, I'll bet! Or if hedoes, he takes powerful good care not to go, all the same. They've gothorse-sense, those priests. They're artists, too. They know how to allowfor the machinery behind the scenes. "

"But it's all so different, " urged the young minister; "the same thingsare not expected of them. Now I sat the other night and watched thosepeople you got up around the altar-rail, groaning and shouting andcrying, and the others jumping up and down with excitement, and SisterLovejoy--did you see her?--coming out of her pew and regularly waltzingin the aisle, with her eyes shut, like a whirling dervish--I positivelybelieve it was all that made me ill. I couldn't stand it. I can't standit now. I won't go back to it! Nothing shall make me!"

"Oh-h, yes, you will, " she rejoined soothingly. "There's nothing else todo. Just put a good face on it, and make up your mind to get through bytreading on as few corns as possible, and keeping your own toes well in, and you'll be surprised how easy it'll all come to be. You werespeaking of the revival business. Now that exemplifies just what I wassaying--it's a part of our machinery. Now a church is like everythingelse, --it's got to have a boss, a head, an authority of some sort, thatpeople will listen to and mind. The Catholics are different, as you say. Their church is chuck-full of authority--all the way from the Popedown to the priest--and accordingly they do as they're told. But theProtestants--your Methodists most of all--they say 'No, we won't haveany authority, we won't obey any boss. ' Very well, what happens? Wewho are responsible for running the thing, and raising the money andso on--we have to put on a spurt every once in a while, and work up ageneral state of excitement; and while it's going, don't you see thatTHAT is the authority, the motive power, whatever you like to call it, by which things are done? Other denominations don't need it. We do, andthat's why we've got it. "

"But the mean dishonesty of it all!" Theron broke forth. He moved aboutagain, his bowed face drawn as with bodily suffering. "The low-borntricks, the hypocrisies! I feel as if I could never so much as look atthese people here again without disgust. "

"Oh, now that's where you make your mistake, " Sister Soulsby put inplacidly. "These people of yours are not a whit worse than other people. They've got their good streaks and their bad streaks, just like the restof us. Take them by and large, they're quite on a par with other folksthe whole country through. "

"I don't believe there's another congregation in the Conferencewhere--where this sort of thing would have been needed, or, I might say, tolerated, " insisted Theron. 

"Perhaps you're right, " the other assented; "but that only shows thatyour people here are different from the others--not that they're worse. You don't seem to realize: Octavius, so far as the Methodists areconcerned, is twenty or thirty years behind the times. Now that has itsadvantages and its disadvantages. The church here is tough and coarse, and full of grit, like a grindstone; and it does ministers from othermore niminy-piminy places all sorts of good to come here once in a whileand rub themselves up against it. It scours the rust and mildew off fromtheir piety, and they go back singing and shouting. But of courseit's had a different effect with you. You're razor-steel instead ofscythe-steel, and the grinding's been too rough and violent for you. But you see what I mean. These people here really take their primitiveMethodism seriously. To them the profession of entire sanctification istruly a genuine thing. Well, don't you see, when people just know thatthey're saved, it doesn't seem to them to matter so much what theydo. They feel that ordinary rules may well be bent and twisted in theinterest of people so supernaturally good as they are. That's pure humannature. It's always been like that. "

Theron paused in his walk to look absently at her. "That thought, "he said, in a vague, slow way, "seems to be springing up in my path, whichever way I turn. It oppresses me, and yet it fascinates me--thisidea that the dead men have known more than we know, done more than wedo; that there is nothing new anywhere; that--"

"Never mind the dead men, " interposed Sister Soulsby. "Just you comeand sit down here. I hate to have you straddling about the room when I'mtrying to talk to you. "

Theron obeyed, and as he sank into the low seat, Sister Soulsby drew upher chair, and put her hand on his shoulder. Her gaze rested upon hiswith impressive steadiness. 

"And now I want to talk seriously to you, as a friend, " she began. "Youmustn't breathe to any living soul the shadow of a hint of this nonsenseabout leaving the ministry. I could see how you were feeling--I saw thebook you were reading the first time I entered this room--and that mademe like you; only I expected to find you mixing up more worldly gumptionwith your Renan. Well, perhaps I like you all the better for not havingit--for being so delightfully fresh. At any rate, that made me sail inand straighten your affairs for you. And now, for God's sake, keep themstraight. Just put all notions of anything else out of your head. Watchyour chief men and women, and be friends with them. Keep your eye openfor what they think you ought to do, and do it. Have your own ideas asmuch as you like, read what you like, say 'Damn' under your breath asmuch as you like, but don't let go of your job. I've knocked abouttoo much, and I've seen too many promising young fellows cut their ownthroats for pure moonshine, not to have a right to say that. "

Theron could not be insensible to the friendly hand on his shoulder, orto the strenuous sincerity of the voice which thus adjured him. 

"Well, " he said vaguely, smiling up into her earnest eyes, "if we agreethat it IS moonshine. "

"See here!" she exclaimed, with renewed animation, patting his shoulderin a brisk, automatic way, to point the beginnings of her confidences:"I'll tell you something. It's about myself. I've got a religion of myown, and it's got just one plank in it, and that is that the time toseparate the sheep from the goats is on Judgment Day, and that it can'tbe done a minute before. "

The young minister took in the thought, and turned it about in his mind, and smiled upon it. 

"And that brings me to what I'm going to tell you, " Sister Soulsbycontinued. She leaned back in her chair, and crossed her knees sothat one well-shaped and artistically shod foot poised itself close toTheron's hand. Her eyes dwelt upon his face with an engaging candor. 

"I began life, " she said, "as a girl by running away from a stupid homewith a man that I knew was married already. After that, I supportedmyself for a good many years--generally, at first, on the stage. I'vebeen a front-ranker in Amazon ballets, and I've been leading lady incomic opera companies out West. I've told fortunes in one room of amining-camp hotel where the biggest game of faro in the Territory wenton in another. I've been a professional clairvoyant, and I've been aprofessional medium, and I've been within one vote of being indictedby a grand jury, and the money that bought that vote was put up by thesmartest and most famous train-gambler between Omaha and 'Frisco, agentleman who died in his boots and took three sheriff's deputies alongwith him to Kingdom-Come. Now, that's MY record. "

Theron looked earnestly at her, and said nothing. 

"And now take Soulsby, " she went on. "Of course I take it for grantedthere's a good deal that he has never felt called upon to mention. Hehasn't what you may call a talkative temperament. But there is also agood deal that I do know. He's been an actor, too, and to this day I'dback him against Edwin Booth himself to recite 'Clarence's Dream. ' Andhe's been a medium, and then he was a travelling phrenologist, and fora long time he was advance agent for a British Blondes show, and when Ifirst saw him he was lecturing on female diseases--and he had HIS littleturn with a grand jury too. In fact, he was what you may call a regularbad old rooster. "

Again Theron suffered the pause to lapse without comment--save for anamorphous sort of conversation which he felt to be going on between hiseyes and those of Sister Soulsby. 

"Well, then, " she resumed, "so much for us apart. Now about us together. We liked each other from the start. We compared notes, and we found thatwe had both soured on living by fakes, and that we were tired of theroad, and wanted to settle down and be respectable in our old age. Wehad a little money--enough to see us through a year or two. Soulsby hadalways hungered and longed to own a garden and raise flowers, and hadnever been able to stay long enough in one place to see so much as abean-pod ripen. So we took a little place in a quiet country villagedown on the Southern Tier, and he planted everything three deep all overthe place, and I bought a roomful of cheap good books, and we startedin. We took to it like ducks to water for a while, and I don't say thatwe couldn't have stood it out, just doing nothing, to this very day; butas luck would have it, during the first winter there was a revival atthe local Methodist church, and we went every evening--at first just tokill time, and then because we found we liked the noise and excitementand general racket of the thing. After it was all over each of us foundthat the other had been mighty near going up to the rail and joining themourners. And another thing had occurred to each of us, too--that is, what tremendous improvements there were possible in the way that amateurrevivalist worked up his business. This stuck in our crops, and wefigured on it all through the winter. --Well, to make a long story short, we finally went into the thing ourselves. "

"Tell me one thing, " interposed Theron. "I'm anxious to understandit all as we go along. Were you and he at any time sincerelyconverted?--that is, I mean, genuinely convicted of sin and consciousof--you know what I mean!"

"Oh, bless you, yes, " responded Sister Soulsby. "Not only once--dozensof times--I may say every time. We couldn't do good work if we weren't. But that's a matter of temperament--of emotions. "

"Precisely. That was what I was getting at, " explained Theron. 

"Well, then, hear what I was getting at, " she went on. "You were talkingvery loudly here about frauds and hypocrisies and so on, a few minutesago. Now I say that Soulsby and I do good, and that we're good fellows. Now take him, for example. There isn't a better citizen in allChemung County than he is, or a kindlier neighbor, or a better or morecharitable man. I've known him to stay up a whole winter's night ina poor Irishman's stinking and freezing stable, trying to save hiscart-horse for him, that had been seized with some sort of fit. Theman's whole livelihood, and his family's, was in that horse; and when itdied, Soulsby bought him another, and never told even ME about it. Nowthat I call real piety, if you like. "

"So do I, " put in Theron, cordially. 

"And this question of fraud, " pursued his companion, --"look at it inthis light. You heard us sing. Well, now, I was a singer, of course, butSoulsby hardly knew one note from another. I taught him to sing, and hewent at it patiently and diligently, like a little man. And I inventedthat scheme of finding tunes which the crowd didn't know, and socouldn't break in on and smother. I simply took Chopin--he is full ofsixths, you know--and I got all sorts of melodies out of his waltzesand mazurkas and nocturnes and so on, and I trained Soulsby just to singthose sixths so as to make the harmony, and there you are. He couldn'tsing by himself any more than a crow, but he's got those sixths of hisdown to a hair. Now that's machinery, management, organization. We takethese tunes, written by a devil-may-care Pole who was living with GeorgeSand openly at the time, and pass 'em off on the brethren for hymns. It's a fraud, yes; but it's a good fraud. So they are all good frauds. I say frankly that I'm glad that the change and the chance came to helpSoulsby and me to be good frauds. "

"And the point is that I'm to be a good fraud, too, " commented the youngminister. 

She had risen, and he got to his feet as well. He instinctively soughtfor her hand, and pressed it warmly, and held it in both his, with anexuberance of gratitude and liking in his manner. 

Sister Soulsby danced her eyes at him with a saucy little shake of thehead. "I'm afraid you'll never make a really GOOD fraud, " she said. "Youhaven't got it in you. Your intentions are all right, but your executionis hopelessly clumsy. I came up to your bedroom there twice while youwere sick, just to say 'howdy, ' and you kept your eyes shut, and all thewhile a blind horse could have told that you were wide awake. "

"I must have thought it was my wife, " said Theron. 

PART III

CHAPTER XVIII

When the lingering dusk finally settled down upon this long summerevening, the train bearing the Soulsbys homeward was already some scoreof miles on its way, and the Methodists of Octavius had nearly finishedtheir weekly prayer-meeting. 

After the stirring events of the revival, it was only to be expectedthat this routine, home-made affair should suffer from a reaction. Theattendance was larger than usual, perhaps, but the proceedings werespiritless and tame. Neither the pastor nor his wife was present atthe beginning, and the class-leader upon whom control devolved made butfeeble headway against the spell of inertia which the hot night-airlaid upon the gathering. Long pauses intervened between the perfunctorypraise-offerings and supplications, and the hymns weariedly raised fromtime to time fell again in languor by the wayside. 

Alice came in just as people were beginning to hope that some onewould start the Doxology, and bring matters to a close. Her appearanceapparently suggested this to the class-leader, for in a few moments themeeting had been dismissed, and some of the members, on their way out, were shaking hands with their minister's wife, and expressing the politehope that he was better. The worried look in her face, and the obviousstains of recent tears upon her cheeks imparted an added point andfervor to these inquiries, but she replied to all in tones ofstudied tranquillity that, although not feeling well enough to attendprayer-meeting, Brother Ware was steadily recovering strength, andconfidently expected to be in complete health by Sunday. They left her, and could hardly wait to get into the vestibule to ask one another inwhispers what on earth she could have been crying about. 

Meanwhile Brother Ware improved his convalescent state by pacing slowlyup and down under the elms on the side of the street opposite theCatholic church. There were no houses here for a block and more; thesidewalk was broken in many places, so that passers-by avoided it; theoverhanging boughs shrouded it all in obscurity; it was preeminently aplace to be alone in. 

Theron had driven to the depot with his guests an hour before, and aftera period of pleasant waiting on the platform, had said good-bye tothem as the train moved away. Then he turned to Alice, who had alsoaccompanied them in the carriage, and was conscious of a certainannoyance at her having come. That long familiar talk of the afternoonhad given him the feeling that he was entitled to bid farewell to SisterSoulsby--to both the Soulsbys--by himself. 

"I am afraid folks will think it strange--neither of us attending theprayer-meeting, " he said, with a suggestion of reproof in his tone, asthey left the station-yard. 

"If we get back in time, I'll run in for a minute, " answered Alice, withdocility. 

"No--no, " he broke in. "I'm not equal to walking so fast. You run onahead, and explain matters, and I will come along slowly. "

"The hack we came in is still there in the yard, " the wife suggested. "We could drive home in that. I don't believe it would cost more than aquarter--and if you're feeling badly--"

"But I am NOT feeling badly, " Theron replied, with frank impatience. "Only I feel--I feel that being alone with my thoughts would be good forme. "

"Oh, certainly--by all means!" Alice had said, and turned sharply on herheel. 

Being alone with these thoughts, Theron strolled aimlessly about, anddid not think at all. The shadows gathered, and fireflies began todisclose their tiny gleams among the shrubbery in the gardens. A lamp-lighter came along, and passed him, leaving in his wake astraggling double line of lights, glowing radiantly against theblack-green of the trees. This recalled to Theron that he had heard thatthe town council lit the street lamps by the almanac, and economized gaswhen moonshine was due. The idea struck him as droll, and he dweltupon it in various aspects, smiling at some of its comic possibilities. Looking up in the middle of one of these whimsical conceits, thesportive impulse died suddenly within him. He realized that it was dark, and that the massive black bulk reared against the sky on the other sideof the road was the Catholic church. The other fact, that he had beenthere walking to and fro for some time, was borne in upon him moreslowly. He turned, and resumed the pacing up and down with a still moreleisurely step, musing upon the curious way in which people's minds allunconsciously follow about where instincts and intuitions lead. 

No doubt it was what Sister Soulsby had said about Catholics which hadinsensibly guided his purposeless stroll in this direction. What awoman that was! Somehow the purport of her talk--striking, and evenastonishing as he had found it--did not stand out so clearly in hismemory as did the image of the woman herself. She must havebeen extremely pretty once. For that matter she still was a mostattractive-looking woman. It had been a genuine pleasure to have her inthe house--to see her intelligent responsive face at the table--to haveit in one's power to make drafts at will upon the fund of sympathy andappreciation, of facile mirth and ready tenderness in those big eyes ofhers. He liked that phrase she had used about herself--"a good fellow. "It seemed to fit her to a "t. " And Soulsby was a good fellow too. All atonce it occurred to him to wonder whether they were married or not. 

But really that was no affair of his, he reflected. A citizen of theintellectual world should be above soiling his thoughts with meancuriosities of that sort, and he drove the impertinent query down againunder the surface of his mind. He refused to tolerate, as well, sundryvagrant imaginings which rose to cluster about and literalize theromance of her youth which Sister Soulsby had so frankly outlined. He would think upon nothing but her as he knew her, --the kindly, quick-witted, capable and charming woman who had made such a brilliantbreak in the monotony of life at that dull parsonage of his. Theonly genuine happiness in life must consist in having bright, smart, attractive women like that always about. 

The lights were visible now in the upper rooms of Father Forbes'pastorate across the way. Theron paused for a second to consider whetherhe wanted to go over and call on the priest. He decided that mentally hewas too fagged and flat for such an undertaking. He needed another sortof companionship--some restful, soothing human contact, which shouldexact nothing from him in return, but just take charge of him, with soft, wise words and pleasant plays of fancy, and jokesand--and--something of the general effect created by Sister Soulsby'seyes. The thought expanded itself, and he saw that he had never realizedbefore--nay, never dreamt before--what a mighty part the comradeship oftalented, sweet-natured and beautiful women must play in the developmentof genius, the achievement of lofty aims, out in the great world ofgreat men. To know such women--ah, that would never fall to his haplesslot. 

The priest's lamps blinked at him through the trees. He remembered thatpriests were supposed to be even further removed from the possibilitiesof such contact than he was himself. His memory reverted to thathorribly ugly old woman whom Father Forbes had spoken of as hishousekeeper. Life under the same roof with such a hag must be even worsethan--worse than--

The young minister did not finish the comparison, even in the privacyof his inner soul. He stood instead staring over at the pastorate, in akind of stupor of arrested thought. The figure of a woman passed in viewat the nearest window--a tall figure with pale summer clothes of somesort, and a broad summer hat--a flitting effect of diaphanous shadowbetween him and the light which streamed from the casement. 

Theron felt a little shiver run over him, as if the delicate coolness ofthe changing night-air had got into his blood. The window was open, andhis strained hearing thought it caught the sound of faint laughter. Hecontinued to gaze at the place where the vision had appeared, the whilea novel and strange perception unfolded itself upon his mind. 

He had come there in the hope of encountering Celia Madden. 

Now that he looked this fact in the face, there was nothing remarkableabout it. In truth, it was simplicity itself. He was still a sick man, weak in body and dejected in spirits. The thought of how unhappy andunstrung he was came to him now with an insistent pathos that broughttears to his eyes. He was only obeying the universal law of nature--thelaw which prompts the pallid spindling sprout of the potato in thecellar to strive feebly toward the light. 

From where he stood in the darkness he stretched out his hands in thedirection of that open window. The gesture was his confession to theoverhanging boughs, to the soft night-breeze, to the stars above--andit bore back to him something of the confessional's vague and wistfulsolace. He seemed already to have drawn down into his soul a tasteof the refreshment it craved. He sighed deeply, and the hot moisturesmarted again upon his eyelids, but this time not all in grief. Withhis tender compassion for himself there mingled now a flutter of buoyantprescience, of exquisite expectancy. 

Fate walked abroad this summer night. The street door of the pastorateopened, and in the flood of illumination which spread suddenly forthover the steps and sidewalk, Theron saw again the tall form, with theindefinitely light-hued flowing garments and the wide straw hat. Heheard a tuneful woman's voice call out "Good-night, Maggie, " and caughtno response save the abrupt closing of the door, which turned everythingblack again with a bang. He listened acutely for another instant, andthen with long, noiseless strides made his way down his deserted side ofthe street. He moderated his pace as he turned to cross the road at thecorner, and then, still masked by the trees, halted altogether, in amomentary tumult of apprehension. No--yes--it was all right. The girlsauntered out from the total darkness into the dim starlight of the opencorner. 

"Why, bless me, is that you, Miss Madden?"

Celia seemed to discern readily enough, through the accents of surprise, the identity of the tall, slim man who addressed her from the shadows. 

"Good-evening, Mr. Ware, " she said, with prompt affability. "I'm so gladto find you out again. We heard you were ill. "

"I have been very ill, " responded Theron, as they shook hands and walkedon together. He added, with a quaver in his voice, "I am still farfrom strong. I really ought not to be out at all. But--but the longingfor--for--well, I COULDN'T stay in any longer. Even if it kills me, Ishall be glad I came out tonight. "

"Oh, we won't talk of killing, " said Celia. "I don't believe inillnesses myself. "

"But you believe in collapses of the nerves, " put in Theron, with gentlesadness, "in moral and spiritual and mental breakdowns. I remember how Iwas touched by the way you told me YOU suffered from them. I had to takewhat you said then for granted. I had had no experience of it myself. But now I know what it is. " He drew a long, pathetic sigh. "Oh, DON'T Iknow what it is!" he repeated gloomily. 

"Come, my friend, cheer up, " Celia purred at him, in soothing tones. Hefelt that there was a deliciously feminine and sisterly intuition inher speech, and in the helpful, nurse-like way in which she drew his armthrough hers. He leaned upon this support, and was glad of it in everyfibre of his being. 

"Do you remember? You promised--that last time I saw you--to play forme, " he reminded her. They were passing the little covered postern doorat the side and rear of the church as he spoke, and he made a half haltto point the coincidence. 

"Oh, there's no one to blow the organ, " she said, divining hissuggestion. "And I haven't the key--and, besides, the organ is too heavyand severe for an invalid. It would overwhelm you tonight. "

"Not as you would know how to play it for me, " urged Theron, pensively. "I feel as if good music to-night would make me well again. I am reallyvery ill and weak--and unhappy!"

The girl seemed moved by the despairing note in his voice. She invitedhim by a sympathetic gesture to lean even more directly on her arm. 

"Come home with me, and I'll play Chopin to you, " she said, incompassionate friendliness. "He is the real medicine for bruised andwounded nerves. You shall have as much of him as you like. "

The idea thus unexpectedly thrown forth spread itself like some vast andinexpressibly alluring vista before Theron's imagination. The spice ofadventure in it fascinated his mind as well, but for a shrinking momentthe flesh was weak. 

"I'm afraid your people would--would think it strange, " he faltered--andbegan also to recall that he had some people of his own who would beeven more amazed. 

"Nonsense, " said Celia, in fine, bold confidence, and with a reassuringpressure on his arm. "I allow none of my people to question what I do. They never dream of such a preposterous thing. Besides, you will seenone of them. Mrs. Madden is at the seaside, and my father and brotherhave their own part of the house. I shan't listen for a minute to yournot coming. Come, I'm your doctor. I'm to make you well again. "

There was further conversation, and Theron more or less knew that he wasbearing a part in it, but his whole mind seemed concentrated, in asort of delicious terror, upon the wonderful experience to which everyfootstep brought him nearer. His magnetized fancy pictured a greatspacious parlor, such as a mansion like the Maddens' would of coursecontain, and there would be a grand piano, and lace curtains, andpaintings in gold frames, and a chandelier, and velvet easy-chairs, andhe would sit in one of these, surrounded by all the luxury of the rich, while Celia played to him. There would be servants about, he presumed, and very likely they would recognize him, and of course they wouldtalk about it to Tom, Dick and Harry afterward. But he said to himselfdefiantly that he didn't care. 

He withdrew his arm from hers as they came upon the well-lighted mainstreet. He passed no one who seemed to know him. Presently they cameto the Madden place, and Celia, without waiting for the gravelled walk, struck obliquely across the lawn. Theron, who had been lagging behindwith a certain circumspection, stepped briskly to her side now. Theirprogress over the soft, close-cropped turf in the dark together, withthe scent of lilies and perfumed shrubs heavy on the night air, andthe majestic bulk of the big silent house rising among the trees beforethem, gave him a thrilling sense of the glory of individual freedom. 

"I feel a new man already, " he declared, as they swung along on thegrass. He breathed a long sigh of content, and drew nearer, so thattheir shoulders touched now and again as they walked. In a minute morethey were standing on the doorstep, and Theron heard the significantjingle of a bunch of keys which his companion was groping for in herelusive pocket. He was conscious of trembling a little at the sound. 

It seemed that, unlike other people, the Maddens did not have theirparlor on the ground-floor, opening off the front hall. Theron stood inthe complete darkness of this hall, till Celia had lit one of severalcandles which were in their hand-sticks on a sort of sideboard next thehat-rack. She beckoned him with a gesture of her head, and he followedher up a broad staircase, magnificent in its structural appointmentsof inlaid woods, and carpeted with what to his feet felt like down. Thetiny light which his guide bore before her half revealed, as they passedin their ascent, tall lengths of tapestry, and the dull glint ofarmor and brazen discs in shadowed niches on the nearer wall. Over thestair-rail lay an open space of such stately dimensions, bounded byterminal lines of decoration so distant in the faint candle-flicker, that the young country minister could think of no word but "palatial" tofit it all. 

At the head of the flight, Celia led the way along a wide corridor towhere it ended. Here, stretched from side to side, and suspended frombroad hoops of a copper-like metal, was a thick curtain, of a uniformcolor which Theron at first thought was green, and then decided must beblue. She pushed its heavy folds aside, and unlocked another door. Hepassed under the curtain behind her, and closed the door. 

The room into which he had made his way was not at all after the fashionof any parlor he had ever seen. In the obscure light it was difficultto tell what it resembled. He made out what he took to be a painter'seasel, standing forth independently in the centre of things. There wererows of books on rude, low shelves. Against one of the two windows wasa big, flat writing-table--or was it a drawing-table?--littered withpapers. Under the other window was a carpenter's bench, with a largemound of something at one end covered with a white cloth. On a tablebehind the easel rose a tall mechanical contrivance, the chief featureof which was a thick upright spiral screw. The floor was of barewood stained brown. The walls of this queer room had photographs andpictures, taken apparently from illustrated papers, pinned up at randomfor their only ornament. 

Celia had lighted three or four other candles on the mantel. Shecaught the dumfounded expression with which her guest was surveying hissurroundings, and gave a merry little laugh. 

"This is my workshop, " she explained. "I keep this for the things I dobadly--things I fool with. If I want to paint, or model in clay, or bindbooks, or write, or draw, or turn on the lathe, or do some carpentering, here's where I do it. All the things that make a mess which has tobe cleaned up--they are kept out here--because this is as far as theservants are allowed to come. "

She unlocked still another door as she spoke--a door which was alsoconcealed behind a curtain. 

"Now, " she said, holding up the candle so that its reddish flare roundedwith warmth the creamy fulness of her chin and throat, and glowed uponher hair in a flame of orange light--"now I will show you what is myvery own. "

CHAPTER XIX

Theron Ware looked about him with frankly undisguised astonishment. 

The room in which he found himself was so dark at first that ityielded little to the eye, and that little seemed altogether beyond hiscomprehension. His gaze helplessly followed Celia and her candleabout as she busied herself in the work of illumination. When she hadfinished, and pinched out the taper, there were seven lights in theapartment--lights beaming softly through half-opaque alternatingrectangles of blue and yellow glass. They must be set in some sort oflanterns around against the wall, he thought, but the shape of these hecould hardly make out. 

Gradually his sight adapted itself to this subdued light, and he beganto see other things. These queer lamps were placed, apparently, so as toshed a special radiance upon some statues which stood in the corners ofthe chamber, and upon some pictures which were embedded in the walls. Theron noted that the statues, the marble of which lost its aggressivewhiteness under the tinted lights, were mostly of naked men and women;the pictures, four or five in number, were all variations of a singletheme--the Virgin Mary and the Child. 

A less untutored vision than his would have caught more swiftly thescheme of color and line in which these works of art bore their share. The walls of the room were in part of flat upright wooden columns, terminating high above in simple capitals, and they were all painted inpale amber and straw and primrose hues, irregularly wavering here andthere toward suggestions of white. Between these pilasters were broaderpanels of stamped leather, in gently varying shades of peacock blue. These contrasted colors vaguely interwove and mingled in what hecould see of the shadowed ceiling far above. They were repeated in thedraperies and huge cushions and pillows of the low, wide divan which ranabout three sides of the room. Even the floor, where it revealed itselfamong the scattered rugs, was laid in a mosaic pattern of matched woods, which, like the rugs, gave back these same shifting blues and uncertainyellows. 

The fourth side of the apartment was broken in outline at one end by thedoor through which they had entered, and at the other by a broad, squareopening, hung with looped-back curtains of a thin silken stuff. Betweenthe two apertures rose against the wall what Theron took at first glanceto be an altar. There were pyramidal rows of tall candles here on eitherside, each masked with a little silken hood; below, in the centre, ashelf-like projection supported what seemed a massive, carved casket, and in the beautiful intricacies of this, and the receding canopy ofdelicate ornamentation which depended above it, the dominant color waswhite, deepening away in its shadows, by tenderly minute gradations, tothe tints which ruled the rest of the room. 

Celia lighted some of the high, thick tapers in these candelabra, andopened the top of the casket. Theron saw with surprise that she haduncovered the keyboard of a piano. He viewed with much greater amazementher next proceeding--which was to put a cigarette between her lips, and, bending over one of the candles with it for an instant, turn to him witha filmy, opalescent veil of smoke above her head. 

"Make yourself comfortable anywhere, " she said, with a gesture whichcomprehended all the divans and pillows in the place. "Will you smoke?"

"I have never tried since I was a little boy, " said Theron, "but I thinkI could. If you don't mind, I should like to see. "

Lounging at his ease on the oriental couch, Theron experimentedcautiously upon the unaccustomed tobacco, and looked at Celia with whathe felt to be the confident quiet of a man of the world. She had thrownaside her hat, and in doing so had half released some of the heavystrands of hair coiled at the back of her head. His glance instinctivelyrested upon this wonderful hair of hers. There was no mistaking thesudden fascination its disorder had for his eye. 

She stood before him with the cigarette poised daintily between thumband finger of a shapely hand, and smiled comprehendingly down on herguest. 

"I suffered the horrors of the damned with this hair of mine when I wasa child, " she said. "I daresay all children have a taste for persecutingred-heads; but it's a specialty with Irish children. They get holdsomehow of an ancient national superstition, or legend, that red hairwas brought into Ireland by the Danes. It's been a term of reproach withus since Brian Boru's time to call a child a Dane. I used to be pursuedand baited with it every day of my life, until the one dream of myambition was to get old enough to be a Sister of Charity, so that Imight hide my hair under one of their big beastly white linen caps. I'vegot rather away from that ideal since, I'm afraid, " she added, with adroll downward curl of her lip. 

"Your hair is very beautiful, " said Theron, in the calm tone of aconnoisseur. 

"I like it myself, " Celia admitted, and blew a little smoke-ring towardhim. "I've made this whole room to match it. The colors, I mean, " sheexplained, in deference to his uplifted brows. "Between us, we make upwhat Whistler would call a symphony. That reminds me--I was going toplay for you. Let me finish the cigarette first. "

Theron felt grateful for her reticence about the fact that he had laidhis own aside. "I have never seen a room at all like this, " he remarked. "You are right; it does fit you perfectly. "

She nodded her sense of his appreciation. "It is what I like, " shesaid. "It expresses ME. I will not have anything about me--or anybodyeither--that I don't like. I suppose if an old Greek could see it, itwould make him sick, but it represents what I mean by being a Greek. Itis as near as an Irishman can get to it. "

"I remember your puzzling me by saying that you were a Greek. "

Celia laughed, and tossed the cigarette-end away. "I'd puzzle you more, I'm afraid, if I tried to explain to you what I really meant by it. Idivide people up into two classes, you know--Greeks and Jews. Once youget hold of that principle, all other divisions and classifications, such as by race or language or nationality, seem pure foolishness. Itis the only true division there is. It is just as true among negroesor wild Indians who never heard of Greece or Jerusalem, as it is amongwhite folks. That is the beauty of it. It works everywhere, always. "

"Try it on me, " urged Theron, with a twinkling eye. "Which am I?"

"Both, " said the girl, with a merry nod of the head. "But now I'll play. I told you you were to hear Chopin. I prescribe him for you. He is theGreekiest of the Greeks. THERE was a nation where all the people wereartists, where everybody was an intellectual aristocrat, where thePhilistine was as unknown, as extinct, as the dodo. Chopin might havewritten his music for them. "

"I am interested in Shopang, " put in Theron, suddenly recallingSister Soulsby's confidences as to the source of her tunes. "He livedwith--what's his name--George something. We were speaking about him onlythis afternoon. "

Celia looked down into her visitor's face at first inquiringly, thenwith a latent grin about her lips. "Yes--George something, " she said, ina tone which mystified him. 

The Rev. Mr. Ware was sitting up, a minute afterward, in a ferment ofawakened consciousness that he had never heard the piano played before. After a little, he noiselessly rearranged the cushions, and settledhimself again in a recumbent posture. It was beyond his strength tofollow that first impulse, and keep his mind abreast with what his earstook in. He sighed and lay back, and surrendered his senses to the mereunthinking charm of it all. 

It was the Fourth Prelude that was singing in the air about him--asimple, plaintive strain wandering at will over a surface of steadyrhythmic movement underneath, always creeping upward through mysteriesof sweetness, always sinking again in cadences of semi-tones. With onlya moment's pause, there came the Seventh Waltz--a rich, bold confusionwhich yet was not confused. Theron's ears dwelt with eager delight uponthe chasing medley of swift, tinkling sounds, but it left his thoughtsfree. 

From where he reclined, he turned his head to scrutinize, one by one, the statues in the corners. No doubt they were beautiful--for this was adepartment in which he was all humility--and one of them, the figure ofa broad-browed, stately, though thick-waisted woman, bending slightlyforward and with both arms broken off, was decently robed from the hipsdownward. The others were not robed at all. Theron stared at them withthe erratic, rippling jangle of the waltz in his ears, and felt that hepossessed a new and disturbing conception of what female emancipationmeant in these later days. Roving along the wall, his glance restedagain upon the largest of the Virgin pictures--a full-length figurein sweeping draperies, its radiant, aureoled head upturned in raptadoration, its feet resting on a crescent moon which shone forth inbluish silver through festooned clouds of cherubs. The incongruitybetween the unashamed statues and this serene incarnation of holywomanhood jarred upon him for the instant. Then his mind went to thepiano. 

Without a break the waltz had slowed and expanded into a passage of whatmight be church music, an exquisitely modulated and gently solemn chant, through which a soft, lingering song roved capriciously, forcing thelistener to wonder where it was coming out, even while it caressed andsoothed to repose. 

He looked from the Madonna to Celia. Beyond the carelessly droopingbraids and coils of hair which blazed between the candles, he could seethe outline of her brow and cheek, the noble contour of her lifted chinand full, modelled throat, all pink as the most delicate rose leafis pink, against the cool lights of the altar-like wall. The sightconvicted him in the court of his own soul as a prurient and mean-mindedrustic. In the presence of such a face, of such music, there ceased tobe any such thing as nudity, and statues no more needed clothes thandid those slow, deep, magnificent chords which came now, gravelyaccumulating their spell upon him. 

"It is all singing!" the player called out to him over her shoulder, ina minute of rest. "That is what Chopin does--he sings!"

She began, with an effect of thinking of something else, the SixthNocturne, and Theron at first thought she was not playing anything inparticular, so deliberately, haltingly, did the chain of charm unwinditself into sequence. Then it came closer to him than the others haddone. The dreamy, wistful, meditative beauty of it all at once oppressedand inspired him. He saw Celia's shoulders sway under the impulse of theRUBATO license--the privilege to invest each measure with the stress ofthe whole, to loiter, to weep, to run and laugh at will--and the musicshe made spoke to him as with a human voice. There was the wooing senseof roses and moonlight, of perfumes, white skins, alluring languorouseyes, and then--

"You know this part, of course, " he heard her say. 

On the instant they had stepped from the dark, scented, starlit garden, where the nightingale sang, into a great cathedral. A sombre and loftyanthem arose, and filled the place with the splendor of such dignifiedpomp of harmony and such suggestions of measureless choral power andauthority that Theron sat abruptly up, then was drawn resistlessly tohis feet. He stood motionless in the strange room, feeling most of allthat one should kneel to hear such music. 

"This you'll know too--the funeral march from the Second Sonata, " shewas saying, before he realized that the end of the other had come. Hesank upon the divan again, bending forward and clasping his hands tightaround his knees. His heart beat furiously as he listened to the weird, mediaeval processional, with its wild, clashing chords held down inthe bondage of an orderly sadness. There was a propelling motion inthe thing--a sense of being borne bodily along--which affected himlike dizziness. He breathed hard through the robust portions of stern, vigorous noise, and rocked himself to and fro when, as rosy mornbreaks upon a storm-swept night, the drums are silenced for the sweet, comforting strain of solitary melody. The clanging minor harmonies intowhich the march relapses came to their abrupt end. Theron rose oncemore, and moved with a hesitating step to the piano. 

"I want to rest a little, " he said, with his hand on her shoulder. 

"Whew! so do I, " exclaimed Celia, letting her hands fall with anexaggerated gesture of weariness. "The sonatas take it out of one! Theyare hideously difficult, you know. They are rarely played. "

"I didn't know, " remarked Theron. She seemed not to mind his hand uponher shoulder, and he kept it there. "I didn't know anything about musicat all. What I do know now is that--that this evening is an event in mylife. "

She looked up at him and smiled. He read unsuspected tendernesses andtolerances of friendship in the depths of her eyes, which emboldenedhim to stir the fingers of that audacious hand in a lingering, caressingtrill upon her shoulder. The movement was of the faintest, but havingventured it, he drew his hand abruptly away. 

"You are getting on, " she said to him. There was an enigmatic twinklein the smile with which she continued to regard him. "We are Hellenizingyou at a great rate. "

A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She shifted her eyes towardvacancy with a swift, abstracted glance, reflected for a moment, thenlet a sparkling half-wink and the dimpling beginnings of an almostroguish smile mark her assent to the conceit, whatever it might be. 

"I will be with you in a moment, " he heard her say; and while the wordswere still in his ears she had risen and passed out of sight throughthe broad, open doorway to the right. The looped curtains fell togetherbehind her. Presently a mellow light spread over their delicatelytranslucent surface--a creamy, undulating radiance which gave the effectof moving about among the myriad folds of the silk. 

Theron gazed at these curtains for a little, then straightened hisshoulders with a gesture of decision, and, turning on his heel, wentover and examined the statues in the further corners minutely. 

"If you would like some more, I will play you the Berceuse now. "

Her voice came to him with a delicious shock. He wheeled round andbeheld her standing at the piano, with one hand resting, palm upward, on the keys. She was facing him. Her tall form was robed now in someshapeless, clinging drapery, lustrous and creamy and exquisitely soft, like the curtains. The wonderful hair hung free and luxuriant about herneck and shoulders, and glowed with an intensity of fiery color whichmade all the other hues of the room pale and vague. A fillet of faint, sky-like blue drew a gracious span through the flame of red above hertemples, and from this there rose the gleam of jewels. Her head inclinedgently, gravely, toward him--with the posture of that armless woman inmarble he had been studying--and her brown eyes, regarding him from theshadows, emitted light. 

"It is a lullaby--the only one he wrote, " she said, as Theron, pale-faced and with tightened lips, approached her. "No--you mustn'tstand there, " she added, sinking into the seat before the instrument;"go back and sit where you were. "

The most perfect of lullabies, with its swaying abandonment to cooingrhythm, ever and again rising in ripples to the point of insisting onsomething, one knows not what, and then rocking, melting away oncemore, passed, so to speak, over Theron's head. He leaned back upon thecushions, and watched the white, rounded forearm which the falling foldsof this strange, statue-like drapery made bare. 

There was more that appealed to his mood in the Third Ballade. Itseemed to him that there were words going along with it--incoherent andimpulsive yet very earnest words, appealing to him in strenuous argumentand persuasion. Each time he almost knew what they said, and strainedafter their meaning with a passionate desire, and then there would comea kind of cuckoo call, and everything would swing dancing off again intoa mockery of inconsequence. 

Upon the silence there fell the pure, liquid, mellifluous melody of asoft-throated woman singing to her lover. 

"It is like Heine--simply a love-poem, " said the girl, over hershoulder. 

Theron followed now with all his senses, as she carried the NinthNocturne onward. The stormy passage, which she banged finely forth, was in truth a lover's quarrel; and then the mild, placid flow of sweetharmonies into which the furore sank, dying languorously away upon asilence all alive with tender memories of sound--was that not also apart of love?

They sat motionless through a minute--the man on the divan, the girlat the piano--and Theron listened for what he felt must be the audiblethumping of his heart. 

Then, throwing back her head, with upturned face, Celia began what shehad withheld for the last--the Sixteenth Mazurka. This strange foreignthing she played with her eyes closed, her head tilted obliquely so thatTheron could see the rose-tinted, beautiful countenance, framed as ifasleep in the billowing luxuriance of unloosed auburn hair. He fanciedher beholding visions as she wrought the music--visions full of barbariccolor and romantic forms. As his mind swam along with the gliding, tricksy phantom of a tune, it seemed as if he too could see thesevisions--as if he gazed at them through her eyes. 

It could not be helped. He lifted himself noiselessly to his feet, andstole with caution toward her. He would hear the rest of this weird, voluptuous fantasy standing thus, so close behind her that he could lookdown upon her full, uplifted lace--so close that, if she moved, thatglowing nimbus of hair would touch him. 

There had been some curious and awkward pauses in this last piece, whichTheron, by some side cerebration, had put down to her not watchingwhat her fingers did. There came another of these pauses now--an odd, unaccountable halt in what seemed the middle of everything. He staredintently down upon her statuesque, dreaming face during the hush, andcaught his breath as he waited. There fell at last a few falteringascending notes, making a half-finished strain, and then again there wassilence. 

Celia opened her eyes, and poured a direct, deep gaze into the faceabove hers. Its pale lips were parted in suspense, and the color hadfaded from its cheeks. 

"That is the end, " she said, and, with a turn of her lithe body, stoodswiftly up, even while the echoes of the broken melody seemed panting inthe air about her for completion. 

Theron put his hands to his face, and pressed them tightly against eyesand brow for an instant. Then, throwing them aside with an expansivedownward sweep of the arms, and holding them clenched, he returnedCelia's glance. It was as if he had never looked into a woman's eyesbefore. 

"It CAN'T be the end!" he heard himself saying, in a low voice chargedwith deep significance. He held her gaze in the grasp of his withimplacable tenacity. There was a trouble about breathing, and the mosaicfloor seemed to stir under his feet. He clung defiantly to the one ideaof not releasing her eyes. 

"How COULD it be the end?" he demanded, lifting an uncertain hand tohis breast as he spoke, and spreading it there as if to control thetumultuous fluttering of his heart. "Things don't end that way!"

A sharp, blinding spasm of giddiness closed upon and shook him, whilethe brave words were on his lips. He blinked and tottered under it, asit passed, and then backed humbly to his divan and sat down, gasping alittle, and patting his hand on his heart. There was fright written allover his whitened face. 

"We--we forgot that I am a sick man, " he said feebly, answering Celia'slook of surprised inquiry with a forced, wan smile. "I was afraid myheart had gone wrong. "

She scrutinized him for a further moment, with growing reassurancein her air. Then, piling up the pillows and cushions behind him forsupport, for all the world like a big sister again, she stepped into theinner room, and returned with a flagon of quaint shape and a tiny glass. She poured this latter full to the brim of a thick yellowish, aromaticliquid, and gave it him to drink. 

"This Benedictine is all I happen to have, " she said. "Swallow it down. It will do you good. "

Theron obeyed her. It brought tears to his eyes; but, upon reflection, it was grateful and warming. He did feel better almost immediately. Agreat wave of comfort seemed to enfold him as he settled himself backon the divan. For that one flashing instant he had thought that he wasdying. He drew a long grateful breath of relief, and smiled his content. 

Celia had seated herself beside him, a little away. She sat with herhead against the wall, and one foot curled under her, and almost facedhim. 

"I dare say we forced the pace a little, " she remarked, after a pause, looking down at the floor, with the puckers of a ruminating amusementplaying in the corners of her mouth. "It doesn't do for a man to get tobe a Greek all of a sudden. He must work along up to it gradually. "

He remembered the music. "Oh, if I only knew how to tell you, " hemurmured ecstatically, "what a revelation your playing has been to me!I had never imagined anything like it. I shall think of it to my dyingday. "

He began to remember as well the spirit that was in the air when themusic ended. The details of what he had felt and said rose vaguely inhis mind. Pondering them, his eye roved past Celia's white-robed figureto the broad, open doorway beyond. The curtains behind which she haddisappeared were again parted and fastened back. A dim light was burningwithin, out of sight, and its faint illumination disclosed a room filledwith white marbles, white silks, white draperies of varying sorts, whichshaped themselves, as he looked, into the canopy and trappings of anextravagantly over-sized and sumptuous bed. He looked away again. 

"I wish you would tell me what you really mean by that Greek idea ofyours, " he said with the abruptness of confusion. 

Celia did not display much enthusiasm in the tone of her answer. "Oh, "she said almost indifferently, "lots of things. Absolute freedom frommoral bugbears, for one thing. The recognition that beauty is the onlything in life that is worth while. The courage to kick out of one's lifeeverything that isn't worth while; and so on. "

"But, " said Theron, watching the mingled delicacy and power of the baredarm and the shapely grace of the hand which she had lifted to herface, "I am going to get you to teach it ALL to me. " The memories begancrowding in upon him now, and the baffling note upon which the mazurkahad stopped short chimed like a tuning-fork in his ears. "I want to bea Greek myself, if you're one. I want to get as close to you--to yourideal, that is, as I can. You open up to me a whole world that I had noteven dreamed existed. We swore our friendship long ago, you know: andnow, after tonight--you and the music have decided me. I am going to putthe things out of MY life that are not worthwhile. Only you must helpme; you must tell me how to begin. "

He looked up as he spoke, to enforce the almost tender entreaty of hiswords. The spectacle of a yawn, only fractionally concealed behind thosetalented fingers, chilled his soft speech, and sent a flush over hisface. He rose on the instant. 

Celia was nothing abashed at his discovery. She laughed gayly inconfession of her fault, and held her hand out to let him help herdisentangle her foot from her draperies, and get off the divan. Itseemed to be her meaning that he should continue holding her hand aftershe was also standing. 

"You forgive me, don't you?" she urged smilingly. "Chopin always firstexcites me, then sends me to sleep. You see how YOU sleep tonight!"

The brown, velvety eyes rested upon him, from under their heavy lids, with a languorous kindliness. Her warm, large palm clasped his in frankliking. 

"I don't want to sleep at all, " Mr. Ware was impelled to say. "I want tolie awake and think about--about everything all over again. "

She smiled drowsily. "And you're sure you feel strong enough to walkhome?"

"Yes, " he replied, with a lingering dilatory note, which deepened uponreflection into a sigh. "Oh, yes. "

He followed her and her candle down the magnificent stairway again. Sheblew the light out in the hall, and, opening the front door, stood withhim for a silent moment on the threshold. Then they shook hands oncemore, and with a whispered good-night, parted. 

Celia, returning to the blue and yellow room, lighted a cigarette andhelped herself to some Benedictine in the glass which Theron had used. She looked meditatively at this little glass for a moment, turning itabout in her fingers with a smile. The smile warmed itself suddenly intoa joyous laugh. She tossed the glass aside, and, holding out her flowingskirts with both hands, executed a swinging pirouette in front of thegravely beautiful statue of the armless woman. 

CHAPTER XX

It was apparent to the Rev. Theron Ware, from the very first moment ofwaking next morning, that both he and the world had changed over night. The metamorphosis, in the harsh toils of which he had been laboringblindly so long, was accomplished. He stood forth, so to speak, in a newskin, and looked about him, with perceptions of quite an altered kind, upon what seemed in every way a fresh existence. He lacked even theimpulse to turn round and inspect the cocoon from which he had emerged. Let the past bury the past. He had no vestige of interest in it. 

The change was not premature. He found himself not in the least confusedby it, or frightened. Before he had finished shaving, he knew himselfto be easily and comfortably at home in his new state, and master of allits requirements. 

It seemed as if Alice, too, recognized that he had become another man, when he went down and took his chair at the breakfast table. They hadexchanged no words since their parting in the depot-yard the previousevening--an event now faded off into remote vagueness in Theron'smind. He smiled brilliantly in answer to the furtive, half-sullen, half-curious glance she stole at him, as she brought the dishes in. 

"Ah! potatoes warmed up in cream!" he said, with hearty pleasure in histone. "What a mind-reader you are, to be sure!"

"I'm glad you're feeling so much better, " she said briefly, taking herseat. 

"Better?" he returned. "I'm a new being!"

She ventured to look him over more freely, upon this assurance. Heperceived and catalogued, one by one, the emotions which the small brainwas expressing through those shallow blue eyes of hers. She wasturning over this, that, and the other hostile thought and childishgrievance--most of all she was dallying with the idea of asking himwhere he had been till after midnight. He smiled affably in the face ofthis scattering fire of peevish glances, and did not dream of resentingany phase of them all. 

"I am going down to Thurston's this morning, and order that piano sentup today, " he announced presently, in a casual way. 

"Why, Theron, can we afford it?" the wife asked, regarding him withsurprise. 

"Oh, easily enough, " he replied light-heartedly. "You know they'veincreased my salary. "

She shook her head. "No, I didn't. How should I? You don't realize it, "she went on, dolefully, "but you're getting so you don't tell me theleast thing about your affairs nowadays. "

Theron laughed aloud. "You ought to be grateful--such melancholy affairsas mine have been till now, " he declared--"that is, if it weren't absurdto think such a thing. " Then, more soberly, he explained: "No, my girl, it is you who don't realize. I am carrying big projects in my mind--big, ambitious thoughts and plans upon which great things depend. They nodoubt make me seem preoccupied and absent-minded; but it is a wife'spart to understand, and make allowances, and not intrude trifles whichmay throw everything out of gear. Don't think I'm scolding, my girl. Ionly speak to reassure you and--and help you to comprehend. Of course Iknow that you wouldn't willingly embarrass my--my career. "

"Of course not, " responded Alice, dubiously; "but--but--"

"But what? Theron felt compelled by civility to say, though on theinstant he reproached himself for the weakness of it. 

"Well--I hardly know how to say it, " she faltered, "but it was nicer inthe old days, before you bothered your head about big projects, andyour career, as you call it, and were just a good, earnest, simple youngservant of the Lord. Oh, Theron!" she broke forth suddenly, with tearfulzeal, "I get sometimes lately almost scared lest you should turn out tobe a--a BACKSLIDER!"

The husband sat upright, and hardened his countenance. But yesterday theword would have had in it all sorts of inherited terrors for him. Thismorning's dawn of a new existence revealed it as merely an empty andstupid epithet. 

"These are things not to be said, " he admonished her, after a moment'spause, and speaking with carefully measured austerity. "Least of all arethey to be said to a clergyman--by his wife. "

It was on the tip of Alice's tongue to retort, "Better by his wife thanby outsiders!" but she bit her lips, and kept the gibe back. A rebuke ofthis form and gravity was a novelty in their relations. The fear that ithad been merited troubled, even while it did not convince, her mind, andthe puzzled apprehension was to be read plainly enough on her face. 

Theron, noting it, saw a good deal more behind. Really, it was amazinghow much wiser he had grown all at once. He had been married for years, and it was only this morning that he suddenly discovered how a wifeought to be handled. He continued to look sternly away into space for alittle. Then his brows relaxed slowly and under the visible influence ofmelting considerations. He nodded his head, turned toward her abruptly, and broke the silence with labored amiability. 

"Come, come--the day began so pleasantly--it was so good to feel wellagain--let us talk about the piano instead. That is, " he added, with anobvious overture to playfulness, "if the thought of having a piano isnot too distasteful to you. "

Alice yielded almost effusively to his altered mood. They went togetherinto the sitting-room, to measure and decide between the two availablespaces which were at their disposal, and he insisted with resolutemagnanimity on her settling this question entirely by herself. When atlast he mentioned the fact that it was Friday, and he would look oversome sermon memoranda before he went out, Alice retired to the kitchenin openly cheerful spirits. 

Theron spread some old manuscript sermons before him on his desk, and took down his scribbling-book as well. But there his applicationflagged, and he surrendered himself instead, chin on hand, to staringout at the rhododendron in the yard. He recalled how he had seen Soulsbypatiently studying this identical bush. The notion of Soulsby, notknowing at all how to sing, yet diligently learning those sixths, brought a smile to his mind; and then he seemed to hear Celia callingout over her shoulder, "That's what Chopin does--he sings!" The spiritof that wonderful music came back to him, enfolded him in its wings. Itseemed to raise itself up--a palpable barrier between him and all thathe had known and felt and done before. That was his new birth--thatmarvellous night with the piano. The conceit pleased him--not the lessbecause there flashed along with it the thought that it was a poet thathad been born. Yes; the former country lout, the narrow zealot, theuntutored slave groping about in the dark after silly superstitions, cringing at the scowl of mean Pierces and Winches, was dead. There wasan end of him, and good riddance. In his place there had been born aPoet--he spelled the word out now unabashed--a child of light, alover of beauty and sweet sounds, a recognizable brother to Renan andChopin--and Celia!

Out of the soothing, tenderly grateful revery, a practical suggestionsuddenly took shape. He acted upon it without a moment's delay, gettingout his letter-pad, and writing hurriedly--

"Dear Miss Madden, --Life will be more tolerable to me if beforenightfall I can know that there is a piano under my roof. Even if itremains dumb, it will be some comfort to have it here and look at it, and imagine how a great master might make it speak. 

"Would it be too much to beg you to look in at Thurston's, say at eleventhis forenoon, and give me the inestimable benefit of your judgment inselecting an instrument?

"Do not trouble to answer this, for I am leaving home now, but shallcall at Thurston's at eleven, and wait. 

"Thanking you in anticipation, "I am--"

Here Theron's fluency came to a sharp halt. There were adverbs enoughand to spare on the point of his pen, but the right one was not easy tocome at. "Gratefully, " "faithfully, " "sincerely, " "truly"--each in turnstruck a false note. He felt himself not quite any of these things. Atlast he decided to write just the simple word "yours, " and then waveredbetween satisfaction at his boldness, dread lest he had been over-bold, and, worst of the lot, fear that she would not notice it one way orthe other--all the while he sealed and addressed the letter, put itcarefully in an inner pocket, and got his hat. 

There was a moment's hesitation as to notifying the kitchen of hisdeparture. The interests of domestic discipline seemed to point theother way. He walked softly through the hall, and let himself out by thefront door without a sound. 

Down by the canal bridge he picked out an idle boy to his mind--a ladwhose aspect appeared to promise intelligence as a messenger, combinedwith large impartiality in sectarian matters. He was to have tencents on his return; and he might report himself to his patron at thebookstore yonder. 

Theron was grateful to the old bookseller for remaining at his desk inthe rear. There was a tacit compliment in the suggestion that he wasnot a mere customer, demanding instant attention. Besides, there was nokeeping "Thurston's" out of conversations in this place. 

Loitering along the shelves, the young minister's eye suddenly founditself arrested by a name on a cover. There were a dozen narrow volumesin uniform binding, huddled together under a cardboard label of "EminentWomen Series. " Oddly enough, one of these bore the title "George Sand. "Theron saw there must be some mistake, as he took the book down, andopened it. His glance hit by accident upon the name of Chopin. Then heread attentively until almost the stroke of eleven. 

"We have to make ourselves acquainted with all sorts of queer phases oflife, " he explained in self-defence to the old bookseller, then countingout the money for the book from his lean purse. He smiled as he added, "There seems something almost wrong about taking advantage of theclergyman's discount for a life of George Sand. "

"I don't know, " answered the other, pleasantly. "Guess she wasn'tso much different from the rest of 'em--except that she didn't mindappearances. We know about her. We don't know about the others. "

"I must hurry, " said Theron, turning on his heel. The haste with whichhe strode out of the store, crossed the street, and made his way towardThurston's, did not prevent his thinking much upon the astonishingthings he had encountered in this book. Their relation to Celia forceditself more and more upon his mind. He could recall the twinkle inher eye, the sub-mockery in her tone, as she commented with thathalf-contemptuous "Yes--George something!" upon his blunderingignorance. His mortification at having thus exposed his dull rusticitywas swallowed up in conjectures as to just what her tolerant familiaritywith such things involved. He had never before met a young unmarriedwoman who would have confessed to him any such knowledge. But then, ofcourse, he had never known a girl who resembled Celia in any other way. He recognized vaguely that he must provide himself with an entire newset of standards by which to measure and comprehend her. But it was forthe moment more interesting to wonder what her standards were. Did sheobject to George Sand's behavior? Or did she sympathize with that sortof thing? Did those statues, and the loose-flowing diaphonous togaand unbound hair, the cigarettes, the fiery liqueur, the deliberatelysensuous music--was he to believe that they signified--?

"Good-morning, Mr. Ware. You have managed by a miracle to hit on one ofmy punctual days, " said Celia. 

She was standing on the doorstep, at the entrance to the musicaldepartment of Thurston's. He had not noticed before the fact that thesun was shining. The full glare of its strong light, enveloping herfigure as she stood, and drawing the dazzled eye for relief to the bowerof softened color, close beneath her parasol of creamy silk and lace, was what struck him now first of all. It was as if Celia had brought thesun with her. 

Theron shook hands with her, and found joy in the perception, that hisown hand trembled. He put boldly into words the thought that came tohim. 

"It was generous of you, " he said, "to wait for me out here, where allmight delight in the sight of you, instead of squandering the privilegeon a handful of clerks inside. "

Miss Madden beamed upon him, and nodded approval. 

"Alcibiades never turned a prettier compliment, " she remarked. They wentin together at this, and Theron made a note of the name. 

During the ensuing half-hour, the young minister followed about evenmore humbly than the clerks in Celia's commanding wake. There were agood many pianos in the big show-room overhead, and Theron found himselfalmost awed by their size and brilliancy of polish, and the thought ofthe tremendous sum of money they represented altogether. Not so with theorganist. She ordered them rolled around this way or that, as if theyhad been so many checkers on a draught-board. She threw back theircovers with the scant ceremony of a dispensary dentist opening paupers'mouths. She exploited their several capacities with masterful hands, not deigning to seat herself, but just slightly bending forward, andsweeping her fingers up and down their keyboards--able, domineeringfingers which pounded, tinkled, meditated, assented, condemned, all ina flash, and amid what affected the layman's ears as a hopelesslydiscordant hubbub. 

Theron moved about in the group, nursing her parasol in his arms, andwatching her. The exaggerated deference which the clerks and salesmenshowed to her as the rich Miss Madden, seemed to him to be mixed with acertain assertion of the claims of good-fellowship on the score of herbeing a musician. There undoubtedly was a sense of freemasonry betweenthem. They alluded continually in technical terms to matters of which heknew nothing, and were amused at remarks of hers which to him carried nomeaning whatever. It was evident that the young men liked her, and thattheir liking pleased her. It thrilled him to think that she knew heliked her, too, and to recall what abundant proofs she had given thathere, also, she had pleasure in the fact. He clung insistently to thememory of these evidences. They helped him to resist a disagreeabletendency to feel himself an intruder, an outsider, among thesepianoforte experts. 

When it was all over, Celia waved the others aside, and talked withTheron. "I suppose you want me to tell you the truth, " she said. "There's nothing here really good. It is always much better to buy ofthe makers direct. "

"Do they sell on the instalment plan?" he asked. There was a wistfuleffect in his voice which caught her attention. 

She looked away--out through the window on the street below--fora moment. Then her eyes returned to his, and regarded him with acomforting, friendly, half-motherly glance, recalling for all the worldthe way Sister Soulsby had looked at him at odd times. 

"Oh, you want it at once--I see, " she remarked softly. "Well, thisAdelberger is the best value for the money. "

Mr. Ware followed her finger, and beheld with dismay that it pointedtoward the largest instrument in the room--a veritable leviathan amongpianos. The price of this had been mentioned as $600. He turned over thefact that this was two-thirds his yearly salary, and found the courageto shake his head. 

"It would be too large--much too large--for the room, " he explained. "And, besides, it is more than I like to pay--or CAN pay, for thatmatter. " It was pitiful to be explaining such details, but there was nohelp for it. 

They picked out a smaller one, which Celia said was at least of fairquality. "Now leave all the bargaining to me, " she adjured him. "Theseprices that they talk about in the piano trade are all in the air. Thereare tremendous discounts, if one knows how to insist upon them. Allyou have to do is to tell them to send it to your house--you wanted ittoday, you said?"

"Yes--in memory of yesterday, " he murmured. 

She herself gave the directions, and Thurston's people, now all salesmenagain, bowed grateful acquiescence. Then she sailed regally across theroom and down the stairs, drawing Theron in her train. The hirelingsmade salaams to him as well; it would have been impossible to interposeanything so trivial and squalid as talk about terms and dates ofpayment. 

"I am ever so much obliged to you, " he said fervently, in thecomparative solitude of the lower floor. She had paused to look atsomething in the book-department. 

"Of course I was entirely at your service; don't mention it, " shereplied, reaching forth her hand in an absent way for her parasol. 

He held up instead the volume he had purchased. "Guess what that is! Younever would guess in this wide world!" His manner was surcharged with asense of the surreptitious. 

"Well, then, there's no good trying, IS there?" commented Celia, herglance roving again toward the shelves. 

"It is a life of George Sand, " whispered Theron. "I've been reading itthis morning--all the Chopin part--while I was waiting for you. "

To his surprise, there was an apparently displeased contraction of herbrows as he made this revelation. For the instant, a dreadful fear ofhaving offended her seized upon and sickened him. But then her facecleared, as by magic. She smiled, and let her eyes twinkle in laughterat him, and lifted a forefinger in the most winning mockery ofadmonition. 

"Naughty! naughty!" she murmured back, with a roguishly solemn wink. 

He had no response ready for this, but mutely handed her the parasol. The situation had suddenly grown too confused for words, or even sequentthoughts. Uppermost across the hurly-burly of his mind there scudded thesingular reflection that he should never hear her play on that new pianoof his. Even as it flashed by out of sight, he recognized it for one ofthe griefs of his life; and the darkness which followed seemed nothingbut a revolt against the idea of having a piano at all. He wouldcountermand the order. He would--but she was speaking again. 

They had strolled toward the door, and her voice was as placidlyconventional as if the talk had never strayed from the subject ofpianos. Theron with an effort pulled himself together, and laid hold ofher words. 

"I suppose you will be going the other way, " she was saying. "I shallhave to be at the church all day. We have just got a new Mass over fromVienna, and I'm head over heels in work at it. I can have Father Forbesto myself today, too. That bear of a doctor has got the rheumatism, andcan't come out of his cave, thank Heaven!"

And then she was receding from view, up the sunlit, busy sidewalk, andTheron, standing on the doorstep, ruefully rubbed his chin. She had saidhe was going the other way, and, after a little pause, he made her wordsgood, though each step he took seemed all in despite of his personalinclinations. Some of the passers-by bowed to him, and one or twopaused as if to shake hands and exchange greetings. He nodded responsesmechanically, but did not stop. It was as if he feared to interrupt theprocess of lifting his reluctant feet and propelling them forward, lestthey should wheel and scuttle off in the opposite direction. 

CHAPTER XXI

Deliberate as his progress was, the diminishing number of store-frontsalong the sidewalk, and the increasing proportion of picket-fencesenclosing domestic lawns, forced upon Theron's attention the fact thathe was nearing home. It was a trifle past the hour for his midday meal. He was not in the least hungry; still less did he feel any desire justnow to sit about in that library living-room of his. Why should he gohome at all? There was no reason whatever--save that Alice would beexpecting him. Upon reflection, that hardly amounted to a reason. Wives, with their limited grasp of the realities of life, were always expectingtheir husbands to do things which it turned out not to be feasible forthem to do. The customary male animal spent a considerable part of hislife in explaining to his mate why it had been necessary to disappointor upset her little plans for his comings and goings. It was in the verynature of things that it should be so. 

Sustained by these considerations, Mr. Ware slackened his steps, thenhalted irresolutely, and after a minute's hesitation, entered the smalltemperance restaurant before which, as by intuition, he had paused. Theelderly woman who placed on the tiny table before him the tea and rollshe ordered, was entirely unknown to him, he felt sure, yet none the lessshe smiled at him, and spoke almost familiarly--"I suppose Mrs. Ware isat the seaside, and you are keeping bachelor's hall?"

"Not quite that, " he responded stiffly, and hurried through the meagreand distasteful repast, to avoid any further conversation. 

There was an idea underlying her remark, however, which recurred to himwhen he had paid his ten cents and got out on the street again. Therewas something interesting in the thought of Alice at the seaside. Neither of them had ever laid eyes on salt water, but Theron took forgranted the most extravagant landsman's conception of its curative andinvigorating powers. It was apparent to him that he was going to paymuch greater attention to Alice's happiness and well-being in the futurethan he had latterly done. He had bought her, this very day, a superbnew piano. He was going to simply insist on her having a hired girl. Andthis seaside notion--why, that was best of all. 

His fancy built up pleasant visions of her feasting her delighted eyesupon the marvel of a great ocean storm, or roaming along a beach strewnwith wonderful marine shells, exhibiting an innocent joy in theirbeauty. The fresh sea-breeze blew through her hair, as he saw her inmind's eye, and brought the hardy flush of health back upon her ratherpallid cheeks. He was prepared already hardly to know her, so robust andrevivified would she have become, by the time he went down to the depotto meet her on her return. 

For his imagination stopped short of seeing himself at the seaside. It sketched instead pictures of whole weeks of solitary academic calm, alone with his books and his thoughts. The facts that he had no books, and that nobody dreamed of interfering with his thoughts, subordinatedthemselves humbly to his mood. The prospect, as he mused fondly uponit, expanded to embrace the priest's and the doctor's libraries; thethoughts which he longed to be alone with involved close communionwith their thoughts. It could not but prove a season of immense mentalstimulation and ethical broadening. It would have its lofty poetic andartistic side as well; the languorous melodies of Chopin stole over hisrevery, as he dwelt upon these things, and soft azure and golden lightsmodelled forth the exquisite outlines of tall marble forms. 

He opened the gate leading to Dr. Ledsmar's house. His walk had broughthim quite out of the town, and up, by a broad main highway whichyet took on all sorts of sylvan charms, to a commanding site on thehillside. Below, in the valley, lay Octavius, at one end half-hidden infactory smoke, at the other, where narrow bands of water gleamed uponthe surface of a broad plain piled symmetrically with lumber, presentingan oddly incongruous suggestion of forest odors and the simplicity ofthe wilderness. In the middle distance, on gradually rising ground, stretched a wide belt of dense, artificial foliage, peeping throughwhich tiled turrets and ornamented chimneys marked the polite residencesof those who, though they neither stoked the furnace fires to the west, nor sawed the lumber on the east, lived in purple and fine linen fromthe profits of this toil. Nearer at hand, pastures with grazing cows onthe one side of the road, and the nigh, weather-stained board fenceof the race-course on the other, completed the jumble of primitiverusticity and urban complications characterizing the whole picture. 

Dr. Ledsmar's house, toward which Theron's impulses had been secretlyleading him ever since Celia's parting remark about the rheumatism, wasof that spacious and satisfying order of old-fashioned houses which menof leisure and means built for themselves while the early traditions ofa sparse and contented homogeneous population were still strong in theRepublic. There was a hospitable look about its wide veranda, its broad, low bulk, and its big, double front door, which did not fit at all withthe sketch of a man-hating recluse that the doctor had drawn of himself. 

Theron had prepared his mind for the effect of being admitted by aChinaman, and was taken somewhat aback when the door was opened by thedoctor himself. His reception was pleasant enough, almost cordial, butthe sense of awkwardness followed him into his host's inner room andrested heavily upon his opening speech. 

"I heard, quite by accident, that you were ill, " he said, laying asidehis hat. 

"It's nothing at all, " replied Ledsmar. "Merely a stiff shoulder that Iwear from time to time in memory of my father. It ought to be quite goneby nightfall. It was good of you to come, all the same. Sit down if youcan find a chair. As usual, we are littered up to our eyes here. That'sit--throw those things on the floor. "

Mr. Ware carefully deposited an armful of pamphlets on the rug at hisfeet, and sat down. Litter was indeed the word for what he saw abouthim. Bookcases, chairs, tables, the corners of the floor, were allburied deep under disorderly strata of papers, diagrams, and openedbooks. One could hardly walk about without treading on them. The dustwhich danced up into the bar of sunshine streaming in from the window, as the doctor stepped across to another chair, gave Theron new ideasabout the value of Chinese servants. 

"I must thank you, first of all, doctor, " he began, "for your kindnessin coming when I was ill. 'I was sick, and ye visited me. '"

"You mustn't think of it that way, " said Ledsmar; "your friend came forme, and of course I went; and gladly too. There was nothing that Icould do, or that anybody could do. Very interesting man, that friendof yours. And his wife, too--both quite out of the common. I don't knowwhen I've seen two such really genuine people. I should like to haveknown more of them. Are they still here?"

"They went yesterday, " Theron replied. His earlier shyness had worn off, and he felt comfortably at his ease. "I don't know, " he went on, "thatthe word 'genuine' is just what would have occurred to me to describethe Soulsbys. They are very interesting people, as you say--MOSTinteresting--and there was a time, I dare say, when I should havebelieved in their sincerity. But of course I saw them and theirperformance from the inside--like one on the stage of a theatre, youknow, instead of in the audience, and--well, I understand things betterthan I used to. "

The doctor looked over his spectacles at him with a suggestion ofinquiry in his glance, and Theron continued: "I had several long talkswith her; she told me very frankly the whole story of her life--and andit was decidedly queer, I can assure you! I may say to you--you willunderstand what I mean--that since my talk with you, and the books youlent me, I see many things differently. Indeed, when I think upon itsometimes my old state of mind seems quite incredible to me. I can useno word for my new state short of illumination. "

Dr. Ledsmar continued to regard his guest with that calm, interrogatoryscrutiny of his. He did not seem disposed to take up the great issue ofillumination. "I suppose, " he said after a little, "no woman can comein contact with a priest for any length of time WITHOUT telling him the'story of her life, ' as you call it. They all do it. The thing amountsto a law. "

The young minister's veins responded with a pleasurable thrill to theuse of the word "priest" in obvious allusion to himself. "Perhaps infairness I ought to explain, " he said, "that in her case it was onlydone in the course of a long talk about myself. I might say that it wasby way of kindly warning to me. She saw how I had become unsettled inmany--many of my former views--and she was nervous lest this should leadme to--to--"

"To throw up the priesthood, " the doctor interposed upon his hesitation. "Yes, I know the tribe. Why, my dear sir, your entire profession wouldhave perished from the memory of mankind, if it hadn't been for women. It is a very curious subject. Lots of thinkers have dipped into it, but no one has gone resolutely in with a search-light and exploited thewhole thing. Our boys, for instance, traverse in their younger years allthe stages of the childhood of the race. They have terrifying dreamsof awful monsters and giant animals of which they have never so muchas heard in their waking hours; they pass through the lust for diggingcaves, building fires, sleeping out in the woods, hunting with bowsand arrows--all remote ancestral impulses; they play games with stones, marbles, and so on at regular stated periods of the year which theyinstinctively know, just as they were played in the Bronze Age, andheaven only knows how much earlier. But the boy goes through all this, and leaves it behind him--so completely that the grown man feels himselfmore a stranger among boys of his own place who are thinking and doingprecisely the things he thought and did a few years before, than hewould among Kurds or Esquimaux. But the woman is totally different. Sheis infinitely more precocious as a girl. At an age when her slow brotheris still stubbing along somewhere in the neolithic period, she has flownway ahead to a kind of mediaeval stage, or dawn of mediaevalism, whichis peculiarly her own. Having got there, she stays there; she diesthere. The boy passes her, as the tortoise did the hare. He goes on, if he is a philosopher, and lets her remain in the dark ages, where shebelongs. If he happens to be a fool, which is customary, he stops andhangs around in her vicinity. "

Theron smiled. "We priests, " he said, and paused again to enjoy thewords--"I suppose I oughtn't to inquire too closely just where we belongin the procession. "

"We are considering the question impersonally, " said the doctor. "Firstof all, what you regard as religion is especially calculated to attractwomen. They remain as superstitious today, down in the marrow of theirbones, as they were ten thousand years ago. Even the cleverest ofthem are secretly afraid of omens, and respect auguries. Think of thebroadest women you know. One of them will throw salt over her shoulderif she spills it. Another drinks money from her cup by skimming thebubbles in a spoon. Another forecasts her future by the arrangement oftea-grounds. They make the constituency to which an institution basedon mysteries, miracles, and the supernatural generally, would naturallyappeal. Secondly, there is the personality of the priest. "

"Yes, " assented Ware. There rose up before him, on the instant, thegraceful, portly figure and strong, comely face of Father Forbes. 

"Women are not a metaphysical people. They do not easily followabstractions. They want their dogmas and religious sentiments embodiedin a man, just as they do their romantic fancies. Of course youProtestants, with your married clergy, see less of the effects of thisthan celibates do, but even with you there is a great deal in it. Why, the very institution of celibacy itself was forced upon the earlyChristian Church by the scandal of rich Roman ladies loading bishopsand handsome priests with fabulous gifts until the passion for curryingfavor with women of wealth, and marrying them or wheedling theirfortunes from them, debauched the whole priesthood. You should read yourJerome. "

"I will--certainly, " said the listener, resolving to remember the nameand refer it to the old bookseller. 

"Well, whatever laws one sect or another makes, the woman's attitudetoward the priest survives. She desires to see him surrounded byflower-pots and candles, to have him smelling of musk. She would liketo curl his hair, and weave garlands in it. Although she is not learnedenough to have ever heard of such things, she intuitively feels in hispresence a sort of backwash of the old pagan sensuality and lasciviousmysticism which enveloped the priesthood in Greek and Roman days. Ugh!It makes one sick!"

Dr. Ledsmar rose, as he spoke, and dismissed the topic with a dry littlelaugh. "Come, let me show you round a bit, " he said. "My shoulder iseasier walking than sitting. "

"Have you never written a book yourself?" asked Theron, getting to hisfeet. 

"I have a thing on serpent-worship, " the scientist replied--"writtenyears ago. "

"I can't tell you how I should enjoy reading it, " urged the other. 

The doctor laughed again. "You'll have to learn German, then, I 'mafraid. It is still in circulation in Germany, I believe, on its meritsas a serious book. I haven't a copy of the edition in English. THAT wasall exhausted by collectors who bought it for its supposed obscenity, like Burton's 'Arabian Nights. ' Come this way, and I will show you mylaboratory. "

They moved out of the room, and through a passage, Ledsmar talking ashe led the way. "I took up that subject, when I was at college, by acurious chance. I kept a young monkey in my rooms, which had been bornin captivity. I brought home from a beer hall--it was in Germany--somepretzels one night, and tossed one toward the monkey. He jumped towardit, then screamed and ran back shuddering with fright. I couldn'tunderstand it at first. Then I saw that the curled pretzel, lying thereon the floor, was very like a little coiled-up snake. The monkey hadnever seen a snake, but it was in his blood to be afraid of one. That incident changed my whole life for me. Up to that evening, I hadintended to be a lawyer. "

Theron did not feel sure that he had understood the point of theanecdote. He looked now, without much interest, at some dark littletanks containing thick water, a row of small glass cases with adders andother lesser reptiles inside, and a general collection of boxes, jars, and similar receptacles connected with the doctor's pursuits. Furtheron was a smaller chamber, with a big empty furnace, and shelves bearingbottles and apparatus like a drugstore. 

It was pleasanter in the conservatory--a low, spacious structure withbroad pathways between the plants, and an awning over the sunny sideof the roof. The plants were mostly orchids, he learned. He had readof them, but never seen any before. No doubt they were curious; but hediscovered nothing to justify the great fuss made about them. The heatgrew oppressive inside, and he was glad to emerge into the garden. Hepaused under the grateful shade of a vine-clad trellis, took off hishat, and looked about him with a sigh of relief. Everything seemedold-fashioned and natural and delightfully free from pretence in thebig, overgrown field of flowers and shrubs. 

Theron recalled with some surprise Celia's indictment of the doctor as aman with no poetry in his soul. "You must be extremely fond of flowers, "he remarked. 

Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. "They have their points, " hesaid briefly. "These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoeciousspecies. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin'stheory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late by-product of theseearlier forms. "

"And is his theory right?" asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show ofinterest. 

"We may know in the course of three or four hundred years, " repliedLedsmar. He looked up into his guest's face with a quizzical half-smile. "That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicatedquestion as sex is involved, " he added. "We have been studying thefemale of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, andwe haven't arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions. "

They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forward of whichwere beginning to show bloom. "Here another task will begin next month, "the doctor observed. "These are salvias, pentstemons, and antirrhinums, or snapdragons, planted very thick for the purpose. Humble-bees boreholes through their base, to save the labor of climbing in and out ofthe flowers, and we don't quite know yet why some hive-bees discover andutilize these holes at once, while others never do. It may be merely theold-fogy conservatism of the individual, or there may be a law in it. "

These seemed very paltry things for a man of such wisdom to botherhis head about. Theron looked, as he was bidden, at the rows of hivesshining in the hot sun on a bench along the wall, but offered no commentbeyond a casual, "My mother was always going to keep bees, but somehowshe never got around to it. They say it pays very well, though. "

"The discovery of the reason why no bee will touch the nectar of theEPIPACTIS LATIFOLIA, though it is sweet to our taste, and wasps aregreedy for it, WOULD pay, " commented the doctor. "Not like a bluerhododendron, in mere money, but in recognition. Lots of men haveachieved a half-column in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' on a smallerbasis than that. "

They stood now at the end of the garden, before a small, dilapidatedsummer-house. On the bench inside, facing him, Theron saw a strangerecumbent figure stretched at full length, apparently sound asleep, orit might be dead. Looking closer, with a startled surprise, he made outthe shaven skull and outlandish garb of a Chinaman. He turned toward hisguide in the expectation of a scene. 

The doctor had already taken out a note-book and pencil, and was drawinghis watch from his pocket. He stepped into the summer-house, and, lifting the Oriental's limp arm, took account of his pulse. Then, withhead bowed low, side-wise, he listened for the heart-action. Finally, hesomewhat brusquely pushed back one of the Chinaman's eyelids, and madea minute inspection of what the operation disclosed. Returning to thelight, he inscribed some notes in his book, put it back in his pocket, and came out. In answer to Theron's marvelling stare, he pointed towarda pipe of odd construction lying on the floor beneath the sleeper. 

"This is one of my regular afternoon duties, " he explained, again withthe whimsical half-smile. "I am increasing his dose monthly by regularstages, and the results promise to be rather remarkable. Heretofore, observations have been made mostly on diseased or morbidly deterioratedsubjects. This fellow of mine is strong as an ox, perfectly nourished, and watched over intelligently. He can assimilate opium enough to killyou and me and every other vertebrate creature on the premises, withoutturning a hair, and he hasn't got even fairly under way yet. "

The thing was unpleasant, and the young minister turned away. Theywalked together up the path toward the house. His mind was full now ofthe hostile things which Celia had said about the doctor. He had vaguelysympathized with her then, upon no special knowledge of his own. Now hefelt that his sentiments were vehemently in accord with hers. The doctorWAS a beast. 

And yet--as they moved slowly along through the garden the thought tooksudden shape in his mind--it would be only justice for him to get alsothe doctor's opinion of Celia. Even while they offended and repelledhim, he could not close his eyes to the fact that the doctor'sexperiments and occupations were those of a patient and exact man ofscience--a philosopher. And what he had said about women--there wascertainly a great deal of acumen and shrewd observation in that. Ifhe would only say what he really thought about Celia, and about herrelations with the priest! Yes, Theron recognized now there was nothingelse that he so much needed light upon as those puzzling ties betweenCelia and Father Forbes. 

He paused, with a simulated curiosity, about one of the flower-beds. "Speaking of women and religion"--he began, in as casual a tone as hecould command--"I notice curiously enough in my own case, that as Idevelop in what you may call the--the other direction, my wife, whoformerly was not especially devote, is being strongly attracted by themost unthinking and hysterical side of--of our church system. "

The doctor looked at him, nodded, and stooped to nip some buds from astalk in the bed. 

"And another case, " Theron went on--"of course it was all so new andstrange to me--but the position which Miss Madden seems to occupy aboutthe Catholic Church here--I suppose you had her in mind when you spoke. "

Ledsmar stood up. "My mind has better things to busy itself with thanmad asses of that description, " he replied. "She is not worth talkingabout--a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed lewdness. Ifshe were even a type, she might be worth considering; but she is simplyan abnormal sport, with a little brain addled by notions that she islike Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the factthat she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ought to have herwhipped. "

Mr. Ware drew himself erect, as he listened to these outrageous words. It would be unmanly, he felt, to allow such comments upon an absentfriend to pass unrebuked. Yet there was the courtesy due to a host tobe considered. His mind, fluttering between these two extremes, alighted abruptly upon a compromise. He would speak so as to show hisdisapproval, yet not so as to prevent his finding out what he wanted toknow. The desire to hear Ledsmar talk about Celia and the priestseemed now to have possessed him for a long time, to have dictated hisunpremeditated visit out here, to have been growing in intensity all thewhile he pretended to be interested in orchids and bees and the druggedChinaman. It tugged passionately at his self-control as he spoke. 

"I cannot in the least assent to your characterization of the lady, " hebegan with rhetorical dignity. 

"Bless me!" interposed the doctor, with deceptive cheerfulness, "that isnot required of you at all. It is a strictly personal opinion, offeredmerely as a contribution to the general sum of hypotheses. "

"But, " Theron went on, feeling his way, "of course, I gathered thatevening that you had prejudices in the matter; but these are ratherapart from the point I had in view. We were speaking, you will remember, of the traditional attitude of women toward priests--wanting to curltheir hair and put flowers in it, you know, and that suggested to mesome individual illustrations, and it occurred to me to wonder just whatwere the relations between Miss Madden and--and Father Forbes. Shesaid this morning, for instance--I happened to meet her, quite byaccident--that she was going to the church to practise a new piece, andthat she could have Father Forbes to herself all day. Now that wouldbe quite an impossible remark in our--that is, in any Protestantcircles--and purely as a matter of comparison, I was curious to ask youjust how much there was in it. I ask you, because going there so muchyou have had exceptional opportunities for--"

A sharp exclamation from his companion interrupted the clergyman'shesitating monologue. It began like a high-pitched, violent word, butdwindled suddenly into a groan of pain. The doctor's face, too, whichhad on the flash of Theron's turning seemed given over to unmixed anger, took on an expression of bodily suffering instead. 

"My shoulder has grown all at once excessively painful, " he saidhastily. "I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me, Mr. Ware. "

Carrying the afflicted side with ostentatious caution, he led the waywithout ado round the house to the front gate on the road. He had puthis left hand under his coat to press it against his aching shoulder, and his right hung palpably helpless. This rendered it impossible forhim to shake hands with his guest in parting. 

"You're sure there's nothing I can do, " said Theron, lingering on theouter side of the gate. "I used to rub my father's shoulders and back;I'd gladly--"

"Oh, not for worlds!" groaned the doctor. His anguish was so impressivethat Theron, as he walked down the road, quite missed the fact thatthere had been no invitation to come again. 

Dr. Ledsmar stood for a minute or two, his gaze meditatively followingthe retreating figure. Then he went in, opening the front door withhis right hand, and carrying himself once more as if there were no suchthing as rheumatism in the world. He wandered on through the hall intothe laboratory, and stopped in front of the row of little tanks full ofwater. 

Some deliberation was involved in whatever his purpose might be, for helooked from one tank to another with a pondering, dilatory gaze. At lasthe plunged his hand into the opaque fluid and drew forth a long, slim, yellowish-green lizard, with a coiling, sinuous tail and a pointed, evilhead. The reptile squirmed and doubled itself backward around his wrist, darting out and in with dizzy swiftness its tiny forked tongue. 

The doctor held the thing up to the light, and, scrutinizing it throughhis spectacles, nodded his head in sedate approval. A grim smile curledin his beard. 

"Yes, you are the type, " he murmured to it, with evident enjoyment inthe conceit. "Your name isn't Johnny any more. It's the Rev. TheronWare. "

CHAPTER XXII

The annual camp-meeting of the combined Methodist districts of Octaviusand Thessaly was held this year in the second half of September, alittle later than usual. Of the nine days devoted to this curioussurvival of primitive Wesleyanism, the fifth fell upon a Saturday. Onthe noon of that day the Rev. Theron Ware escaped for some hours fromthe burden of work and incessant observation which he shared with twentyother preachers, and walked alone in the woods. 

The scene upon which he turned his back was one worth looking at. Aspacious, irregularly defined clearing in the forest lay level as atennis-court, under the soft haze of autumn sunlight. In the centre wasa large, roughly constructed frame building, untouched by paint, butstained and weather-beaten with time. Behind it were some lines ofhorse-sheds, and still further on in that direction, where the treesbegan, the eye caught fragmentary glimpses of low roofs and the frontsof tiny cottages, withdrawn from full view among the saplings andunderbrush. At the other side of the clearing, fully fourscore tentswere pitched, some gray and mended, others dazzlingly white in theirnewness. The more remote of these tents fell into an orderly arrangementof semi-circular form, facing that part of the engirdling woods wherethe trees were largest, and their canopy of overhanging foliage waslifted highest from the ground. Inside this half-ring of tents were manyrounded rows of benches, which followed in narrowing lines the idea ofan amphitheatre cut in two. In the centre, just under the edge of theroof of boughs, rose a wooden pagoda, in form not unlike an open-airstand for musicians. In front of this, and leading from it on the levelof its floor, there projected a platform, railed round with aggressivelyrustic woodwork. The nearest benches came close about this platform. 

At the hour when Theron started away, there were few enough signs oflife about this encampment. The four or five hundred people who were inconstant residence were eating their dinners in the big boarding-house, or the cottages or the tents. It was not the time of day for strangers. Even when services were in progress by daylight, the regular attendantsdid not make much of a show, huddled in a gray-black mass at the frontof the auditorium, by comparison with the great green and blue expansesof nature about them. 

The real spectacle was in the evening when, as the shadows gathered, bigclusters of kerosene torches, hung on the trees facing the audience werelighted. The falling darkness magnified the glow of the lights, andthe size and importance of what they illumined. The preacher, bendingforward over the rails of the platform, and fastening his eyes upon theabashed faces of those on the "anxious seat" beneath him, borrowed aneffect of druidical mystery from the wall of blackness about him, fromthe flickering reflections on the branches far above, from the coolnight air which stirred across the clearing. The change was in the bloodof those who saw and heard him, too. The decorum and half-heartednessof their devotions by day deepened under the glare of the torches into afervent enthusiasm, even before the services began. And if there was inthe rustic pulpit a man whose prayers or exhortations could stir theirpulses, they sang and groaned and bellowed out their praises with analmost barbarous license, such as befitted the wilderness. 

But in the evening not all were worshippers. For a dozen miles roundon the country-side, young farm-workers and their girls regarded thecamp-meeting as perhaps the chief event of the year--no more to bemissed than the country fair or the circus, and offering, from manypoints of view, more opportunities for genuine enjoyment than either. Their behavior when they came was pretty bad--not the less so becauseall the rules established by the Presiding Elders for the regulation ofstrangers took it for granted that they would act as viciously asthey knew how. These sight-seers sometimes ventured to occupy the backbenches where the light was dim. More often they stood outside, in thecircular space between the tents and the benches, and mingled cat-calls, drovers' yelps, and all sorts of mocking cries and noises with the"Amens" of the earnest congregation. Their rough horse-play on thefringe of the sanctified gathering was grievous enough; everybody knewthat much worse things went on further out in the surrounding darkness. Indeed, popular report gave to these external phases of thecamp-meeting an even more evil fame than attached to the later moonlighthusking-bees, or the least reputable of the midwinter dances at DaveRandall's low halfway house. 

Cynics said that the Methodists found consolation for this scandal inthe large income they derived from their unruly visitors' gate-money. This was unfair. No doubt the money played its part, but there wassomething else far more important. The pious dwellers in the camp, intent upon reviving in their poor modern way the character andenvironment of the heroic early days, felt the need of just this hostileand scoffing mob about them to bring out the spirit they sought. Theirswas pre-eminently a fighting religion, which languished in peacefulfair weather, but flamed high in the storm. The throng of loafers andlight-minded worldlings of both sexes, with their jeering interruptionsand lewd levity of conduct, brought upon the scene a kind of visiblepersonal devil, with whom the chosen could do battle face to face. Thedaylight services became more and more perfunctory, as the sojourn inthe woods ran its course, and interest concentrated itself upon thenight meetings, for the reason that THEN came the fierce wrestle witha Beelzebub of flesh and blood. And it was not so one-sided a contest, either!

No evening passed without its victories for the pulpit. Careless ormischievous young people who were pushed into the foremost ranks of themockers, and stood grinning and grimacing under the lights, would ofa sudden feel a spell clamped upon them. They would hear a strange, quavering note in the preacher's voice, catch the sense of a piercing, soul-commanding gleam in his eye--not at all to be resisted. Theseoccult forces would take control of them, drag them forward as in adream to the benches under the pulpit, and abase them there likeworms in the dust. And then the preacher would descend, and the eldersadvance, and the torch-fires would sway and dip before the wind of themighty roar that went up in triumph from the brethren. 

These combats with Satan at close quarters, if they made the week-dayevenings exciting, reacted with an effect of crushing dulness upon theSunday services. The rule was to admit no strangers to the groundsfrom Saturday night to Monday morning. Every year attempts were made torescind or modify this rule, and this season at least three-fourths ofthe laymen in attendance had signed a petition in favor of openingthe gates. The two Presiding Elders, supported by a dozen of the olderpreachers, resisted the change, and they had the backing of the morebigoted section of the congregation from Octavius. The controversyreached a point where Theron's Presiding Elder threatened to quit thegrounds, and the leaders of the open-Sunday movement spoke freely of theridiculous figure which its cranks and fanatics made poor Methodism cutin the eyes of modern go-ahead American civilization. Then Theron Waresaw his opportunity, and preached an impromptu sermon upon the sanctityof the Sabbath, which ended all discussion. Sometimes its argumentsseemed to be on one side, sometimes on the other, but always they wereclothed with so serene a beauty of imagery, and moved in such a loftyand rarefied atmosphere of spiritual exaltation, that it was impossibleto link them to so sordid a thing as this question of gate-money. Whenhe had finished, nobody wanted the gates opened. The two factions foundthat the difference between them had melted out of existence. They satentranced by the charm of the sermon; then, glancing around at the emptybenches, glaringly numerous in the afternoon sunlight, they whisperedregrets that ten thousand people had not been there to hear thatmarvellous discourse. Theron's conquest was of exceptional dimensions. The majority, whose project he had defeated, were strangers whoappreciated and admired his effort most. The little minority of his ownflock, though less susceptible to the influence of graceful dictionand delicately balanced rhetoric, were proud of the distinction he hadreflected upon them, and delighted with him for having won theirfight. The Presiding Elders wrung his hand with a significant grip. Theextremists of his own charge beamed friendship upon him for the firsttime. He was the veritable hero of the week. 

The prestige of this achievement made it the easier for Theron to getaway by himself next day, and walk in the woods. A man of such powerhad a right to solitude. Those who noted his departure from the campremembered with pleasure that he was to preach again on the morrow. He was going to commune with God in the depths of the forest, that theMessage next day might be clearer and more luminous still. 

Theron strolled for a little, with an air of aimlessness, until he waswell outside the more or less frequented neighborhood of the camp. Then he looked at the sun and the lay of the land with that informingscrutiny of which the farm-bred boy never loses the trick, turned, andstrode at a rattling pace down the hillside. He knew nothing personallyof this piece of woodland--a spur of the great Adirondack wildernessthrust southward into the region of homesteads and dairies andhop-fields--but he had prepared himself by a study of the map, andhe knew where he wanted to go. Very Soon he hit upon the path he hadcounted upon finding, and at this he quickened his gait. 

Three months of the new life had wrought changes in Theron. He borehimself more erectly, for one thing; his shoulders were thrown back, andseemed thicker. The alteration was even more obvious in his face. Theeffect of lank, wistful, sallow juvenility had vanished. It was thecountenance of a mature, well-fed, and confident man, firmer and morerounded in its outlines, and with a glow of health on its whole surface. Under the chin were the suggestions of fulness which bespeak an easymind. His clothes were new; the frock-coat fitted him, and the thin, dark-colored autumn overcoat, with its silk lining exposed at thebreast, gave a masculine bulk and shape to his figure. He wore a shiningtall hat, and, in haste though he was, took pains not to knock itagainst low-hanging branches. 

All had gone well--more than well--with him. The second QuarterlyConference had passed without a ripple. Both the attendance and thecollections at his church were larger than ever before, and the tone ofthe congregation toward him was altered distinctly for the better. Asfor himself, he viewed with astonished delight the progress he had madein his own estimation. He had taken Sister Soulsby's advice, and theresults were already wonderful. He had put aside, once and for all, thethousand foolish trifles and childish perplexities which formerly hadracked his brain, and worried him out of sleep and strength. He borrowedall sorts of books boldly now from the Octavius public library, andcould swim with a calm mastery and enjoyment upon the deep waters intowhich Draper and Lecky and Laing and the rest had hurled him. He dalliedpleasurably, a little languorously, with a dozen aspects of the caseagainst revealed religion, ranging from the mild heterodoxy of Andover'squalms to the rude Ingersoll's rollicking negation of God himself, as awoman of coquetry might play with as many would-be lovers. They amusedhim; they were all before him to choose; and he was free to postponeindefinitely the act of selection. There was a sense of the luxurious inthis position which softened bodily as well as mental fibres. He ceasedto grow indignant at things below or outside his standards, and hebought a small book which treated of the care of the hand and fingernails. 

Alice had accepted with deference his explanation that shapely handsplayed so important a part in pulpit oratory. For that matter, she nowaccepted whatever he said or did with admirable docility. It was monthssince he could remember her venturing upon a critical attitude towardhim. 

She had not wished to leave home, for the seaside or any other resort, during the summer, but had worked outside in her garden more than usual. This was inexpensive, and it seemed to do her as much good as a holidaycould have done. Her new devotional zeal was now quite an odd thing; ithad not slackened at all from the revival pitch. At the outset she hadtried several times to talk with her husband upon this subject. Hehad discouraged conversation about her soul and its welfare, at firstobliquely, then, under compulsion, with some directness. His thoughtswere absorbed, he said, by the contemplation of vast, abstract schemesof creation and the government of the universe, and it only diverted andembarrassed his mind to try to fasten it upon the details of personalsalvation. Thereafter the topic was not broached between them. 

She bestowed a good deal of attention, too, upon her piano. The knack ofa girlish nimbleness of touch had returned to her after a few weeks, andshe made music which Theron supposed was very good--for her. It pleasedhim, at all events, when he sat and listened to it; but he had a fargreater pleasure, as he listened, in dwelling upon the memories of theyellow and blue room which the sounds always brought up. Although threemonths had passed, Thurston's had never asked for the first paymenton the piano, or even sent in a bill. This impressed him as beingpeculiarly graceful behavior on his part, and he recognized its delicacyby not going near Thurston's at all. 

An hour's sharp walk, occasionally broken by short cuts across openpastures, but for the most part on forest paths, brought Theron to thebrow of a small knoll, free from underbrush, and covered sparsely withbeech-trees. The ground was soft with moss and the powdered remains oflast year's foliage; the leaves above him were showing the first yellowstains of autumn. A sweet smell of ripening nuts was thick upon theair, and busy rustlings and chirpings through the stillness told how thechipmunks and squirrels were attending to their harvest. 

Theron had no ears for these noises of the woodland. He had halted, andwas searching through the little vistas offered between the stout graytrunks of the beeches for some sign of a more sophisticated sort. Yes!there were certainly voices to be heard, down in the hollow. Andnow, beyond all possibility of mistake, there came up to him the low, rhythmic throb of music. It was the merest faint murmur of music, madeup almost wholly of groaning bass notes, but it was enough. He moveddown the slope, swiftly at first, then with increasing caution. Thesounds grew louder as he advanced, until he could hear the harmony ofthe other strings in its place beside the uproar of the big fiddles, anddistinguish from both the measured noise of many feet moving as one. 

He reached a place from which, himself unobserved, he could overlookmuch of what he had come to see. 

The bottom of the glade below him lay out in the full sunshine, as flatand as velvety in its fresh greenness as a garden lawn. Its open expansewas big enough to accommodate several distinct crowds, and here thecrowds were--one massed about an enclosure in which young men wereplaying at football, another gathered further off in a horse-shoe curveat the end of a baseball diamond, and a third thronging at a point wherethe shade of overhanging woods began, focussed upon a centre of interestwhich Theron could not make out. Closer at hand, where a shallow streamrippled along over its black-slate bed, some little boys, with legsbared to the thighs, were paddling about, under the charge of two menclad in long black gowns. There were others of these frocked monitorsscattered here and there upon the scene--pallid, close-shaven, monkishfigures, who none the less wore modern hats, and superintended withknowledge the games of the period. Theron remembered that these were theChristian Brothers, the semi-monastic teachers of the Catholic school. 

And this was the picnic of the Catholics of Octavius. He gazed inmingled amazement and exhilaration upon the spectacle. There seemedto be literally thousands of people on the open fields before him, andapparently there were still other thousands in the fringes of the woodsround about. The noises which arose from this multitude--the shouts ofthe lads in the water, the playful squeals of the girls in the swings, the fused uproar of the more distant crowds, and above all the diligent, ordered strains of the dance-music proceeding from some invisibledistance in the greenwood--charmed his ears with their suggestion ofuniversal merriment. He drew a long breath--half pleasure, half wistfulregret--as he remembered that other gathering in the forest which he hadleft behind. 

At any rate, it should be well behind him today, whatever the morrowmight bring! Evidently he was on the wrong side of the circle for theheadquarters of the festivities. He turned and walked to the rightthrough the beeches, making a detour, under cover, of the crowds atplay. At last he rounded the long oval of the clearing, and foundhimself at the very edge of that largest throng of all, which had beentoo far away for comprehension at the beginning. There was no mysterynow. A rough, narrow shed, fully fifty feet in length, imposed itselfin an arbitrary line across the face of this crowd, dividing it into twocompact halves. Inside this shed, protected all round by a waist-highbarrier of boards, on top of which ran a flat, table-like covering, weretwenty men in their shirt-sleeves, toiling ceaselessly to keep abreastof the crowd's thirst for beer. The actions of these bartenders greatlyimpressed Theron. They moved like so many machines, using onehand, apparently, to take money and give change, and with the otherincessantly sweeping off rows of empty glasses, and tossing forward intheir place fresh, foaming glasses five at a time. Hundreds of arms andhands were continually stretched out, on both sides of the shed, towardthis streaming bar, and through the babel of eager cries rose withoutpause the racket of mallets tapping new kegs. 

Theron had never seen any considerable number of his fellow-citizensengaged in drinking lager beer before. His surprise at the facility ofthose behind the bar began to yield, upon observation, to a profoundamazement at the thirst of those before it. The same people seemed tobe always in front, emptying the glasses faster than the busy men insidecould replenish them, and clamoring tirelessly for more. Newcomers hadto force their way to the bar by violent efforts, and once there theystayed until pushed bodily aside. There were actually women to be seenhere and there in the throng, elbowing and shoving like the rest for aplace at the front. Some of the more gallant young men fought theirway outward, from time to time, carrying for safety above their headsglasses of beer which they gave to young and pretty girls standing onthe fringe of the crowd, among the trees. 

Everywhere a remarkable good-humor prevailed. Once a sharp fight brokeout, just at the end of the bar nearest Theron, and one young man wasknocked down. A rush of the onlookers confused everything before theminister's eyes for a minute, and then he saw the aggrieved combatant upon his legs again, consenting under the kindly pressure of the crowd toshake hands with his antagonist, and join him in more beer. The incidentcaught his fancy. There was something very pleasingly human, he thought, in this primitive readiness to resort to fisticuffs, and this frank andgenial reconciliation. 

Perhaps there was something contagious in this wholesale display ofthirst, for the Rev. Mr. Ware became conscious of a notion that heshould like to try a glass of beer. He recalled having heard thatlager was really a most harmless beverage. Of course it was out of thequestion that he should show himself at the bar. Perhaps some one wouldbring him out a glass, as if he were a pretty girl. He looked about fora possible messenger. Turning, he found himself face to face with twosmiling people, into whose eyes he stared for an instant in dumfoundedblankness. Then his countenance flashed with joy, and he held out bothhands in greeting. It was Father Forbes and Celia. 

"We stole down upon you unawares, " said the priest, in his cheeriestmanner. He wore a brown straw hat, and loose clothes hardly at allclerical in form, and had Miss Madden's arm drawn lightly within hisown. "We could barely believe our eyes--that it could be you whom wesaw, here among the sinners!"

"I am in love with your sinners, " responded Theron, as he shook handswith Celia, and trusted himself to look fully into her eyes. "I've hadfive days of the saints, over in another part of the woods, and they'vebored the head off me. "

CHAPTER XXIII

At the command of Father Forbes, a lad who was loitering near them wentdown through the throng to the bar, and returned with three glasses ofbeer. It pleased the Rev. Mr. Ware that the priest should have takenit for granted that he would do as the others did. He knocked his glassagainst theirs in compliance with a custom strange to him, but whichthey seemed to understand very well. The beer itself was not soagreeable to the taste as he had expected, but it was cold andrefreshing. 

When the boy had returned with the glasses, the three stood for a momentin silence, meditatively watching the curious scene spread below them. Beyond the bar, Theron could catch now through the trees regularlyrecurring glimpses of four or five swings in motion. These were nearesthim, and clearest to the vision as well, at the instant when theyreached their highest forward point. The seats were filled with girls, some of them quite grown young women, and their curving upward sweepthrough the air was disclosing at its climax a remarkable profusion ofwhite skirts and black stockings. The sight struck him as indecorous inthe extreme, and he turned his eyes away. They met Celia's; and therewas something latent in their brown depths which prompted him, after abrief dalliance of interchanging glances, to look again at the swings. 

"That old maid Curran is really too ridiculous, with those whitestockings of hers, " remarked Celia; "some friend ought to tell her todye them. "

"Or pad them, " suggested Father Forbes, with a gay little chuckle. "Idaresay the question of swings and ladies' stockings hardly arises withyou, over at the camp-meeting, Mr. Ware?"

Theron laughed aloud at the conceit. "I should say not!" he replied. 

"I'm just dying to see a camp-meeting!" said Celia. "You hear such racyaccounts of what goes on at them. "

"Don't go, I beg of you!" urged Theron, with doleful emphasis. "Don'tlet's even talk about them. I should like to feel this afternoon as ifthere was no such thing within a thousand miles of me as a camp-meeting. Do you know, all this interests me enormously. It is a revelation to meto see these thousands of good, decent, ordinary people, just franklyenjoying themselves like human beings. I suppose that in this whole hugecrowd there isn't a single person who will mention the subject of hissoul to any other person all day long. "

"I should think the assumption was a safe one, " said the priest, smilingly, "unless, " he added on afterthought, "it be by way of a genialprofanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to mysoul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a longtime. I daresay they're all dead. "

"I shall never forget that death-bed--where I saw you first, " remarkedTheron, musingly. "I date from that experience a whole new life. I havebeen greatly struck lately, in reading our 'Northern Christian Advocate'to see in the obituary notices of prominent Methodists how over and overagain it is recorded that they got religion in their youth through beingfrightened by some illness of their own, or some epidemic about them. The cholera year of 1832 seems to have made Methodists hand overfist. Even to this day our most successful revivalists, those who workconversions wholesale wherever they go, do it more by frightful picturesof hell-fire surrounding the sinner's death-bed than anything else. You could hear the same thing at our camp-meeting tonight, if you werethere. "

"There isn't so much difference as you think, " said Father Forbes, dispassionately. "Your people keep examining their souls, just aschildren keep pulling up the bulbs they have planted to see are thereany roots yet. Our people are more satisfied to leave their souls alone, once they have been planted, so to speak, by baptism. But fear of hellgoverns them both, pretty much alike. As I remember saying to you oncebefore, there is really nothing new under the sun. Even the saying isn'tnew. Though there seem to have been the most tremendous changes inraces and civilizations and religions, stretching over many thousandsof years, yet nothing is in fact altered very much. Where religions areconcerned, the human race are still very like savages in a dangerouswood in the dark, telling one another ghost stories around a camp-fire. They have always been like that. "

"What nonsense!" cried Celia. "I have no patience with such gloomyrubbish. The Greeks had a religion full of beauty and happiness andlight-heartedness, and they weren't frightened of death at all. Theymade the image of death a beautiful boy, with a torch turned down. Theirgreatest philosophers openly preached and practised the doctrine ofsuicide when one was tired of life. Our own early Church was full ofthese broad and beautiful Greek ideas. You know that yourself! And itwas only when your miserable Jeromes and Augustines and Cyrils broughtin the abominable meannesses and cruelties of the Jewish Old Testament, and stamped out the sane and lovely Greek elements in the Church, that Christians became the poor, whining, cowardly egotists they are, troubling about their little tin-pot souls, and scaring themselves intheir churches by skulls and crossbones. "

"My dear Celia, " interposed the priest, patting her shoulder gently, "wewill have no Greek debate today. Mr. Ware has been permitted to taboocamp-meetings, and I claim the privilege to cry off on Greeks. Look atthose fellows down there, trampling over one another to get more beer. What have they to do with Athens, or Athens with them? I take it, Mr. Ware, " he went on, with a grave face but a twinkling eye, "that what weare observing here in front of us is symbolical of a great ethicaland theological revolution, which in time will modify and control thedestiny of the entire American people. You see those young Irishmenthere, struggling like pigs at a trough to get their fill of Germanbeer. That signifies a conquest of Teuton over Kelt more important andfar-reaching in its results than the landing of Hengist and Horsa. The Kelt has come to grief heretofore--or at least been forced to playsecond fiddle to other races--because he lacked the right sort of adrink. He has in his blood an excess of impulsive, imaginative, evenfantastic qualities. It is much easier for him to make a fool ofhimself, to begin with, than it is for people of slower wits and moresluggish temperaments. When you add whiskey to that, or that essence ofmelancholia which in Ireland they call 'porther, ' you get the Kelt athis very weakest and worst. These young men down there are changing allthat. They have discovered lager. Already many of them can outdrinkthe Germans at their own beverage. The lager-drinking Irishman in a fewgenerations will be a new type of humanity--the Kelt at his best. Hewill dominate America. He will be THE American. And his church--withthe Italian element thrown clean out of it, and its Pope living, say, inBaltimore or Georgetown--will be the Church of America. "

"Let us have some more lager at once, " put in Celia. "This revolutioncan't be hurried forward too rapidly. "

Theron could not feel sure how much of the priest's discourse was injest, how much in earnest. "It seems to me, " he said, "that as thingsare going, it doesn't look much as if the America of the future willtrouble itself about any kind of a church. The march of science mustvery soon produce a universal scepticism. It is in the nature of humanprogress. What all intelligent men recognize today, the masses mustsurely come to see in time. "

Father Forbes laughed outright this time. "My dear Mr. Ware, " he said, as they touched glasses again, and sipped the fresh beer that had beenbrought them, "of all our fictions there is none so utterly baselessand empty as this idea that humanity progresses. The savage's naturalimpression is that the world he sees about him was made for him, andthat the rest of the universe is subordinated to him and his world, andthat all the spirits and demons and gods occupy themselves exclusivelywith him and his affairs. That idea was the basis of every paganreligion, and it is the basis of the Christian religion, simply becauseit is the foundation of human nature. That foundation is just as firmand unshaken today as it was in the Stone Age. It will alwaysremain, and upon it will always be built some kind of a religioussuperstructure. 'Intelligent men, ' as you call them, really have verylittle influence, even when they all pull one way. The people as a wholesoon get tired of them. They give too much trouble. The most powerfulforces in human nature are self-protection and inertia. The middle-agedman has found out that the chief wisdom in life is to bend to thepressures about him, to shut up and do as others do. Even when he thinkshe has rid his own mind of superstitions, he sees that he will bestenjoy a peaceful life by leaving other peoples' superstitions alone. That is always the ultimate view of the crowd. "

"But I don't see, " observed Theron, "granting that all this is true, howyou think the Catholic Church will come out on top. I could understandit of Unitarianism, or Universalism, or the Episcopal Church, wherenobody seems to have to believe particularly in anything except thebeauty of its burial service, but I should think the very rigidity ofthe Catholic creed would make it impossible. There everything is hardand fast; nothing is elastic; there is no room for compromise. "

"The Church is always compromising, " explained the priest, "only it doesit so slowly that no one man lives long enough to quite catch it at thetrick. No; the great secret of the Catholic Church is that it doesn'tdebate with sceptics. No matter what points you make against it, itis never betrayed into answering back. It simply says these things aresacred mysteries, which you are quite free to accept and be saved, orreject and be damned. There is something intelligible and fine aboutan attitude like that. When people have grown tired of their absurd andfruitless wrangling over texts and creeds which, humanly speaking, areall barbaric nonsense, they will come back to repose pleasantly underthe Catholic roof, in that restful house where things are taken forgranted. There the manners are charming, the service excellent, thedecoration and upholstery most acceptable to the eye, and the music"--hemade a little mock bow here to Celia--"the music at least is divine. There you have nothing to do but be agreeable, and avoid scandal, andobserve the convenances. You are no more expected to express doubtsabout the Immaculate Conception than you are to ask the lady whom youtake down to dinner how old she is. Now that is, as I have said, an intelligent and rational church for people to have. As the Irishcivilize themselves--you observe them diligently engaged in the processdown below there--and the social roughness of their church becomessoftened and ameliorated, Americans will inevitably be attracted towardit. In the end, it will embrace them all, and be modified by them, andin turn influence their development, till you will have a new nation anda new national church, each representative of the other. "

"And all this is to be done by lager beer!" Theron ventured to comment, jokingly. He was conscious of a novel perspiration around the bridge ofhis nose, which was obviously another effect of the drink. 

The priest passed the pleasantry by. "No, " he said seriously; "what youmust see is that there must always be a church. If one did not exist, itwould be necessary to invent it. It is needed, first and foremost, as apolice force. It is needed, secondly, so to speak, as a fire insurance. It provides the most even temperature and pure atmosphere for the growthof young children. It furnishes the best obtainable social machinery formarrying off one's daughters, getting to know the right people, patchingup quarrels, and so on. The priesthood earn their salaries as the agentsfor these valuable social arrangements. Their theology is thrown in asa sort of intellectual diversion, like the ritual of a benevolentorganization. There are some who get excited about this part of it, justas one hears of Free-Masons who believe that the sun rises and sets toexemplify their ceremonies. Others take their duties more quietly, and, understanding just what it all amounts to, make the best of it, like youand me. "

Theron assented to the philosophy and the compliment by a grave bow. "Yes, that is the idea--to make the best of it, " he said, and fastenedhis regard boldly this time upon the swings. 

"We were both ordained by our bishops, " continued the priest, "at anage when those worthy old gentlemen would not have trusted our combinedwisdom to buy a horse for them. "

"And I was married, " broke in Theron, with an eagerness almost vehement, "when I had only just been ordained! At the worst, YOU had only theChurch fastened upon your back, before you were old enough to knowwhat you wanted. It is easy enough to make the best of THAT, but it isdifferent with me. "

A marked silence followed this outburst. The Rev. Mr. Ware had neverspoken of his marriage to either of these friends before; and somethingin their manner seemed to suggest that they did not find the subjectinviting, now that it had been broached. He himself was filled with adesire to say more about it. He had never clearly realized before whata genuine grievance it was. The moisture at the top of his nose mergeditself into tears in the corners of his eyes, as the cruel enormity ofthe sacrifice he had made in his youth rose before him. His whole lifehad been fettered and darkened by it. He turned his gaze from the swingstoward Celia, to claim the sympathy he knew she would feel for him. 

But Celia was otherwise engaged. A young man had come up to her--a talland extremely thin young man, soberly dressed, and with a long, gaunt, hollow-eyed face, the skin of which seemed at once florid and pale. Hehad sandy hair and the rough hands of a workman; but he was speaking toMiss Madden in the confidential tones of an equal. 

"I can do nothing at all with him, " this newcomer said to her. "He'llnot be said by me. Perhaps he'd listen to you!"

"It's likely I'll go down there!" said Celia. "He may do what he likesfor all me! Take my advice, Michael, and just go your way, and leavehim to himself. There was a time when I would have taken out my eyesfor him, but it was love wasted and thrown away. After the warnings he'shad, if he WILL bring trouble on himself, let's make it no affair ofours. "

Theron had found himself exchanging glances of inquiry with this youngman. "Mr. Ware, " said Celia, here, "let me introduce you to my brotherMichael--my full brother. "

Mr. Ware remembered him now, and began, in response to the other'sformal bow, to say something about their having met in the dark, insidethe church. But Celia held up her hand. "I'm afraid, Mr. Ware, " she saidhurriedly, "that you are in for a glimpse of the family skeleton. I willapologize for the infliction in advance. "

Wonderingly, Theron followed her look, and saw another young man whohad come up the path from the crowd below, and was close upon them. Theminister recognized in him a figure which had seemed to be the centre ofalmost every group about the bar that he had studied in detail. He wasa small, dapper, elegantly attired youth, with dark hair, and thehandsome, regularly carved face of an actor. He advanced with a smilingcountenance and unsteady step--his silk hat thrust back upon his head, his frock-coat and vest unbuttoned, and his neckwear disarranged--andsaluted the company with amiability. 

"I saw you up here, Father Forbes, " he said, with a thickened anderratic utterance. "Whyn't you come down and join us? I'm setting 'em upfor everybody. You got to take care of the boys, you know. I'll blow inthe last cent I've got in the world for the boys, every time, and theyknow it. They're solider for me than they ever were for anybody. That'show it is. If you stand by the boys, the boys'll stand by you. I'm goingto the Assembly for this district, and they ain't nobody can stop me. The boys are just red hot for me. Wish you'd come down, Father Forbes, and address a few words to the meeting--just mention that I'm acandidate, and say I'm bound to win, hands down. That'll make you solidwith the boys, and we'll be all good fellows together. Come on down!"

The priest affably disengaged his arm from the clutch which the speakerhad laid upon it, and shook his head in gentle deprecation. "No, no; youmust excuse me, Theodore, " he said. "We mustn't meddle in politics, youknow. "

"Politics be damned!" urged Theodore, grabbing the priest's other arm, and tugging at it stoutly to pull him down the path. "I say, boys" heshouted to those below, "here's Father Forbes, and he's going to comedown and address the meeting. Come on, Father! Come down, and have adrink with the boys!"

It was Celia who sharply pulled his hand away from the priest's armthis time. "Go away with you!" she snapped in low, angry tones at theintruder. "You should be ashamed of yourself! If you can't keep soberyourself, you can at least keep your hands off the priest. I shouldthink you'd have more decency, when you're in such a state as this, thanto come where I am. If you've no respect for yourself, you might havethat much respect for me! And before strangers, too!

"Oh, I mustn't come where YOU are, eh?" remarked the peccant Theodore, straightening himself with an elaborate effort. "You've bought thesewoods, have you? I've got a hundred friends here, all the same, forevery one you'll ever have in your life, Red-head, and don't you forgetit. "

"Go and spend your money with them, then, and don't come insultingdecent people, " said Celia. 

"Before strangers, too!" the young man called out, with beery sarcasm. "Oh, we'll take care of the strangers all right. " He had not seemed tobe aware of Theron's presence, much less his identity, before; but heturned to him now with a knowing grin. "I'm running for the Assembly, Mr. Ware, " he said, speaking loudly and with deliberate effort to avoidthe drunken elisions and comminglings to which his speech tended, "and Iwant you to fix up the Methodists solid for me. I'm going to drive overto the camp-meeting tonight, me and some of the boys in a barouche, andI'll put a twenty-dollar bill on their plate. Here it is now, if youwant to see it. "

As the young man began fumbling in a vest-pocket, Theron gathered hiswits together. 

"You'd better not go this evening, " he said, as convincingly as heknew how; "because the gates will be closed very early, and theSaturday-evening services are of a particularly special nature, quitereserved for those living on the grounds. "

"Rats!" said Theodore, raising his head, and abandoning the search forthe bill. "Why don't you speak out like a man, and say you think I'm toodrunk?"

"I don't think that is a question which need arise between us, Mr. Madden, " murmured Theron, confusedly. 

"Oh, don't you make any mistake! A hell of a lot of questions arisebetween us, Mr. Ware, " cried Theodore, with a sudden accession of vigorin tone and mien. "And one of 'em is--go away from me, Michael!--one of'em is, I say, why don't you leave our girls alone? They've got theirown priests to make fools of themselves over, without any sneak of aProtestant parson coming meddling round them. You're a married man intothe bargain; and you've got in your house this minute a piano that mysister bought and paid for. Oh, I've seen the entry in Thurston's books!You have the cheek to talk to me about being drunk--why--"

These remarks were never concluded, for Father Forbes here clapped ahand abruptly over the offending mouth, and flung his free arm in atight grip around the young man's waist. "Come with me, Michael!" hesaid, and the two men led the reluctant and resisting Theodore at asharp pace off into the woods. 

Theron and Celia stood and watched them disappear among the undergrowth. "It's the dirty Foley blood that's in him, " he heard her say, as ifbetween clenched teeth. 

The girl's big brown eyes, when Theron looked into them again, werestill fixed upon the screen of foliage, and dilated like those of aMedusa mask. The blood had gone away, and left the fair face and neckas white, it seemed to him, as marble. Even her lips, fiercely bittentogether, appeared colorless. The picture of consuming and powerlessrage which she presented, and the shuddering tremor which ran over herform, as visible as the quivering track of a gust of wind across a pond, awed and frightened him. 

Tenderness toward her helpless state came too, and uppermost. He drewher arm into his, and turned their backs upon the picnic scene. 

"Let us walk a little up the path into the woods, " he said, "and getaway from all this. "

"The further away the better, " she answered bitterly, and he felt theshiver run through her again as she spoke. 

The methodical waltz-music from that unseen dancing platform rose againabove all other sounds. They moved up the woodland path, their stepsinsensibly falling into the rhythm of its strains, and vanished fromsight among the trees. 

CHAPTER XXIV

Theron and Celia walked in silence for some minutes, until the noisesof the throng they had left behind were lost. The path they followed hadgrown indefinite among the grass and creepers of the forest carpet;now it seemed to end altogether in a little copse of young birches, thedelicately graceful stems of which were clustered about a parent stump, long since decayed and overgrown with lichens and layers of thick moss. 

As the two paused, the girl suddenly sank upon her knees, then threwherself face forward upon the soft green bark which had formed itselfabove the roots of the ancient mother-tree. Her companion looked downin pained amazement at what he saw. Her body shook with the violenceof recurring sobs, or rather gasps of wrath and grief Her hands, withstiffened, claw-like fingers, dug into the moss and tangle of tinyvines, and tore them by the roots. The half-stifled sounds of weepingthat arose from where her face grovelled in the leaves were terribleto his ears. He knew not what to say or do, but gazed in resourcelesssuspense at the strange figure she made. It seemed a cruelly long timethat she lay there, almost at his feet, struggling fiercely with thefury that was in her. 

All at once the paroxysms passed away, the sounds of wild weepingceased. Celia sat up, and with her handkerchief wiped the tears andleafy fragments from her face. She rearranged her hat and the braids ofher hair with swift, instinctive touches, brushed the woodland debrisfrom her front, and sprang to her feet. 

"I'm all right now, " she said briskly. There was palpable effort in herlight tone, and in the stormy sort of smile which she forced upon herblotched and perturbed countenance, but they were only too welcome toTheron's anxious mood. 

"Thank God!" he blurted out, all radiant with relief. "I feared you weregoing to have a fit--or something. "

Celia laughed, a little artificially at first, then with a genuinesurrender to the comic side of his visible fright. The mirth came backinto the brown depths of her eyes again, and her face cleared itself oftear-stains and the marks of agitation. "I AM a nice quiet party fora Methodist minister to go walking in the woods with, am I not?" shecried, shaking her skirts and smiling at him. 

"I am not a Methodist minister--please!" answered Theron--"at least nottoday--and here--with you! I am just a man--nothing more--a man who hasescaped from lifelong imprisonment, and feels for the first time what itis to be free!"

"Ah, my friend, " Celia said, shaking her head slowly, "I'm afraid youdeceive yourself. You are not by any means free. You are only lookingout of the window of your prison, as you call it. The doors are locked, just the same. "

"I will smash them!" he declared, with confidence. "Or for that matter, I HAVE smashed them--battered them to pieces. You don't realize whatprogress I have made, what changes there have been in me since thatnight, you remember that wonderful night! I am quite another being, Iassure you! And really it dates from way beyond that--why, from the veryfirst evening, when I came to you in the church. The window in FatherForbes' room was open, and I stood by it listening to the music nextdoor, and I could just faintly see on the dark window across thealley-way a stained-glass picture of a woman. I suppose it was theVirgin Mary. She had hair like yours, and your face, too; and that iswhy I went into the church and found you. Yes, that is why. "

Celia regarded him with gravity. "You will get yourself into greattrouble, my friend, " she said. 

"That's where you're wrong, " put in Theron. "Not that I'd mind anytrouble in this wide world, so long as you called me 'my friend, ' butI'm not going to get into any at all. I know a trick worth two of that. I've learned to be a showman. I can preach now far better than I usedto, and I can get through my work in half the time, and keep on theright side of my people, and get along with perfect smoothness. Iwas too green before. I took the thing seriously, and I let everymean-fisted curmudgeon and crazy fanatic worry me, and keep me on pinsand needles. I don't do that any more. I've taken a new measure of life. I see now what life is really worth, and I'm going to have my share ofit. Why should I deliberately deny myself all possible happiness for therest of my days, simply because I made a fool of myself when I was in myteens? Other men are not eternally punished like that, for what theydid as boys, and I won't submit to it either. I will be as free to enjoymyself as--as Father Forbes. "

Celia smiled softly, and shook her head again. "Poor man, to call HIMfree!" she said: "why, he is bound hand and foot. You don't in the leastrealize how he is hedged about, the work he has to do, the thousandsuspicious eyes that watch his every movement, eager to bring the Bishopdown upon him. And then think of his sacrifice--the great sacrifice ofall--to never know what love means, to forswear his manhood, to livea forlorn, celibate life--you have no idea how sadly that appeals to awoman. "

"Let us sit down here for a little, " said Theron; "we seem at the end ofthe path. " She seated herself on the root-based mound, and he reclinedat her side, with an arm carelessly extended behind her on the moss. 

"I can see what you mean, " he went on, after a pause. "But to me, do youknow, there is an enormous fascination in celibacy. You forget that Iknow the reverse of the medal. I know how the mind can be cramped, thenerves harassed, the ambitions spoiled and rotted, the whole existencedarkened and belittled, by--by the other thing. I have never talked toyou before about my marriage. "

"I don't think we'd better talk about it now, " observed Celia. "Theremust be many more amusing topics. "

He missed the spirit of her remark. "You are right, " he said slowly. "Itis too sad a thing to talk about. But there! it is my load, and I bearit, and there's nothing more to be said. "

Theron drew a heavy sigh, and let his fingers toy abstractedly with aribbon on the outer edge of Celia's penumbra of apparel. 

"No, " she said. "We mustn't snivel, and we mustn't sulk. When I get intoa rage it makes me ill, and I storm my way through it and tear things, but it doesn't last long, and I come out of it feeling all the better. I don't know that I've ever seen your wife. I suppose she hasn't got redhair?"

"I think it's a kind of light brown, " answered Theron, with an effect ofexerting his memory. 

"It seems that you only take notice of hair in stained-glass windows, "was Celia's comment. 

"Oh-h!" he murmured reproachfully, "as if--as if--but I won't say what Iwas going to. "

"That's not fair!" she said. The little touch of whimsical mockery whichshe gave to the serious declaration was delicious to him. "You have meat such a disadvantage! Here am I rattling out whatever comes into myhead, exposing all my lightest emotions, and laying bare my very heartin candor, and you meditate, you turn things over cautiously in yourmind, like a second Machiavelli. I grow afraid of you; you are so subtleand mysterious in your reserves. "

Theron gave a tug at the ribbon, to show the joy he had in her delicatechaff. "No, it is you who are secretive, " he said. "You never told meabout--about the piano. "

The word was out! A minute before it had seemed incredible to him thathe should ever have the courage to utter it--but here it was. He laidfirm hold upon the ribbon, which it appeared hung from her waist, anddrew himself a trifle nearer to her. "I could never have consented totake it, I'm afraid, " he went on in a low voice, "if I had known. Andeven as it is, I fear it won't be possible. "

"What are you afraid of?" asked Celia. "Why shouldn't you take it?People in your profession never do get anything unless it's given tothem, do they? I've always understood it was like that. I've oftenread of donation parties--that's what they're called, isn't it?--whereeverybody is supposed to bring some gift to the minister. Very well, then, I've simply had a donation party of my own, that's all. Unlessyou mean that my being a Catholic makes a difference. I had supposed youwere quite free from that kind of prejudice. "

"So I am! Believe me, I am!" urged Theron. "When I'm with you, it seemsimpossible to realize that there are people so narrow and contractedin their natures as to take account of such things. It is anotheratmosphere that I breathe near you. How could you imagine that such athought--about our difference of creed--would enter my head? Infact, " he concluded with a nervous half-laugh, "there isn't any suchdifference. Whatever your religion is, it's mine too. You remember--youadopted me as a Greek. "

"Did I?" she rejoined. "Well, if that's the case, it leaves you withouta leg to stand on. I challenge you to find any instance where a Greekmade any difficulties about accepting a piano from a friend. Butseriously--while we are talking about it--you introduced the subject:I didn't--I might as well explain to you that I had no such intention, when I picked the instrument out. It was later, when I was talking toThurston's people about the price, that the whim seized me. Now it isthe one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims. Whatever occurs to me asa possibly pleasant thing to do, straight like a hash, I go and do it. It is the only way that a person with means, with plenty of money, canpreserve any freshness of character. If they stop to think what it wouldbe prudent to do, they get crusted over immediately. That is the curseof rich people--they teach themselves to distrust and restrain everyimpulse toward unusual actions. They get to feel that it is morenecessary for them to be cautious and conventional than it is forothers. I would rather work at a wash-tub than occupy that attitudetoward my bank account. I fight against any sign of it that I detectrising in my mind. The instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratifyit. That is my theory of life. That accounts for the piano; and I don'tsee that you've anything to say about it at all. "

It seemed very convincing, this theory of life. Somehow, the thoughtof Miss Madden's riches had never before assumed prominence in Theron'smind. Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurredto him that the daughter's emancipation might run to the length of apersonal fortune. He knew so little of rich people and their ways!

He lifted his head, and looked up at Celia with an awakened humility andawe in his glance. The glamour of a separate banking-account shone uponher. Where the soft woodland light played in among the strands of herdisordered hair, he saw the veritable gleam of gold. A mysterious newsuggestion of power blended itself with the beauty of her face, wasexhaled in the faint perfume of her garments. He maintained a timoroushold upon the ribbon, wondering at his hardihood in touching it, orbeing near her at all. 

"What surprises me, " he heard himself saying, "is that you arecontented to stay in Octavius. I should think that you would travel--goabroad--see the beautiful things of the world, surround yourself withthe luxuries of big cities--and that sort of thing. "

Celia regarded the forest prospect straight in front of her witha pensive gaze. "Sometime--no doubt I will sometime, " she saidabstractedly. 

"One reads so much nowadays, " he went on, "of American heiresses goingto Europe and marrying dukes and noblemen. I suppose you will do thattoo. Princes would fight one another for you. "

The least touch of a smile softened for an instant the impassivity ofher countenance. Then she stared harder than ever at the vague, leafydistance. "That is the old-fashioned idea, " she said, in a musing tone, "that women must belong to somebody, as if they were curios, or statues, or race-horses. You don't understand, my friend, that I have a differentview. I am myself, and I belong to myself, exactly as much as any man. The notion that any other human being could conceivably obtain theslightest property rights in me is as preposterous, as ridiculous, as--what shall I say?--as the notion of your being taken out with achain on your neck and sold by auction as a slave, down on the canalbridge. I should be ashamed to be alive for another day, if any otherthought were possible to me. "

"That is not the generally accepted view, I should think, " falteredTheron. 

"No more is it the accepted view that young married Methodist ministersshould sit out alone in the woods with red-headed Irish girls. No, myfriend, let us find what the generally accepted views are, and as fastas we find them set our heels on them. There is no other way to livelike real human beings. What on earth is it to me that other women crawlabout on all-fours, and fawn like dogs on any hand that will bucklea collar onto them, and toss them the leavings of the table? I am notrelated to them. I have nothing to do with them. They cannot make anyrules for me. If pride and dignity and independence are dead in them, why, so much the worse for them! It is no affair of mine. Certainly itis no reason why I should get down and grovel also. No; I at least standerect on my legs. "

Mr. Ware sat up, and stared confusedly, with round eyes and parted lips, at his companion. Instinctively his brain dragged forth to the surfacethose epithets which the doctor had hurled in bitter contempt ather--"mad ass, a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headedlewdness. " The words rose in their order on his memory, hard andsharp-edged, like arrow-heads. But to sit there, quite at her side; tobreathe the same air, and behold the calm loveliness of her profile; totouch the ribbon of her dress--and all the while to hold these poisoneddarts of abuse levelled in thought at her breast--it was monstrous. Hecould have killed the doctor at that moment. With an effort, he drovethe foul things from his mind--scattered them back into the darkness. He felt that he had grown pale, and wondered if she had heard the groanthat seemed to have been forced from him in the struggle. Or was thegroan imaginary?

Celia continued to sit unmoved, composedly looking upon vacancy. Theron's eyes searched her face in vain for any sign of consciousnessthat she had astounded and bewildered him. She did not seem to bethinking of him at all. The proud calm of her thoughtful countenancesuggested instead occupation with lofty and remote abstractions andnoble ideals. Contemplating her, he suddenly perceived that what she hadbeen saying was great, wonderful, magnificent. An involuntary thrill ranthrough his veins at recollection of her words. His fancy likened it tothe sensation he used to feel as a youth, when the Fourth of July readerbawled forth that opening clause: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary, " etc. It was nothing less than another Declarationof Independence he had been listening to. 

He sank again recumbent at her side, and stretched the arm behind her, nearer than before. "Apparently, then, you will never marry. " His voicetrembled a little. 

"Most certainly not!" said Celia. 

"You spoke so feelingly a little while ago, " he ventured along, withhesitation, "about how sadly the notion of a priest's sacrificinghimself--never knowing what love meant--appealed to a woman. I shouldthink that the idea of sacrificing herself would seem to her even sadderstill. "

"I don't remember that we mentioned THAT, " she replied. "How do youmean--sacrificing herself?"

Theron gathered some of the outlying folds of her dress in his hand, andboldly patted and caressed them. "You, so beautiful and so free, withsuch fine talents and abilities, " he murmured; "you, who could have thewhole world at your feet--are you, too, never going to know what lovemeans? Do you call that no sacrifice? To me it is the most terrible thatmy imagination can conceive. "

Celia laughed--a gentle, amused little laugh, in which Theron's earstraced elements of tenderness. "You must regulate that imagination ofyours, " she said playfully. "It conceives the thing that is not. Pray, when"--and here, turning her head, she bent down upon his face a gaze ofarch mock-seriousness--"pray, when did I describe myself in these terms?When did I say that I should never know what love meant?"

For answer Theron laid his head down upon his arm, and closed hiseyes, and held his face against the draperies encircling her. "I cannotthink!" he groaned. 

The thing that came uppermost in his mind, as it swayed and rocked inthe tempest of emotion, was the strange reminiscence of early childhoodin it all. It was like being a little boy again, nestling in aninnocent, unthinking transport of affection against his mother's skirts. The tears he felt scalding his eyes were the spontaneous, unashamedtears of a child; the tremulous and exquisite joy which spread, wave-like, over him, at once reposeful and yearning, was full ofinfantile purity and sweetness. He had not comprehended at all beforewhat wellsprings of spiritual beauty, what limpid depths of idealism, his nature contained. 

"We were speaking of our respective religions, " he heard Celia say, asimperturbably as if there had been no digression worth mentioning. 

"Yes, " he assented, and moved his head so that he looked up at her backhair, and the leaves high above, mottled against the sky. The wishto lie there, where now he could just catch the rose-leaf line of herunder-chin as well, was very strong upon him. "Yes?" he repeated. 

"I cannot talk to you like that, " she said; and he sat up againshamefacedly. 

"Yes--I think we were speaking of religions--some time ago, " hefaltered, to relieve the situation. The dreadful thought that she mightbe annoyed began to oppress him. 

"Well, you said whatever my religion was, it was yours too. Thatentitles you at least to be told what the religion is. Now, I am aCatholic. "

Theron, much mystified, nodded his head. Could it be possible--was therecoming a deliberate suggestion that he should become a convert? "Yes--Iknow, " he murmured. 

"But I should explain that I am only a Catholic in the sense that itssymbolism is pleasant to me. You remember what Schopenhauer said--youcannot have the water by itself: you must also have the jug that it isin. Very well; the Catholic religion is my jug. I put into it the thingsI like. They were all there long ago, thousands of years ago. The Jewsthrew them out; we will put them back again. We will restore art andpoetry and the love of beauty, and the gentle, spiritual, soulful life. The Greeks had it; and Christianity would have had it too, if it hadn'tbeen for those brutes they call the Fathers. They loved ugliness anddirt and the thought of hell-fire. They hated women. In all the earlierstages of the Church, women were very prominent in it. Jesus himselfappreciated women, and delighted to have them about him, and talk withthem and listen to them. That was the very essence of the Greek spirit;and it breathed into Christianity at its birth a sweetness and a gracewhich twenty generations of cranks and savages like Paul and Jeromeand Tertullian weren't able to extinguish. But the very man, Cyril, whokilled Hypatia, and thus began the dark ages, unwittingly did anotherthing which makes one almost forgive him. To please the Egyptians, hesecured the Church's acceptance of the adoration of the Virgin. It isthat idea which has kept the Greek spirit alive, and grown and grown, till at last it will rule the world. It was only epileptic Jews whocould imagine a religion without sex in it. "

"I remember the pictures of the Virgin in your room, " said Theron, feeling more himself again. "I wondered if they quite went with thestatues. "

The remark won a smile from Celia's lips. 

"They get along together better than you suppose, " she answered. "Besides, they are not all pictures of Mary. One of them, standing onthe moon, is of Isis with the infant Horus in her arms. Another might aswell be Mahamie, bearing the miraculously born Buddha, or Olympias withher child Alexander, or even Perictione holding her babe Plato--allthese were similar cases, you know. Almost every religion had itsImmaculate Conception. What does it all come to, except to show us thatman turns naturally toward the worship of the maternal idea? That is thedeepest of all our instincts--love of woman, who is at once daughter andwife and mother. It is that that makes the world go round. "

Brave thoughts shaped themselves in Theron's mind, and shone forth in aconfident yet wistful smile on his face. 

"It is a pity you cannot change estates with me for one minute, " hesaid, in steady, low tone. "Then you would realize the tremendous truthof what you have been saying. It is only your intellect that has reachedout and grasped the idea. If you were in my place, you would discoverthat your heart was bursting with it as well. "

Celia turned and looked at him. 

"I myself, " he went on, "would not have known, half an hour ago, whatyou meant by the worship of the maternal idea. I am much older thanyou. I am a strong, mature man. But when I lay down there, and shut myeyes--because the charm and marvel of this whole experience had forthe moment overcome me--the strangest sensation seized upon me. It wasabsolutely as if I were a boy again, a good, pure-minded, fond littlechild, and you were the mother that I idolized. "

Celia had not taken her eyes from his face. "I find myself liking youbetter at this moment, " she said, with gravity, "than I have ever likedyou before. "

Then, as by a sudden impulse, she sprang to her feet. "Come!" she cried, her voice and manner all vivacity once more, "we have been here longenough. "

Upon the instant, as Theron was more laboriously getting up, it becameapparent to them both that perhaps they had been there too long. 

A boy with a gun under his arm, and two gray squirrels tied by the tailsslung across his shoulder, stood at the entrance to the glade, somedozen paces away, regarding them with undisguised interest. Upon thediscovery that he was in turn observed, he resumed his interruptedprogress through the woods, whistling softly as he went, and vanishedamong the trees. 

"Heavens above!" groaned Theron, shudderingly. 

"Know him?" he went on, in answer to the glance of inquiry on hiscompanion's face. "I should think I did! He spades my--my wife's gardenfor her. He used to bring our milk. He works in the law office of oneof my trustees--the one who isn't friendly to me, but is very friendlyindeed with my--with Mrs. Ware. Oh, what shall I do? It may easily meanmy ruin!"

Celia looked at him attentively. The color had gone out of his face, andwith it the effect of earnestness and mental elevation which, a minutebefore, had caught her fancy. "Somehow, I fear that I do not like youquite so much just now, my friend, " she remarked. 

"In God's name, don't say that!" urged Theron. He raised his voice inagitated entreaty. "You don't know what these people are--how they wouldleap at the barest hint of a scandal about me. In my position I am athousand times more defenceless than any woman. Just a single whisper, and I am done for!"

"Let me point out to you, Mr. Ware, " said Celia, slowly, "that to beseen sitting and talking with me, whatever doubts it may raise as toa gentleman's intellectual condition, need not necessarily blast hissocial reputation beyond all hope whatever. "

Theron stared at her, as if he had not grasped her meaning. Then hewinced visibly under it, and put out his hands to implore her. "Forgiveme! Forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was beside myself for the moment withthe fright of the thing. Oh, say you do forgive me, Celia!" He madehaste to support this daring use of her name. "I have been so happytoday--so deeply, so vastly happy--like the little child I spoke of--andthat is so new in my lonely life--that--the suddenness of the thing--itjust for the instant unstrung me. Don't be too hard on me for it! AndI had hoped, too--I had had such genuine heartfelt pleasure in thethought--that, an hour or two ago, when you were unhappy, perhaps it hadbeen some sort of consolation to you that I was with you. "

Celia was looking away. When he took her hand she did not withdraw it, but turned and nodded in musing general assent to what he had said. "Yes, we have both been unstrung, as you call it, today, " she said, decidedly out of pitch. "Let each forgive the other, and say no moreabout it. "

She took his arm, and they retraced their steps along the path, againin silence. The labored noise of the orchestra, as it were, returned tomeet them. They halted at an intersecting footpath. 

"I go back to my slavery--my double bondage, " said Theron, letting hisvoice sink to a sigh. "But even if I am put on the rack for it, I shallhave had one day of glory. "

"I think you may kiss me, in memory of that one day--or of a few minutesin that day, " said Celia. 

Their lips brushed each other in a swift, almost perfunctory caress. 

Theron went his way at a hurried pace, the sobered tones of her"good-bye" beating upon his brain with every measure of the droningwaltz-music. 

PART IV

CHAPTER XXV

The memory of the kiss abode with Theron. Like Aaron's rod, it swallowedup one by one all competing thoughts and recollections, and made hisbrain its slave. 

Even as he strode back through the woods to the camp-meeting, it was thekiss that kept his feet in motion, and guided their automatic course. All along the watches of the restless night, it was the kiss that borehim sweet company, and wandered with him from one broken dream of blissto another. Next day, it was the kiss that made of life for him a sortof sunlit wonderland. He preached his sermon in the morning, and tookhis appointed part in the other services of afternoon and evening, apparently to everybody's satisfaction: to him it was all a vision. 

When the beautiful full moon rose, this Sunday evening, and glorifiedthe clearing and the forest with its mellow harvest radiance, he couldhave groaned with the burden of his joy. He went out alone into thelight, and bared his head to it, and stood motionless for a long time. In all his life, he had never been impelled as powerfully toward earnestand soulful thanksgiving. The impulse to kneel, there in the pure, tender moonlight, and lift up offerings of praise to God, kept uppermostin his mind. Some formless resignation restrained him from the actitself, but the spirit of it hallowed his mood. He gazed up at the broadluminous face of the satellite. "You are our God, " he murmured. "Hersand mine! You are the most beautiful of heavenly creatures, as she is ofthe angels on earth. I am speechless with reverence for you both. "

It was not until the camp-meeting broke up, four days later, and Theronwith the rest returned to town, that the material aspects of what hadhappened, and might be expected to happen, forced themselves upon hismind. The kiss was a child of the forest. So long as Theron remained inthe camp, the image of the kiss, which was enshrined in his heart andministered to by all his thoughts, continued enveloped in a haze ofsylvan mystery, like a dryad. Suggestions of its beauty and holinesscame to him in the odors of the woodland, at the sight of wild flowersand water-lilies. When he walked alone in unfamiliar parts of theforest, he carried about with him the half-conscious idea of somewherecoming upon a strange, hidden pool which mortal eye had not seenbefore--a deep, sequestered mere of spring-fed waters, walled in byrich, tangled growths of verdure, and bearing upon its virgin bosom onlythe shadows of the primeval wilderness, and the light of the eternalskies. His fancy dwelt upon some such nook as the enchanted home ofthe fairy that possessed his soul. The place, though he never found it, became real to him. As he pictured it, there rose sometimes from amongthe lily-pads, stirring the translucent depths and fluttering over thewater's surface drops like gems, the wonderful form of a woman, withpale leaves wreathed in her luxuriant red hair, and a skin which gaveforth light. 

With the homecoming to Octavius, his dreams began to take more accountof realities. In a day or two he was wide awake, and thinking hard. Thekiss was as much as ever the ceaseless companion of his hours, but it nolonger insisted upon shrouding itself in vines and woodland creepers, oroutlining itself in phosphorescent vagueness against mystic backgroundsof nymph-haunted glades. It advanced out into the noonday, and assumedtangible dimensions and substance. He saw that it was related to thefacts of his daily life, and had, in turn, altered his own relations toall these facts. 

What ought he to do? What COULD he do? Apparently, nothing but wait. He waited for a week--then for another week. The conclusion that theinitiative had been left to him began to take shape in his mind. Fromthis it seemed but a step to the passionate resolve to act at once. 

Turning the situation over and over in his anxious thoughts, two thingsstood out in special prominence. One was that Celia loved him. The otherwas that the boy in Gorringe's law office, and possibly Gorringe, andheaven only knew how many others besides, had reasons for suspectingthis to be true. 

And what about Celia? Side by side with the moving rapture of thinkingabout her as a woman, there rose the substantial satisfaction ofcontemplating her as Miss Madden. She had kissed him, and she was veryrich. The things gradually linked themselves before his eyes. He trieda thousand varying guesses at what she proposed to do, and each timereined up his imagination by the reminder that she was confessedly acreature of whims, who proposed to do nothing, but was capable of allthings. 

And as to the boy. If he had blabbed what he saw, it was incredible thatsomebody should not take the subject up, and impart a scandalous twistto it, and send it rolling like a snowball to gather up exaggeration andfoul innuendo till it was big enough to overwhelm him. What would happento him if a formal charge were preferred against him? He looked it upin the Discipline. Of course, if his accusers magnified their meansuspicions and calumnious imaginings to the point of formulating acharge, it would be one of immorality. They could prove nothing; therewas nothing to prove. At the worst, it was an indiscretion, which wouldinvolve his being admonished by his Presiding Elder. Or if these narrowbigots confused slanders with proofs, and showed that they intended toconvict him, then it would be open to him to withdraw from the ministry, in advance of his condemnation. His relation to the church would bethe same as if he had been expelled, but to the outer world it would bedifferent. And supposing he did withdraw from the ministry?

Yes; this was the important point. What if he did abandon this mistakenprofession of his? On its mental side the relief would be prodigious, unthinkable. But on the practical side, the bread-and-butter side? Forsome days Theron paused with a shudder when he reached this question. The thought of the plunge into unknown material responsibilities gavehim a sinking heart. He tried to imagine himself lecturing, canvassingfor books or insurance policies, writing for newspapers--and remainedfrightened. But suddenly one day it occurred to him that these qualmsand forebodings were sheer folly. Was not Celia rich? Would she not withlightning swiftness draw forth that check-book, like the flashing swordof a champion from its scabbard, and run to his relief? Why, of course. It was absurd not to have thought of that before. 

He recalled her momentary anger with him, that afternoon in the woods, when he had cried out that discovery would mean ruin to him. He sawclearly enough now that she had been grieved at his want of faith in herprotection. In his flurry of fright, he had lost sight of the fact that, if exposure and trouble came to him, she would naturally feel that shehad been the cause of his martyrdom. It was plain enough now. If he gotinto hot water, it would be solely on account of his having been seenwith her. He had walked into the woods with her--"the further thebetter" had been her own words--out of pure kindliness, and thedesire to lead her away from the scene of her brother's and her ownhumiliation. But why amplify arguments? Her own warm heart would tellher, on the instant, how he had been sacrificed for her sake, and wouldbring her, eager and devoted, to his succor. 

That was all right, then. Slowly, from this point, suggestions expandedthemselves. The future could be, if he willed it, one long serenetriumph of love, and lofty intellectual companionship, and existencesoftened and enriched at every point by all that wealth could command, and the most exquisite tastes suggest. Should he will it! Ah! thequestion answered itself. But he could not enter upon this beckoningheaven of a future until he had freed himself. When Celia said to him, "Come!" he must not be in the position to reply, "I should like to, butunfortunately I am tied by the leg. " He should have to leave Octavius, leave the ministry, leave everything. He could not begin too soon toface these contingencies. 

Very likely Celia had not thought it out as far as this. With her, it was a mere vague "sometime I may. " But the harder masculine sense, Theron felt, existed for the very purpose of correcting and giving pointto these loose feminine notions of time and space. It was for him toclear away the obstacles, and map the plans out with definite decision. 

One warm afternoon, as he lolled in his easy-chair under the openwindow of his study, musing upon the ever-shifting phases of this vast, complicated, urgent problem, some chance words from the sidewalk infront came to his ears, and, coming, remained to clarify his thoughts. 

Two ladies whose voices were strange to him had stopped--as so manypeople almost daily stopped--to admire the garden of the parsonage. Oneof them expressed her pleasure in general terms. Said the other--

"My husband declares those dahlias alone couldn't be matched for thirtydollars, and that some of those gladiolus must have cost three or fourdollars apiece. I know we've spent simply oceans of money on our garden, and it doesn't begin to compare with this. "

"It seems like a sinful waste to me, " said her companion. 

"No-o, " the other hesitated. "No, I don't think quite that--if you canafford it just as well as not. But it does seem to me that I'd ratherlive in a little better house, and not spend it ALL on flowers. JustLOOK at that cactus!"

The voices died away. Theron sat up, with a look of arrested thoughtupon his face, then sprang to his feet and moved hurriedly through theparlor to an open front window. Peering out with caution he saw that thetwo women receding from view were fashionably dressed and evidentlycame from homes of means. He stared after them in a blank way until theyturned a corner. 

He went into the hall then, put on his frock-coat and hat, and steppedout into the garden. He was conscious of having rather avoided itheretofore--not altogether without reasons of his own, lying unexaminedsomewhere in the recesses of his mind. Now he walked slowly about, andexamined the flowers with great attentiveness. The season wasadvancing, and he saw that many plants had gone out of bloom. But what amagnificent plenitude of blossoms still remained!

Thirty dollars' worth of dahlias--that was what the stranger had said. Theron hardly brought himself to credit the statement; but all the sameit was apparent to even his uninformed eye that these huge, imbricated, flowering masses, with their extraordinary half-colors, must be unusual. He remembered that the boy in Gorringe's office had spoken of just onelot of plants costing thirty-one dollars and sixty cents, and there hadbeen two other lots as well. The figures remained surprisingly distinctin his memory. It was no good deceiving himself any longer: of coursethese were the plants that Gorringe had spent his money upon, here allabout him. 

As he surveyed them with a sour regard, a cool breeze stirred across thegarden. The tall, over-laden flower-spikes of gladioli bent and noddedat him; the hollyhocks and flaming alvias, the clustered blossoms on thestandard roses, the delicately painted lilies on their stilt-like stems, fluttered in the wind, and seemed all bowing satirically to him. "Yes, Levi Gorringe paid for us!" He almost heard their mocking declaration. 

Out in the back-yard, where a longer day of sunshine dwelt, there weremany other flowers, and notably a bed of geraniums which literally madethe eye ache. Standing at this rear corner of the house, he caught thedroning sound of Alice's voice, humming a hymn to herself as she wentabout her kitchen work. He saw her through the open window. She wassweeping, and had a sort of cap on her head which did not add to thegraces of her appearance. He looked at her with a hard glance, recallingas a fresh grievance the ten days of intolerable boredom he had spentcooped up in a ridiculous little tent with her, at the camp-meeting. Shemust have realized at the time how odious the enforced companionship wasto him. Yes, beyond doubt she did. It came back to him now that theyhad spoken but rarely to each other. She had not even praised his sermonupon the Sabbath-question, which every one else had been in rapturesover. For that matter she no longer praised anything he did, and tookobvious pains to preserve toward him a distant demeanor. So much thebetter, he felt himself thinking. If she chose to behave in thatoffish and unwifely fashion, she could blame no one but herself for itsresults. 

She had seen him, and came now to the window, watering-pot and broomin hand. She put her head out, to breathe a breath of dustless air, andbegan as if she would smile on him. Then her face chilled and stiffened, as she caught his look. 

"Shall you be home for supper?" she asked, in her iciest tone. 

He had not thought of going out before. The question, and the manner ofit, gave immediate urgency to the idea of going somewhere. "I may or Imay not, " he replied. "It is quite impossible for me to say. " He turnedon his heel with this, and walked briskly out of the yard and down thestreet. 

It was the most natural thing that presently he should be strolling pastthe Madden house, and letting a covert glance stray over its front andthe grounds about it, as he loitered along. Every day since his returnfrom the woods he had given the fates this chance of bringing Celiato meet him, without avail. He had hung about in the vicinity of theCatholic church on several evenings as well, but to no purpose. Theorgan inside was dumb, and he could detect no signs of Celia's presenceon the curtains of the pastorate next door. This day, too, there wasno one visible at the home of the Maddens, and he walked on, a littlesadly. It was weary work waiting for the signal that never came. 

But there were compensations. His mind reverted doggedly to the flowersin his garden, and to Alice's behavior toward him. They insisted uponconnecting themselves in his thoughts. Why should Levi Gorringe, amoney-lender, and therefore the last man in the world to incur recklessexpenditure, go and buy perhaps a hundred dollars, worth of flowers forhis wife's garden? It was time--high time--to face this question. Andhis experiencing religion afterward, just when Alice did, and marchingdown to the rail to kneel beside her--that was a thing to be thought of, too. 

Meditation, it is true, hardly threw fresh light upon the matter. Itwas incredible, of course, that there should be anything wrong. To evenshape a thought of Alice in connection with gallantry would be whollyimpossible. Nor could it be said that Gorringe, in his new capacity as aprofessing church-member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives, or of insincerity. Yet there the facts were. While Theron pondered them, their mystery, if they involved a mystery, baffled him altogether. But when he had finished, he found himself all the same convinced thatneither Alice nor Gorringe would be free to blame him for anythinghe might do. He had grounds for complaint against them. If he did nothimself know just what these grounds were, it was certain enough thatTHEY knew. Very well, then, let them take the responsibility for whathappened. 

It was indeed awkward that at the moment, as Theron chanced to emergetemporarily from his brown-study, his eyes fell full upon the spare, well-knit form of Levi Gorringe himself, standing only a few feet away, in the staircase entrance to his law office. His lean face, browned bythe summer's exposure, had a more Arabian aspect than ever. His handswere in his pockets, and he held an unlighted cigar between his teeth. He looked the Rev. Mr. Ware over calmly, and nodded recognition. 

Theron had halted instinctively. On the instant he would have givena great deal not to have stopped at all. It was stupid of him to havepaused, but it would not do now to go on without words of some sort. Hemoved over to the door-way, and made a half-hearted pretence of lookingat the photographs in one of the show-cases at its side. As Mr. Gorringedid not take his hands from his pockets, there was no occasion for anyformal greeting. 

"I had no idea that they took such good pictures in Octavius, " Theronremarked after a minute's silence, still bending in examination of thephotographs. 

"They ought to; they charge New York prices, " observed the lawyer, sententiously. 

Theron found in the words confirmation of his feeling that Gorringe wasnot naturally a lavish or extravagant man. Rather was he a careful andcalculating man, who spent money only for a purpose. Though the ministercontinued gazing at the stiff presentments of local beauties andswains, his eyes seemed to see salmon-hued hollyhocks and spotted liliesinstead. Suddenly a resolve came to him. He stood erect, and faced histrustee. 

"Speaking of the price of things, " he said, with an effort of arrogancein his measured tone, "I have never had an opportunity before ofmentioning the subject of the flowers you have so kindly furnished formy--for MY garden. "

"Why mention it now?" queried Gorringe, with nonchalance. He turned hiscigar about with a movement of his lips, and worked it into the cornerof his mouth. He did not find it necessary to look at Theron at all. 

"Because--" began Mr. Ware, and then hesitated--"because--well, itraises a question of my being under obligation, which I--"

"Oh, no, sir, " said the lawyer; "put that out of your mind. You are nomore under obligation to me than I am to you. Oh, no, make yourself easyabout that. Neither of us owes the other anything. "

"Not even good-will--I take that to be your meaning, " retorted Theron, with some heat. 

"The words are yours, sir, " responded Gorringe, coolly. "I do not objectto them. "

"As you like, " put in the other. "If it be so, why, then all the morereason why I should, under the circumstances--"

"Under what circumstances?" interposed the lawyer. "Let us be clearabout this thing as we go along. To what circumstances do you refer?"

He had turned his eyes now, and looked Theron in the face. A slightprotrusion of his lower jaw had given the cigar an upward tilt under theblack mustache. 

"The circumstances are that you have brought or sent to my garden agreat many very expensive flower-plants and bushes and so on. "

"And you object? I had not supposed that clergymen in general--and youin particular--were so sensitive. Have donation parties, then, gone outof date?"

"I understand your sneer well enough, " retorted Theron, "but thatcan pass. The main point is, that you did me the honor to send theseplants--or to smuggle them in--but never once deigned to hint to me thatyou had done so. No one told me. Except by mere accident, I should nothave known to this day where they came from. "

Mr. Gorringe twisted the cigar at another angle, with lines of grimamusement about the corner of his mouth. "I should have thought, " hesaid with dry deliberation, "that possibly this fact might have raisedin your mind the conceivable hypothesis that the plants might not beintended for you at all. "

"That is precisely it, sir, " said Theron. There were people passing, andhe was forced to keep his voice down. It would have been a relief, hefelt, to shout. "That is it--they were not intended for me. "

"Well, then, what are you talking about?" The lawyer's speech had becomeabrupt almost to incivility. 

"I think my remarks have been perfectly clear, " said the minister, withdignity. It was a new experience to be addressed in that fashion. It occurred to him to add, "Please remember that I am not in thewitness-box, to be bullied or insulted by a professional. "

Gorringe studied Theron's face attentively with a cold, searchingscrutiny. "You may thank your stars you're not!" he said, withsignificance. 

What on earth could he mean? The words and the menacing tone greatlyimpressed Theron. Indeed, upon reflection, he found that they frightenedhim. The disposition to adopt a high tone with the lawyer was meltingaway. 

"I do not see, " he began, and then deliberately allowed his voice totake on an injured and plaintive inflection--"I do not see why youshould adopt this tone toward me--Brother Gorringe. "

The lawyer scowled, and bit sharply into the cigar, but said nothing. 

"If I have unconsciously offended you in any way, " Theron went on, "Ibeg you to tell me how. I liked you from the beginning of my pastoratehere, and the thought that latterly we seemed to be drifting apart hasgiven me much pain. But now it is still more distressing to find youactually disposed to quarrel with me. Surely, Brother Gorringe, betweena pastor and a probationer who--"

"No, " Gorringe broke in; "quarrel isn't the word for it. There isn't anyquarrel, Mr. Ware. " He stepped down from the door-stone to the sidewalkas he spoke, and stood face to face with Theron. Working-men withdinner-pails, and factory girls, were passing close to them, and helowered his voice to a sharp, incisive half-whisper as he added, "Itwouldn't be worth any grown man's while to quarrel with so poor acreature as you are. "

Theron stood confounded, with an empty stare of bewilderment on hisface. It rose in his mind that the right thing to feel was rage, righteous indignation, fury; but for the life of him, he could notmuster any manly anger. The character of the insult stupefied him. 

"I do not know that I have anything to say to you in reply, " heremarked, after what seemed to him a silence of minutes. His lipsframed the words automatically, but they expressed well enough the blankvacancy of his mind. The suggestion that anybody deemed him a "poorcreature" grew more astounding, incomprehensible, as it swelled in hisbrain. 

"No, I suppose not, " snapped Gorringe. "You're not the sort to stand upto men; your form is to go round the corner and take it out of somebodyweaker than yourself--a defenceless woman, for instance. "

"Oh--ho!" said Theron. The exclamation had uttered itself. The sound ofit seemed to clarify his muddled thoughts; and as they ranged themselvesin order, he began to understand. "Oh--ho!" he said again, and noddedhis head in token of comprehension. 

The lawyer, chewing his cigar with increased activity, glared at him. "What do you mean?" he demanded peremptorily. 

"Mean?" said the minister. "Oh, nothing that I feel called upon toexplain to you. "

It was passing strange, but his self-possession had all at once returnedto him. As it became more apparent that the lawyer was losing histemper, Theron found the courage to turn up the corners of his lips inshow of a bitter little smile of confidence. He looked into the other'sdusky face, and flaunted this smile at it in contemptuous defiance. "Itis not a subject that I can discuss with propriety--at this stage, " headded. 

"Damn you! Are you talking about those flowers?"

"Oh, I am not talking about anything in particular, " returned Theron, "not even the curious choice of language which my latest probationerseems to prefer. "

"Go and strike my name off the list!" said Gorringe, with risingpassion. "I was a fool to ever have it there. To think of being aprobationer of yours--my God!"

"That will be a pity--from one point of view, " remarked Theron, stillwith the ironical smile on his lips. "You seemed to enter upon the newlife with such deliberation and fixity of purpose, too! I can imaginethe regrets your withdrawal will cause, in certain quarters. I only hopethat it will not discourage those who accompanied you to the altar, and shared your enthusiasm at the time. " He had spoken throughout withstudied slowness and an insolent nicety of utterance. 

"You had better go away!" broke forth Gorringe. "If you don't, I shallforget myself. "

"For the first time?" asked Theron. Then, warned by the flash in thelawyer's eye, he turned on his heel and sauntered, with a painstakingassumption of a mind quite at ease, up the street. 

Gorringe's own face twitched and his veins tingled as he looked afterhim. He spat the shapeless cigar out of his mouth into the gutter, and, drawing forth another from his pocket, clenched it between his teeth, his gaze following the tall form of the Methodist minister till it wasmerged in the crowd. 

"Well, I'm damned!" he said aloud to himself. 

The photographer had come down to take in his showcases for the night. He looked up from his task at the exclamation, and grinned inquiringly. 

"I've just been talking to a man, " said the lawyer, "who's so muchmeaner than any other man I ever heard of that it takes my breath away. He's got a wife that's as pure and good as gold, and he knows it, andshe worships the ground he walks on, and he knows that too. And yet thescoundrel is around trying to sniff out some shadow of a pretext formisusing her worse than he's already done. Yes, sir; he'd be actuallytickled to death if he could nose up some hint of a scandal abouther--something that he could pretend to believe, and work for his ownadvantage to levy blackmail, or get rid of her, or whatever suited hisbook. I didn't think there was such an out-and-out cur on this wholefootstool. I almost wish, by God, I'd thrown him into the canal!"

"Yes, you lawyers must run against some pretty snide specimens, "remarked the photographer, lifting one of the cases from its sockets. 

CHAPTER XXVI

Theron spent half an hour in aimless strolling about the streets. Fromearliest boyhood his mind had always worked most clearly when he walkedalone. Every mental process which had left a mark upon his memory andhis career--the daydreams of future academic greatness and fame whichhad fashioned themselves in his brain as a farm lad; the meditations, raptures, and high resolves of his student period at the seminary; themore notable sermons and powerful discourse by which he had revealed thegenius that was in him to astonished and delighted assemblages--all wereassociated in his retrospective thoughts with solitary rambles. 

He had a very direct and vivid consciousness now that it was good to beon his legs, and alone. He had never in his life been more sensible ofthe charm of his own companionship. The encounter with Gorringe seemedto have cleared all the clouds out of his brain, and restored lightnessto his heart. After such an object lesson, the impossibility of hiscontinuing to sacrifice himself to a notion of duty to these low-mindedand coarse-natured villagers was beyond all argument. There could nolonger be any doubt about his moral right to turn his back upon them, towash his hands of the miserable combination of hypocrisy and hystericswhich they called their spiritual life. 

And the question of Gorringe and Alice, that too stood precisely wherehe wanted it. Even in his own thoughts, he preferred to pursue it nofurther. Between them somewhere an offence of concealment, it might beof conspiracy, had been committed against him. It was no business of histo say more, or to think more. He rested his case simply on the fact, which could not be denied, and which he was not in the least interestedto have explained, one way or the other. The recollection of Gorringe'sobvious disturbance of mind was especially pleasant to him. He himselfhad been magnanimous almost to the point of weakness. He had gone outof his way to call the man "brother, " and to give him an opportunity ofbehaving like a gentleman; but his kindly forbearance had been wasted. Gorringe was not the man to understand generous feelings, much less riseto their level. He had merely shown that he would be vicious if he knewhow. It was more important and satisfactory to recall that he had alsoshown a complete comprehension of the injured husband's grievance. Thefact that he had recognized it was enough--was, in fact, everything. 

In the background of his thoughts Theron had carried along a notion ofgoing and dining with Father Forbes when the time for the evening mealshould arrive. The idea in itself attracted him, as a fitting capstoneto his resolve not to go home to supper. It gave just the right kindof character to his domestic revolt. But when at last he stood on thedoorstep of the pastorate, waiting for an answer to the tinkle of theelectric bell he had heard ring inside, his mind contained only thesingle thought that now he should hear something about Celia. Perhaps hemight even find her there; but he put that suggestion aside as slightlyunpleasant. 

The hag-faced housekeeper led him, as before, into the dining-room. Itwas still daylight, and he saw on the glance that the priest was aloneat the table, with a book beside him to read from as he ate. 

Father Forbes rose and came forward, greeting his visitor with profuseurbanity and smiles. If there was a perfunctory note in the invitationto sit down and share the meal, Theron did not catch it. He franklydisplayed his pleasure as he laid aside his hat, and took the chairopposite his host. 

"It is really only a few months since I was here, in this room, before, "he remarked, as the priest closed his book and tossed it to one side, and the housekeeper came in to lay another place. "Yet it might havebeen years, many long years, so tremendous is the difference that thelapse of time has wrought in me. "

"I am afraid we have nothing to tempt you very much, Mr. Ware, " remarkedFather Forbes, with a gesture of his plump white hand which embraced thedishes in the centre of the table. "May I send you a bit of this boiledmutton? I have very homely tastes when I am by myself. "

"I was saying, " Theron observed, after some moments had passed insilence, "that I date such a tremendous revolution in my thoughts, mybeliefs, my whole mind and character, from my first meeting with you, my first coming here. I don't know how to describe to you the enormouschange that has come over me; and I owe it all to you. "

"I can only hope, then, that it is entirely of a satisfactory nature, "said the priest, politely smiling. 

"Oh, it is so splendidly satisfactory!" said Theron, with fervor. "Ilook back at myself now with wonder and pity. It seems incrediblethat, such a little while ago, I should have been such an ignorantand unimaginative clod of earth, content with such petty ambitions andactually proud of my limitations. "

"And you have larger ambitions now?" asked the other. "Pray let me helpyou to some potatoes. I am afraid that ambitions only get in our way andtrip us up. We clergymen are like street-car horses. The more steadilywe jog along between the rails, the better it is for us. "

"Oh, I don't intend to remain in the ministry, " declared Theron. Thestatement seemed to him a little bald, now that he had made it; and ashis companion lifted his brows in surprise, he added stumblingly: "Thatis, as I feel now, it seems to me impossible that I should remain muchlonger. With you, of course, it is different. You have a thousand thingsto interest and pleasantly occupy you in your work and its ceremonies, so that mere belief or non-belief in the dogma hardly matters. But inour church dogma is everything. If you take that away, or cease to haveits support, the rest is intolerable, hideous. "

Father Forbes cut another slice of mutton for himself. "It is a prettyserious business to make such a change at your time of life. I take itfor granted you will think it all over very carefully before you commityourself. " He said this with an almost indifferent air, which ratherchilled his listener's enthusiasm. 

"Oh, yes, ", Theron made answer; "I shall do nothing rash. But I have agood many plans for the future. "

Father Forbes did not ask what these were, and a brief further period ofsilence fell upon the table. 

"I hope everything went off smoothly at the picnic, " Theron ventured, atlast. "I have not seen any of you since then. "

The priest shook his head and sighed. "No, " he said. "It is a badbusiness. I have had a great deal of unhappiness out of it this pastfortnight. That young man who was rude to you--of course it was meredrunken, irresponsible nonsense on his part--has got himself into aserious scrape, I'm afraid. It is being kept quite within the family, and we hope to manage so that it will remain there, but it has terriblyupset his father and his sister. But that, after all, is not so hardto bear as the other affliction that has come upon the Maddens. Youremember Michael, the other brother? He seems to have taken cold thatevening, or perhaps over-exerted himself. He has been seized with quickconsumption. He will hardly last till snow flies. "

"Oh, I am GRIEVED to hear that!" Theron spoke with tremulousearnestness. It seemed to him as if Michael were in some way related tohim. 

"It is very hard upon them all, " the priest went on. "Michael is assweet and holy a character as it is possible for any one to think of. Heis the apple of his father's eye. They were inseparable, those two. Doyou know the father, Mr. Madden?"

Theron shook his head. "I think I have seen him, " he said. "A small man, with gray whiskers. "

"A peasant, " said Father Forbes, "but with a heart of gold. Poor man! hehas had little enough out of his riches. Ah, the West Coast people, whattragedies I have seen among them over here! They have rudimentary lungorganizations, like a frog's, to fit the mild, wet soft air they livein. The sharp air here kills them off like flies in a frost. Wholefamilies go. I should think there are a dozen of old Jeremiah's childrenin the cemetery. If Michael could have passed his twenty-eighth year, there would have been hope for him, at least till his thirty-fifth. These pulmonary things seem to go by sevens, you know. "

"I didn't know, " said Theron. "It is very strange--and very sad. " Hisstartled mind was busy, all at once, with conjectures as to Celia's age. 

"The sister--Miss Madden--seems extremely strong, " he remarkedtentatively. 

"Celia may escape the general doom, " said the priest. His guest notedthat he clenched his shapely white hand on the table as he spoke, andthat his gentle, carefully modulated voice had a gritty hardness in itstone. "THAT would be too dreadful to think of, " he added. 

Theron shuddered in silence, and strove to shut his mind against thethought. 

"She has taken Michael's illness so deeply to heart, " the priestproceeded, "and devoted herself to him so untiringly that I get a littlenervous about her. I have been urging her to go away and get a change ofair and scene, if only for a few days. She does not sleep well, and thatis always a bad thing. "

"I think I remember her telling me once that sometimes she had sleeplessspells, " said Theron. "She said that then she banged on her piano atall hours, or dragged the cushions about from room to room, like a wildwoman. A very interesting young lady, don't you find her so?"

Father Forbes let a wan smile play on his lips. "What, our Celia?"he said. "Interesting! Why, Mr. Ware, there is no one like her in theworld. She is as unique as--what shall I say?--as the Irish are amongraces. Her father and mother were both born in mud-cabins, and she--shemight be the daughter of a hundred kings, except that they seem mostlyrather under-witted than otherwise. She always impresses me as a sort ofatavistic idealization of the old Kelt at his finest and best. There inIreland you got a strange mixture of elementary early peoples, walledoff from the outer world by the four seas, and free to work out theirown racial amalgam on their own lines. They brought with them at theoutset a great inheritance of Eastern mysticism. Others lost it, but theIrish, all alone on their island, kept it alive and brooded on it, androoted their whole spiritual side in it. Their religion is full of it;their blood is full of it; our Celia is fuller of it than anybody else. The Ireland of two thousand years ago is incarnated in her. They are themerriest people and the saddest, the most turbulent and the most docile, the most talented and the most unproductive, the most practical and themost visionary, the most devout and the most pagan. These impossiblecontradictions war ceaselessly in their blood. When I look at Celia, I seem to see in my mind's eye the fair young-ancestral mother of themall. "

Theron gazed at the speaker with open admiration. "I love to hear youtalk, " he said simply. 

An unbidden memory flitted upward in his mind. Those were the very wordsthat Alice had so often on her lips in their old courtship days. Howcurious it was! He looked at the priest, and had a quaint sensation offeeling as a romantic woman must feel in the presence of a speciallyimpressive masculine personality. It was indeed strange that thissoft-voiced, portly creature in a gown, with his white, fat hands andhis feline suavity of manner, should produce such a commanding andunique effect of virility. No doubt this was a part of the great sexmystery which historically surrounded the figure of the celibate priestas with an atmosphere. Women had always been prostrating themselvesbefore it. Theron, watching his companion's full, pallid face in thelamp-light, tried to fancy himself in the priest's place, looking downupon these worshipping female forms. He wondered what the celibate'sattitude really was. The enigma fascinated him. 

Father Forbes, after his rhetorical outburst, and been eating. He pushedaside his cheese-plate. "I grow enthusiastic on the subject of my racesometimes, " he remarked, with the suggestion of an apology. "But I makeup for it other times--most of the time--by scolding them. If it werenot such a noble thing to be an Irishman, it would be ridiculous. "

"Ah, " said Theron, deprecatingly, "who would not be enthusiastic intalking of Miss Madden? What you said about her was perfect. As youspoke, I was thinking how proud and thankful we ought to be for theprivilege of knowing her--we who do know her well--although of courseyour friendship with her is vastly more intimate than mine--than minecould ever hope to be. "

The priest offered no comment, and Theron went on: "I hardly know how todescribe the remarkable impression she makes upon me. I can't imagine tomyself any other young woman so brilliant or broad in her views, or socourageous. Of course, her being so rich makes it easier for her to dojust what she wants to do, but her bravery is astonishing all the same. We had a long and very sympathetic talk in the woods, that day of thepicnic, after we left you. I don't know whether she spoke to you aboutit?"

Father Forbes made a movement of the head and eyes which seemed tonegative the suggestion. 

"Her talk, " continued Theron, "gave me quite new ideas of the range andcapacity of the female mind. I wonder that everybody in Octavius isn'tfull of praise and admiration for her talents and exceptional character. In such a small town as this, you would think she would be the centre ofattention--the pride of the place. "

"I think she has as much praise as is good for her, " remarked thepriest, quietly. 

"And here's a thing that puzzles me, " pursued Mr. Ware. "I was immenselysurprised to find that Dr. Ledsmar doesn't even think she is smart--orat least he professes the utmost intellectual contempt for her, and sayshe dislikes her into the bargain. But of course she dislikes him, too, so that's only natural. But I can't understand his denying her greatability. "

The priest smiled in a dubious way. "Don't borrow unnecessary alarmabout that, Mr. Ware, " he said, with studied smoothness of modulatedtones. "These two good friends of mine have much enjoyment out ofthe idea that they are fighting for the mastery over my poor unstablecharacter. It has grown to be a habit with them, and a hobby as well, and they pursue it with tireless zest. There are not many intellectualdiversions open to us here, and they make the most of this one. Itamuses them, and it is not without its charms for me, in my capacityas an interested observer. It is a part of the game that they shouldpretend to themselves that they detest each other. In reality I fancythat they like each other very much. At any rate, there is nothing to bedisturbed about. "

His mellifluous tones had somehow the effect of suggesting to Theronthat he was an outsider and would better mind his own business. Ah, ifthis purring pussy-cat of a priest only knew how little of an outsiderhe really was! The thought gave him an easy self-control. 

"Of course, " he said, "our warm mutual friendship makes the observationof these little individual vagaries merely a part of a delightful whole. I should not dream of discussing Miss Madden's confidences to me, or thedoctor's either, outside our own little group. "

Father Forbes reached behind him and took from a chair his blackthree-cornered cap with the tassel. "Unfortunately I have a sick callwaiting me, " he said, gathering up his gown and slowly rising. 

"Yes, I saw the man sitting in the hall, " remarked Theron, getting tohis feet. 

"I would ask you to go upstairs and wait, " the priest went on, "but myreturn, unhappily, is quite uncertain. Another evening I may be morefortunate. I am leaving town tomorrow for some days, but when I getback--"

The polite sentence did not complete itself. Father Forbes had come outinto the hall, giving a cool nod to the working-man, who rose from thebench as they passed, and shook hands with his guest on the doorstep. 

When the door had closed upon Mr. Ware, the priest turned to the man. "You have come about those frames, " he said. "If you will come upstairs, I will show you the prints, and you can give me a notion of what canbe done with them. I rather fancy the idea of a triptych in carved oldEnglish, if you can manage it. "

After the workman had gone away, Father Forbes put on slippers and anold loose soutane, lighted a cigar, and, pushing an easy-chair over tothe reading lamp, sat down with a book. Then something occurred to him, and he touched the house-bell at his elbow. 

"Maggie, " he said gently, when the housekeeper appeared at the door, "Iwill have the coffee and FINE CHAMPAGNE up here, if it is no trouble. And--oh, Maggie--I was compelled this evening to turn the blamelessvisit of the framemaker into a venial sin, and that involves a needlesswear and tear of conscience. I think that--hereafter--you understand?--Iam not invariably at home when the Rev. Mr. Ware does me the honor tocall. "

CHAPTER XXVII

That night brought the first frost of the season worth counting. Inthe morning, when Theron came downstairs, his casual glance throughthe window caught a desolate picture of blackened dahlia stalks andshrivelled blooms. The gayety and color of the garden were gone, and intheir place was shabby and dishevelled ruin. He flung the sash up andleaned out. The nipping autumn air was good to breathe. He looked abouthim, surveying the havoc the frost had wrought among the flowers, andsmiled. 

At breakfast he smiled again--a mirthless and calculated smile. "Isee that Brother Gorringe's flowers have come to grief over night, " heremarked. 

Alice looked at him before she spoke, and saw on his face a confirmationof the hostile hint in his voice. She nodded in a constrained way, andsaid nothing. 

"Or rather, I should say, " Theron went on, with deliberate words, "thelate Brother Gorringe's flowers. "

"How do you mean--LATE" asked his wife, swiftly. 

"Oh, calm yourself!" replied the husband. "He is not dead. He has onlyintimated to me his desire to sever his connection. I may add that hedid so in a highly offensive manner. "

"I am very sorry, " said Alice, in a low tone, and with her eyes on herplate. 

"I took it for granted you would be grieved at his backsliding, "remarked Theron, making his phrases as pointed as he could. "He wassuch a promising probationer, and you took such a keen interest in hisspiritual awakening. But the frost has nipped his zeal--along with thehundred or more dollars' worth of flowers by which he testified hisfaith. I find something interesting in their having been blastedsimultaneously. "

Alice dropped all pretence of interest in her breakfast. With a flushedface and lips tightly compressed, she made a movement as if to rise fromher chair. Then, changing her mind, she sat bolt upright and faced herhusband. 

"I think we had better have this out right now, " she said, in a voicewhich Theron hardly recognized. "You have been hinting round the subjectlong enough--too long. There are some things nobody is obliged to putup with, and this is one of them. You will oblige me by saying out in somany words what it is you are driving at. "

The outburst astounded Theron. He laid down his knife and fork, andgazed at his wife in frank surprise. She had so accustomed him, of late, to a demeanor almost abject in its depressed docility that he had quiteforgotten the Alice of the old days, when she had spirit and courageenough for two, and a notable tongue of her own. The flash in hereyes and the lines of resolution about her mouth and chin for a momentdaunted him. Then he observed by a flutter of the frill at her wristthat she was trembling. 

"I am sure I have nothing to 'say out in so many words, ' as you putit, " he replied, forcing his voice into cool, impassive tones. "I merelycommented upon a coincidence, that was all. If, for any reason underthe sun, the subject chances to be unpleasant to you, I have no earthlydesire to pursue it. "

"But I insist upon having it pursued!" returned Alice. "I've had justall I can stand of your insinuations and innuendoes, and it's high timewe had some plain talk. Ever since the revival, you have been droppingsly, underhand hints about Mr. Gorringe and--and me. Now I ask you whatyou mean by it. "

Yes, there was a shake in her voice, and he could see how her bosomheaved in a tremor of nervousness. It was easy for him to be very calm. 

"It is you who introduce these astonishing suggestions, not I, " hereplied coldly. "It is you who couple your name with his--somewhat to mysurprise, I admit--but let me suggest that we drop the subject. Youare excited just now, and you might say things that you would prefer toleave unsaid. It would surely be better for all concerned to say no moreabout it. "

Alice, staring across the table at him with knitted brows, emitted asharp little snort of indignation. "Well, I never! Theron, I wouldn'thave thought it of you!"

"There are so many things you wouldn't have thought, on such a varietyof subjects, " he observed, with a show of resuming his breakfast. "Butwhy continue? We are only angering each other. "

"Never mind that, " she replied, with more control over her speech. "Iguess things have come to a pass where a little anger won't do any harm. I have a right to insist on knowing what you mean by your insinuations. "

Theron sighed. "Why will you keep harping on the thing?" he askedwearily. "I have displayed no curiosity. I don't ask for anyexplanations. I think I mentioned that the man had behaved insultinglyto me--but that doesn't matter. I don't bring it up as a grievance. Iam very well able to take care of myself I have no wish to recur to theincident in any way. So far as I am concerned, the topic is dismissed. "

"Listen to me!" broke in Alice, with eager gravity. She hesitated, as helooked up with a nod of attention, and reflected as well as she was ableamong her thoughts for a minute or two. "This is what I want to say toyou. Ever since we came to this hateful Octavius, you and I have beendrifting apart--or no, that doesn't express it--simply rushing away fromeach other. It only began last spring, and now the space between usis so wide that we are worse than complete strangers. For strangers atleast don't hate each other, and I've had a good many occasions latelyto see that you positively do hate me--"

"What grotesque absurdity" interposed Theron, impatiently. 

"No, it isn't absurdity; it's gospel truth, " retorted Alice. "And--don'tinterrupt me--there have been times, too, when I have had to ask myselfif I wasn't getting almost to hate you in return. I tell you thisfrankly. "

"Yes, you are undoubtedly frank, " commented the husband, toying with histeaspoon. "A hypercritical person might consider, almost too frank. "

Alice scanned his face closely while he spoke, and held her breath asif in expectant suspense. Her countenance clouded once more. "You don'trealize, Theron, " she said gravely; "your voice when you speak to me, your look, your manner, they have all changed. You are like anotherman--some man who never loved me, and doesn't even know me, much lesslike me. I want to know what the end of it is to be. Up to the time ofyour sickness last summer, until after the Soulsbys went away, I didn'tlet myself get downright discouraged. It seemed too monstrous forbelief that you should go away out of my life like that. It didn't seempossible that God could allow such a thing. It came to me that I hadbeen lax in my Christian life, especially in my position as a minister'swife, and that this was my punishment. I went to the altar, to intercedewith Him, and to try to loose my burden at His feet. But nothing hascome of it. I got no help from you. "

"Really, Alice, " broke in Theron, "I explained over and over again toyou how preoccupied I was--with the book--and affairs generally. "

"I got no assistance from Heaven either, " she went on, declining thediversion he offered. "I don't want to talk impiously, but if there is aGod, he has forgotten me, his poor heart-broken hand-maiden. "

"You are talking impiously, Alice, " observed her husband. "And you aredoing me cruel injustice, into the bargain. "

"I only wish I were!" she replied; "I only wish to God I were!"

"Well, then, accept my complete assurance that you ARE--that your wholeconception of me, and of what you are pleased to describe as my changetoward you, is an entire and utter mistake. Of course, the marriedstate is no more exempt from the universal law of growth, development, alteration, than any other human institution. On its spiritual side, ofcourse, viewed either as a sacrament, or as--"

"Don't let us go into that, " interposed Alice, abruptly. "In fact, thereis no good in talking any more at all. It is as if we didn't speak thesame language. You don't understand what I say; it makes no impressionupon your mind. "

"Quite to the contrary, " he assured her; "I have been deeply interestedand concerned in all you have said. I think you are laboring under agreat delusion, and I have tried my best to convince you of it; butI have never heard you speak more intelligibly or, I might say, effectively. "

A little gleam of softness stole over Alice's face. "If you only gave mea little more credit for intelligence, " she said, "you would find that Iam not such a blockhead as you think I am. "

"Come, come!" he said, with a smiling show of impatience. "You reallymustn't impute things to me wholesale, like that. "

She was glad to answer the smile in kind. "No; but truly, " she pleaded, "you don't realize it, but you have grown into a way of treating me asif I had absolutely no mind at all. "

"You have a very admirable mind, " he responded, and took up his teaspoonagain. She reached for his cup, and poured out hot coffee for him. Analmost cheerful spirit had suddenly descended upon the breakfast table. 

"And now let me say the thing I have been aching to say for months, " shebegan in less burdened voice. 

He lifted his brows. "Haven't things been discussed pretty fullyalready?" he asked. 

The doubtful, harassed expression clouded upon her face at hiswords, and she paused. "No, " she said resolutely, after aninstant's reflection; "it is my duty to discuss this, too. It is amisunderstanding all round. You remember that I told you Mr. Gorringehad given me some plants, which he got from some garden or other?"

"If you really wish to go on with the subject--yes I have a recollectionof that particular falsehood of his. "

"He did it with the kindest and friendliest motives in the world!"protested Alice. "He saw how down-in-the-mouth and moping I was here, among these strangers--and I really was getting quite peaked andrun-down--and he said I stayed indoors too much and it would do me allsorts of good to work in the garden, and he would send me some plants. The next I knew, here they were, with a book about mixing soils andplanting, and so on. When I saw him next, and thanked him, I suppose Ishowed some apprehension about his having laid out money on them, andhe, just to ease my mind, invented the story about his getting them fornothing. When I found out the truth--I got it out of that boy, HarveySemple--he admitted it quite frankly--said he was wrong to deceive me. "

"This was in the fine first fervor of his term of probation, I suppose, "put in Theron. He made no effort to dissemble the sneer in his voice. 

"Well, " answered Alice, with a touch of acerbity, "I have told younow, and it is off my mind. There never would have been the slightestconcealment about it, if you hadn't begun by keeping me at arm's length, and making it next door to impossible to speak to you at all, and if--"

"And if he hadn't lied. " Theron, as he finished her sentence for her, rose from the table. Dallying for a brief moment by his chair, thereseemed the magnetic premonition in the air of some further and kindlierword. Then he turned and walked sedately into the next room, and closedthe door behind him. The talk was finished; and Alice, left alone, passed the knuckle of her thumb over one swimming eye and then theother, and bit her lips and swallowed down the sob that rose in herthroat. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

It was early afternoon when Theron walked out of his yard, bestowing noglance upon the withered and tarnished show of the garden, and startedwith a definite step down the street. The tendency to ruminativeloitering, which those who saw him abroad always associated with histall, spare figure, was not suggested today. He moved forward like a manwith a purpose. 

All the forenoon in the seclusion of the sitting-room, with a bookopened before him, he had been thinking hard. It was not the talk withAlice that occupied his thoughts. That rose in his mind from time totime, only as a disagreeable blur, and he refused to dwell upon it. Itwas nothing to him, he said to himself, what Gorringe's motives in lyinghad been. As for Alice, he hardened his heart against her. Just nowit was her mood to try and make up to him. But it had been somethingdifferent yesterday, and who could say what it would be tomorrow? Hereally had passed the limit of patience with her shifting emotionalvagaries, now lurching in this direction, now in that. She had had herchance to maintain a hold upon his interest and imagination, and hadlet it slip. These were the accidents of life, the inevitable harshhappenings in the great tragedy of Nature. They could not be helped, andthere was nothing more to be said. 

He had bestowed much more attention upon what the priest had said theprevious evening. He passed in review all the glowing tributes FatherForbes had paid to Celia. They warmed his senses as he recalled them, but they also, in a curious, indefinite way, caused him uneasiness. There had been a personal fervor about them which was something morethan priestly. He remembered how the priest had turned pale and falteredwhen the question whether Celia would escape the general doom of herfamily came up. It was not a merely pastoral agitation that, he feltsure. 

A hundred obscure hints, doubts, stray little suspicions, crowded upwardtogether in his thoughts. It became apparent to him now that from theoutset he had been conscious of something queer--yes, from that veryfirst day when he saw the priest and Celia together, and noted theirglance of recognition inside the house of death. He realized now, uponreflection, that the tone of other people, his own parishioners and hiscasual acquaintances in Octavius alike, had always had a certain note ofreservation in it when it touched upon Miss Madden. Her running in andout of the pastorate at all hours, the way the priest patted her onthe shoulder before others, the obvious dislike the priest's ugly oldhousekeeper bore her, the astonishing freedom of their talk with eachother--these dark memories loomed forth out of a mass of sinisterconjecture. 

He could bear the uncertainty no longer. Was it indeed not entirely hisown fault that it had existed thus long? No man with the spirit of amouse would have shilly-shallied in this preposterous fashion, weekafter week, with the fever of a beautiful woman's kiss in his blood, andthe woman herself living only round the corner. The whole world had beenas good as offered to him--a bewildering world of wealth and beauty andspiritual exaltation and love--and he, like a weak fool, had waited forit to be brought to him on a salver, as it were, and actually forcedupon his acceptance! "That is my failing, " he reflected; "thesemiserable ecclesiastical bandages of mine have dwarfed my manly side. The meanest of Thurston's clerks would have shown a more adventurousspirit and a bolder nerve. If I do not act at once, with courage andresolution, everything will be lost. Already she must think me unworthyof the honor it was in her sweet will to bestow. " Then he rememberedthat she was now always at home. "Not another hour of foolishindecision!" he whispered to himself. "I will put my destiny to thetest. I will see her today!"

A middle-aged, plain-faced servant answered his ring at the door-bellof the Madden mansion. She was palpably Irish, and looked at him with asaddened preoccupation in her gray eyes, holding the door only a littleajar. 

Theron had got out one of his cards. "I wish to make inquiry aboutyoung Mr. Madden--Mr. Michael Madden, " he said, holding the card forthtentatively. "I have only just heard of his illness, and it has been agreat grief to me. "

"He is no better, " answered the woman, briefly. 

"I am the Rev. Mr. Ware, " he went on, "and you may say that, if he iswell enough, I should be glad to see him. "

The servant peered out at him with a suddenly altered expression, thenshook her head. "I don't think he would be wishing to see YOU, " shereplied. It was evident from her tone that she suspected the visitor'sintentions. 

Theron smiled in spite of himself. "I have not come as a clergyman, " heexplained, "but as a friend of the family. If you will tell Miss Maddenthat I am here, it will do just as well. Yes, we won't bother him. Ifyou will kindly hand my card to his sister. "

When the domestic turned at this and went in, Theron felt like throwinghis hat in the air, there where he stood. The woman's churlish sectarianprejudices had played ideally into his hands. In no other imaginable waycould he have asked for Celia so naturally. He wondered a little that aservant at such a grand house as this should leave callers standing onthe doorstep. Still more he wondered what he should say to the lady ofhis dream when he came into her presence. 

"Will you please to walk this way?" The woman had returned. She closedthe door noiselessly behind him, and led the way, not up the sumptuousstaircase, as Theron had expected, but along through the broad hall, past several large doors, to a small curtained archway at the end. She pushed aside this curtain, and Theron found himself in a sort ofconservatory, full of the hot, vague light of sunshine falling throughground-glass. The air was moist and close, and heavy with the smell ofverdure and wet earth. A tall bank of palms, with ferns sprawling attheir base, reared itself directly in front of him. The floor was ofmosaic, and he saw now that there were rugs upon it, and that there werechairs and sofas, and other signs of habitation. It was, indeed, onlyhalf a greenhouse, for the lower part of it was in rosewood panels, withfloral paintings on them, like a room. 

Moving to one side of the barrier of palms, he discovered, to his greatsurprise, the figure of Michael, sitting propped up with pillows ina huge easy-chair. The sick man was looking at him with big, gravelyintent eyes. His face did not show as much change as Theron had in fancypictured. It had seemed almost as bony and cadaverous on the day of thepicnic. The hands spread out on the chair-arms were very white andthin, though, and the gaze in the blue eyes had a spectral quality whichdisturbed him. 

Michael raised his right hand, and Theron, stepping forward, took itlimply in his for an instant. Then he laid it down again. The touch ofpeople about to die had always been repugnant to him. He could feel onhis own warm palm the very damp of the grave. 

"I only heard from Father Forbes last evening of your--your ill-health, "he said, somewhat hesitatingly. He seated himself on a bench beneaththe palms, facing the invalid, but still holding his hat. "I hope verysincerely that you will soon be all right again. "

"My sister is lying down in her room, " answered Michael. He had not oncetaken his sombre and embarrassing gaze from the other's face. The voicein which he uttered this uncalled-for remark was thin in fibre, coldand impassive. It fell upon Theron's ears with a suggestion of hiddenmeaning. He looked uneasily into Michael's eyes, and then away again. They seemed to be looking straight through him, and there was noshirking the sensation that they saw and comprehended things with anunnatural prescience. 

"I hope she is feeling better, " Theron found himself saying. "FatherForbes mentioned that she was a little under the weather. I dined withhim last night. "

"I am glad that you came, " said Michael, after a little pause. Hisearnest, unblinking eyes seemed to supplement his tongue with speech oftheir own. "I do be thinking a great deal about you. I have matters tospeak of to you, now that you are here. "

Theron bowed his head gently, in token of grateful attention. He triedthe experiment of looking away from Michael, but his glance went backagain irresistibly, and fastened itself upon the sick man's gaze, andclung there. 

"I am next door to a dead man, " he went on, paying no heed to theother's deprecatory gesture. "It is not years or months with me, butweeks. Then I go away to stand up for judgment on my sins, and if it isHis merciful will, I shall see God. So I say my good-byes now, and soyou will let me speak plainly, and not think ill of what I say. Youare much changed, Mr. Ware, since you came to Octavius, and it is not achange for the good. "

Theron lifted his brows in unaffected surprise, and put inquiry into hisglance. 

"I don't know if Protestants will be saved, in God's good time, or not, "continued Michael. "I find there are different opinions among the clergyabout that, and of course it is not for me, only a plain mechanic, to besure where learned and pious scholars are in doubt. But I am sure aboutone thing. Those Protestants, and others too, mind you, who professand preach good deeds, and themselves do bad deeds--they will never besaved. They will have no chance at all to escape hell-fire. "

"I think we are all agreed upon that, Mr. Madden, " said Theron, withsurface suavity. 

"Then I say to you, Mr. Ware, you are yourself in a bad path. Take thewarning of a dying man, sir, and turn from it!"

The impulse to smile tugged at Theron's facial muscles. This wasreally too droll. He looked up at the ceiling, the while he forced hiscountenance into a polite composure, then turned again to Michael, withsome conciliatory commonplace ready for utterance. But he said nothing, and all suggestion of levity left his mind, under the searchinginspection bent upon him by the young man's hollow eyes. What didMichael suspect? What did he know? What was he hinting at, in thisstrange talk of his?

"I saw you often on the street when first you came here, " continuedMichael. "I knew the man who was here before you--that is, by sight--andhe was not a good man. But your face, when you came, pleased me. I likedto look at you. I was tormented just then, do you see, that so manydecent, kindly people, old school-mates and friends and neighbors ofmine--and, for that matter, others all over the country must lose theirsouls because they were Protestants. At my boyhood and young manhood, that thought took the joy out of me. Sometimes I usen't to sleep a wholenight long, for thinking that some lad I had been playing with, perhapsin his own house, that very day, would be taken when he died, and hismother too, when she died, and thrown into the flames of hell forall eternity. It made me so unhappy that finally I wouldn't go to anyProtestant boy's house, and have his mother be nice to me, and give mecake and apples--and me thinking all the while that they were bound tobe damned, no matter how good they were to me. "

The primitive humanity of this touched Theron, and he nodded approbationwith a tender smile in his eyes, forgetting for the moment that apersonal application of the monologue had been hinted at. 

"But then later, as I grew up, " the sick man went on, "I learned that itwas not altogether certain. Some of the authorities, I found, maintainedthat it was doubtful, and some said openly that there must be salvationpossible for good people who lived in ignorance of the truth through nofault of their own. Then I had hope one day, and no hope the next, andas I did my work I thought it over, and in the evenings my father andI talked it over, and we settled nothing of it at all. Of course, howcould we?"

"Did you ever discuss the question with your sister?" it occurredsuddenly to Theron to interpose. He was conscious of some daring indoing so, and he fancied that Michael's drawn face clouded a little athis words. 

"My sister is no theologian, " he answered briefly. "Women have no callto meddle with such matters. But I was saying--it was in the middle ofthese doubtings of mine that you came here to Octavius, and I noticedyou on the streets, and once in the evening--I made no secret of it tomy people--I sat in the back of your church and heard you preach. As Isay, I liked you. It was your face, and what I thought it showed of theman underneath it, that helped settle my mind more than anything else. Isaid to myself: 'Here is a young man, only about my own age, and he haseducation and talents, and he does not seek to make money for himself, or a great name, but he is content to live humbly on the salary of abook-keeper, and devote all his time to prayer and the meditation ofhis religion, and preaching, and visiting the sick and the poor, andcomforting them. His very face is a pleasure and a help for those insuffering and trouble to look at. The very sight of it makes one believein pure thoughts and merciful deeds. I will not credit it that Godintends damning such a man as that, or any like him!'"

Theron bowed, with a slow, hesitating gravity of manner, and deep, notwholly complacent, attention on his face. Evidently all this was by wayof preparation for something unpleasant. 

"That was only last spring, " said Michael. His tired voice sank fora sentence or two into a meditative half-whisper. "And it was MY lastspring of all. I shall not be growing weak any more, or drawing hardbreaths, when the first warm weather comes. It will be one season tome hereafter, always the same. " He lifted his voice with perceptibleeffort. "I am talking too much. The rest I can say in a word. Only halfa year has gone by, and you have another face on you entirely. I hadnoticed the small changes before, one by one. I saw the great change, all of a sudden, the day of the picnic. I see it a hundred times morenow, as you sit there. If it seemed to me like the face of a saintbefore, it is more like the face of a bar-keeper now!"

This was quite too much. Theron rose, flushed to the temples, andscowled down at the helpless man in the chair. He swallowed the sharpwords which came uppermost, and bit and moistened his lips as he forcedhimself to remember that this was a dying man, and Celia's brother, towhom she was devoted, and whom he himself felt he wanted to be very fondof. He got the shadow of a smile on to his countenance. 

"I fear you HAVE tired yourself unduly, " he said, in as non-contentiousa tone as he could manage. He even contrived a little deprecatory laugh. "I am afraid your real quarrel is with the air of Octavius. It agreeswith me so wonderfully--I am getting as fat as a seal. But I do hope Iam not paying for it by such a wholesale deterioration inside. If my ownopinion could be of any value, I should assure you that I feel myselfan infinitely better and broader and stronger man than I was when I camehere. "

Michael shook his head dogmatically. "That is the greatest pity of all, "he said, with renewed earnestness. "You are entirely deceived aboutyourself. You do not at all realize how you have altered your direction, or where you are going. It was a great misfortune for you, sir, thatyou did not keep among your own people. That poor half-brother of mine, though the drink was in him when he said that same to you, never spokea truer word. Keep among your own people, Mr. Ware! When you go amongothers--you know what I mean--you have no proper understanding of whattheir sayings and doings really mean. You do not realize that they areheld up by the power of the true Church, as a little child learning towalk is held up with a belt by its nurse. They can say and do things, and no harm at all come to them, which would mean destruction to you, because they have help, and you are walking alone. And so be said by me, Mr. Ware! Go back to the way you were brought up in, and leave alone thepeople whose ways are different from yours. You are a married man, andyou are the preacher of a religion, such as it is. There can be nothingbetter for you than to go and strive to be a good husband, and to set agood example to the people of your Church, who look up to you--and mixyourself up no more with outside people and outside notions that only doyou mischief. And that is what I wanted to say to you. "

Theron took up his hat. "I take in all kindness what you have felt ityour duty to say to me, Mr. Madden, " he said. "I am not sure that I havealtogether followed you, but I am very sure you mean it well. "

"I mean well by you, " replied Michael, wearily moving his head on thepillow, and speaking in an undertone of languor and pain, "and I meanwell by others, that are nearer to me, and that I have a right to caremore about. When a man lies by the site of his open grave, he does notbe meaning ill to any human soul. "

"Yes--thanks--quite so!" faltered Theron. He dallied for an instantwith the temptation to seek some further explanation, but the sight ofMichael's half-closed eyes and worn-out expression decided him againstit. It did not seem to be expected, either, that he should shake hands, and with a few perfunctory words of hope for the invalid's recovery, which fell with a jarring note of falsehood upon his own ears, he turnedand left the room. As he did so, Michael touched a bell on the tablebeside him. 

Theron drew a long breath in the hall, as the curtain fell behind him. It was an immense relief to escape from the oppressive humidity and heatof the flower-room, and from that ridiculous bore of a Michael as well. 

The middle-aged, grave-faced servant, warned by the bell, stood waitingto conduct him to the door. 

"I am sorry to have missed Miss Madden, " he said to her. "She must bequite worn out. Perhaps later in the day--"

"She will not be seeing anybody today, " returned the woman. "She isgoing to New York this evening, and she is taking some rest against thejourney. "

"Will she be away long?" he asked mechanically. The servant's answer, "Ihave no idea, " hardly penetrated his consciousness at all. 

He moved down the steps, and along the gravel to the street, in a mazeof mental confusion. When he reached the sidewalk, under the familiarelms, he paused, and made a definite effort to pull his thoughtstogether, and take stock of what had happened, of what was going tohappen; but the thing baffled him. It was as if some drug had stupefiedhis faculties. 

He began to walk, and gradually saw that what he was thinking about wasthe fact of Celia's departure for New York that evening. He staredat this fact, at first in its nakedness, then clothed with reassuringsuggestions that this was no doubt a trip she very often made. There wasa blind sense of comfort in this idea, and he rested himself upon it. Yes, of course, she travelled a great deal. New York must be as familiarto her as Octavius was to him. Her going there now was quite a matter ofcourse--the most natural thing in the world. 

Then there burst suddenly uppermost in his mind the other fact--thatFather Forbes was also going to New York that evening. The two thingsspindled upward, side by side, yet separately, in his mental vision;then they twisted and twined themselves together. He followed theirconvolutions miserably, walking as if his eyes were shut. 

In slow fashion matters defined and arranged themselves before him. The process of tracing their sequence was all torture, but there was nopossibility, no notion, of shirking any detail of the pain. The priesthad spoken of his efforts to persuade Celia to go away for a few days, for rest and change of air and scene. He must have known only too wellthat she was going, but of that he had been careful to drop no hint. Thepossibility of accident was too slight to be worth considering. Peopleon such intimate terms as Celia and the priest--people with suchfacilities for seeing each other whenever they desired--did not findthemselves on the same train of cars, with the same long journey inview, by mere chance. 

Theron walked until dusk began to close in upon the autumn day. It grewcolder, as he turned his face homeward. He wondered if it would freezeagain over-night, and then remembered the shrivelled flowers in hiswife's garden. For a moment they shaped themselves in a picture beforehis mind's eye; he saw their blackened foliage, their sicklied, droopingstalks, and wilted blooms, and as he looked, they restored themselves tothe vigor and grace and richness of color of summer-time, as vividly asif they had been painted on a canvas. Or no, the picture he stared atwas not on canvas, but on the glossy, varnished panel of a luxurioussleeping-car. He shook his head angrily and blinked his eyes again andagain, to prevent their seeing, seated together in the open window abovethis panel, the two people he knew were there, gloved and habited forthe night's journey, waiting for the train to start. 

"Very much to my surprise, " he found himself saying to Alice, watchingher nervously as she laid the supper-table, "I find I must go to Albanytonight. That is, it isn't absolutely necessary, for that matter, butI think it may easily turn out to be greatly to my advantage to go. Something has arisen--I can't speak about it as yet--but the sooner Isee the Bishop about it the better. Things like that occur in a man'slife, where boldly striking out a line of action, and following it upwithout an instant's delay, may make all the difference in the worldto him. Tomorrow it might be too late; and, besides, I can be home thesooner again. "

Alice's face showed surprise, but no trace of suspicion. She spoke withstudied amiability during the meal, and deferred with such unexpectedtact to his implied desire not to be questioned as to the mysteriousmotives of the journey, that his mood instinctively softened and warmedtoward her, as they finished supper. 

He smiled a little. "I do hope I shan't have to go on tomorrow to NewYork; but these Bishops of ours are such gad-abouts one never knowswhere to catch them. As like as not Sanderson may be down in New York, on Book-Concern business or something; and if he is, I shall have tochase him up. But, after all, perhaps the trip will do me good--thechange of air and scene, you know. "

"I'm sure I hope so, " said Alice, honestly enough. "If you do go on toNew York, I suppose you'll go by the river-boat. Everybody talks so muchof that beautiful sail down the Hudson. "

"That's an idea!" exclaimed Theron, welcoming it with enthusiasm. "Ithadn't occurred to me. If I do have to go, and it is as lovely as theymake out, the next time I promise I won't go without you, my girl. IHAVE been rather out of sorts lately, " he continued. "When I come back, I daresay I shall be feeling better, more like my old self. Then I'mgoing to try, Alice, to be nicer to you than I have been of late. I'mafraid there was only too much truth in what you said this morning. "

"Never mind what I said this morning--or any other time, " broke inAlice, softly. "Don't ever remember it again, Theron, if only--only--"

He rose as she spoke, moved round the table to where she sat, and, bending over her, stopped the faltering sentence with a kiss. When wasit, he wondered, that he had last kissed her? It seemed years, ages, ago. 

An hour later, with hat and overcoat on, and his valise in his hand, hestood on the doorstep of the parsonage, and kissed her once more beforehe turned and descended into the darkness. He felt like whistling as hisfeet sounded firmly on the plank sidewalk beyond the gate. It seemed asif he had never been in such capital good spirits before in his life. 

CHAPTER XXIX

The train was at a standstill somewhere, and the dull, ashen beginningsof daylight had made a first feeble start toward effacing the lamps inthe car-roof, when the new day opened for Theron. A man who had justcome in stopped at the seat upon which he had been stretched through thenight, and, tapping him brusquely on the knee, said, "I'm afraid I musttrouble you, sir. " After a moment of sleep-burdened confusion, he satup, and the man took the other half of the seat and opened a newspaper, still damp from the press. It was morning, then. 

Theron rubbed a clear space upon the clouded window with his thumb, andlooked out. There was nothing to be seen but a broad stretch of tracks, and beyond this the shadowed outlines of wagons and machinery in a yard, with a background of factory buildings. 

The atmosphere in the car was vile beyond belief. He thought of openingthe window, but feared that the peremptory-looking man with the paper, who had wakened him and made him sit up, might object. They were theonly people in the car who were sitting up. Backwards and forwards, on either side of the narrow aisle, the dim light disclosed recumbentforms, curled uncomfortably into corners, or sprawling at difficultangles which involved the least interference with one another. Here andthere an upturned face gave a livid patch of surface for the mingledplay of the gray dawn and the yellow lamp-light. A ceaseless noise ofsnoring was in the air. 

He got up and walked to the tank of ice-water at the end of the aisle, and took a drink from the most inaccessible portion of the commontin-cup's rim. The happy idea of going out on the platform struck him, and he acted upon it. The morning air was deliciously cool and freshby contrast, and he filled his lungs with it again and again. Standinghere, he could discern beyond the buildings to the right the faintpurplish outlines of great rounded hills. Some workmen, one of thembearing a torch, were crouching along under the side of the train, pounding upon the resonant wheels with small hammers. He recalled havingheard the same sound in the watches of the night, during a prolongedhalt. Some one had said it was Albany. He smiled in spite of himself atthe thought that Bishop Sanderson would never know about the visit hehad missed. 

Swinging himself to the ground, he bent sidewise and looked forward downthe long train. There were five, six, perhaps more, sleeping-cars onin front. Which one of them, he wondered--and then there came the sharp"All aboard!" from the other side, and he bundled up the steps again, and entered the car as the train slowly resumed its progress. 

He was wide-awake now, and quite at his ease. He took his seat, anddiverted himself by winking gravely at a little child facing him on thenext seat but one. There were four other children in the family party, encamped about the tired and still sleeping mother whose back was turnedto Theron. He recalled now having noticed this poor woman last night, in the first stage of his journey--how she fed her brood from one of thenumerous baskets piled under their feet, and brought water in a tin dishof her own from the tank to use in washing their faces with a rag, andloosened their clothes to dispose them for the night's sleep. The faceof the woman, her manner and slatternly aspect, and the general effectof her belongings, bespoke squalid ignorance and poverty. Watching her, Theron had felt curiously interested in the performance. In one sense, it was scarcely more human than the spectacle of a cat licking herkittens, or a cow giving suck to her calf. Yet, in another, was thereanything more human?

The child who had wakened before the rest regarded him with placidity, declining to be amused by his winkings, but exhibiting no other emotion. She had been playing by herself with a couple of buttons tied ona string, and after giving a civil amount of attention to Theron'sgrimaces, she turned again to the superior attractions of this toy. Herself-possession, her capacity for self-entertainment, the care she tooknot to arouse the others, all impressed him very much. He felt in hispocket for a small coin, and, reaching forward, offered it to her. Shetook it calmly, bestowed a tranquil gaze upon him for a moment, and wentback to the buttons. Her indifference produced an unpleasant sensationupon him somehow, and he rubbed the steaming window clear again, andstared out of it. 

The wide river lay before him, flanked by a precipitous wall ofcliffs which he knew instantly must be the Palisades. There was anadvertisement painted on them which he tried in vain to read. He wassurprised to find they interested him so slightly. He had heard all hislife of the Hudson, and especially of it just at this point. The realityseemed to him almost commonplace. His failure to be thrilled depressedhim for the moment. 

"I suppose those ARE the Palisades?" he asked his neighbor. 

The man glanced up from his paper, nodded, and made as if to resume hisreading. But his eye had caught something in the prospect through thewindow which arrested his attention. "By George!" he exclaimed, andlifted himself to get a clearer view. 

"What is it?" asked Theron, peering forth as well. 

"Nothing; only Barclay Wendover's yacht is still there. There's been ahitch of some sort. They were to have left yesterday. "

"Is that it--that long black thing?" queried Theron. "That can't be ayacht, can it?"

"What do you think it is?" answered the other. They were looking at aslim, narrow hull, lying at anchor, silent and motionless on the drabexpanse of water. "If that ain't a yacht, they haven't begun buildingany yet. They're taking her over to the Mediterranean for a cruise, youknow--around India and Japan for the winter, and home by the South Seaislands. Friend o' mine's in the party. Wouldn't mind the trip myself. "

"But do you mean to say, " asked Theron, "that that little shell of athing can sail across the ocean? Why, how many people would she hold?"

The man laughed. "Well, " he said, "there's room for two sets ofquadrilles in the chief saloon, if the rest keep their legs well up onthe sofas. But there's only ten or a dozen in the party this time. More than that rather get in one another's way, especially with so manyladies on board. "

Theron asked no more questions, but bent his head to see the last ofthis wonderful craft. The sight of it, and what he had heard about it, suddenly gave point and focus to his thoughts. He knew at last what itwas that had lurked, formless and undesignated, these many days in thebackground of his dreams. The picture rose in his mind now of Celia asthe mistress of a yacht. He could see her reclining in a low easy-chairupon the polished deck, with the big white sails billowing behind her, and the sun shining upon the deep blue waves, and glistening through thesplash of spray in the air, and weaving a halo of glowing gold abouther fair head. Ah, how the tender visions crowded now upon him! Eternalsummer basked round this enchanted yacht of his fancy--summer soughtnow in Scottish firths or Norwegian fiords, now in quaint old Southernharbors, ablaze with the hues of strange costumes and half-tropicalflowers and fruits, now in far-away Oriental bays and lagoons, or amongthe coral reefs and palm-trees of the luxurious Pacific. He dwelt uponthese new imaginings with the fervent longing of an inland-born boy. Every vague yearning he had ever felt toward salt-water stirred again inhis blood at the thought of the sea--with Celia. 

Why not? She had never visited any foreign land. "Sometime, " she hadsaid, "sometime, no doubt I will. " He could hear again the wistful, musing tone of her voice. The thought had fascinations for her, it wasclear. How irresistibly would it not appeal to her, presented with theadded charm of a roving, vagrant independence on the high seas, freeto speed in her snow-winged chariot wherever she willed over the deep, loitering in this place, or up-helm-and-away to another, with no morecare or weight of responsibility than the gulls tossing through the airin her wake!

Theron felt, rather than phrased to himself, that there would not be"ten or a dozen in the party" on that yacht. Without defining anythingin his mind, he breathed in fancy the same bold ocean breeze whichfilled the sails, and toyed with Celia's hair; he looked with her as shesat by the rail, and saw the same waves racing past, the same vast domeof cloud and ether that were mirrored in her brown eyes, and there wasno one else anywhere near them. Even the men in sailors' clothes, who would be pulling at ropes, or climbing up tarred ladders, keptthemselves considerately outside the picture. Only Celia sat there, andat her feet, gazing up again into her face as in the forest, the manwhose whole being had been consecrated to her service, her worship, bythe kiss. 

"You've passed it now. I was trying to point out the Jumel house toyou--where Aaron Burr lived, you know. "

Theron roused himself from his day-dream, and nodded with a confusedsmile at his neighbor. "Thanks, " he faltered; "I didn't hear you. Thetrain makes such a noise, and I must have been dozing. "

He looked about him. The night aspect, as of a tramps' lodging-house, had quite disappeared from the car. Everybody was sitting up; and themore impatient were beginning to collect their bundles and hand-bagsfrom the racks and floor. An expressman came through, jangling a hugebunch of brass checks on leathern thongs over his arm, and held parleywith passengers along the aisle. Outside, citified streets, with storesand factories, were alternating in the moving panorama with open fields;and, even as he looked, these vacant spaces ceased altogether, andsuccessive regular lines of pavement, between two tall rows of housesall alike, began to stretch out, wheel to the right, and swing off outof view, for all the world like the avenues of hop-poles he rememberedas a boy. Then was a long tunnel, its darkness broken at statedintervals by brief bursts of daylight from overhead, and out of this allat once the train drew up its full length in some vast, vaguely lightedenclosure, and stopped. 

"Yes, this is New York, " said the man, folding up his paper, andspringing to his feet. The narrow aisle was filled with many others whohad been prompter still; and Theron stood, bag in hand, waiting tillthis energetic throng should have pushed itself bodily past him forthfrom the car. Then he himself made his way out, drifting with a sense ofhelplessness in their resolute wake. There rose in his mind the suddenconviction that he would be too late. All the passengers in the forwardsleepers would be gone before he could get there. Yet even this terrorgave him no new power to get ahead of anybody else in the tightly packedthrong. 

Once on the broad platform, the others started off briskly; they allseemed to know just where they wanted to go, and to feel that no instantof time was to be lost in getting there. Theron himself caught some ofthis urgent spirit, and hurled himself along in the throng with recklesshaste, knocking his bag against peoples' legs, but never pausing forapology or comment until he found himself abreast of the locomotive atthe head of the train. He drew aside from the main current here, andbegan searching the platform, far and near, for those he had travelledso far to find. 

The platform emptied itself. Theron lingered on in puzzled hesitation, and looked about him. In the whole immense station, with its acres oftracks and footways, and its incessantly shifting processions of people, there was visible nobody else who seemed also in doubt, or who appearedcapable of sympathizing with indecision in any form. Another train camein, some way over to the right, and before it had fairly stopped, swarms of eager men began boiling out of each end of each car, literallyprecipitating themselves over one another, it seemed to Theron, in theirexcited dash down the steps. As they caught their footing below, theystarted racing pell-mell down the platform to its end; there he sawthem, looking more than ever like clustered bees in the distance, struggling vehemently in a dense mass up a staircase in the remotecorner of the building. 

"What are those folks running for? Is there a fire?" he asked anamiable-faced young mulatto, in the uniform of the sleeping-car service, who passed him with some light hand-bags. 

"No; they's Harlem people, I guess--jes' catchin' the Elevated--that'sall, sir, " he answered obligingly. 

At the moment some passengers emerged slowly from one of thesleeping-cars, and came loitering toward him. 

"Why, are there people still in these cars?" he asked eagerly. "Haven'tthey all gone?"

"Some has; some ain't, " the porter replied. "They most generally taketheir time about it. They ain't no hurry, so long's they get out 'forewe're drawn round to the drill-yard. "

There was still hope, then. Theron took up his bag and walked forward, intent upon finding some place from which he could watch unobserved thebelated stragglers issuing from the sleeping-cars. He started backall at once, confronted by a semi-circle of violent men with whipsand badges, who stunned his hearing by a sudden vociferous outburst ofshouts and yells. They made furious gestures at him with their whipsand fists, to enforce the incoherent babel of their voices; and in thesegestures, as in their faces and cries, there seemed a great deal ofmenace and very little invitation. There was a big policeman saunteringnear by, and Theron got the idea that it was his presence alone whichprotected him from open violence at the hands of these savage hackmen. He tightened his clutch on his valise, and, turning his back on themand their uproar, tried to brave it out and stand where he was. But thepoliceman came lounging slowly toward him, with such authority in hisswaying gait, and such urban omniscience written all over his broad, sandy face, that he lost heart, and beat an abrupt retreat off to theright, where there were a number of doorways, near which other peoplehad ventured to put down baggage on the floor. 

Here, somewhat screened from observation, he stood for a long time, watching at odd moments the ceaselessly varying phases of the strangescene about him, but always keeping an eye on the train he had himselfarrived in. It was slow and dispiriting work. A dozen times his heartfailed him, and he said to himself mournfully that he had had hisjourney for nothing. Then some new figure would appear, alighting fromthe steps of a sleeper, and hope revived in his breast. 

At last, when over half an hour of expectancy had been marked off by thebig clock overhead, his suspense came to an end. He saw Father Forbes'erect and substantial form, standing on the car platform nearest ofall, balancing himself with his white hands on the rails, waiting forsomething. Then after a little he came down, followed by a black porter, whose arms were burdened by numerous bags and parcels. The two stooda minute or so more in hesitation at the side of the steps. Then Celiadescended, and the three advanced. 

The importance of not being discovered was uppermost in Theron's mind, now that he saw them actually coming toward him. He had avoided this theprevious evening, in the Octavius depot, with some skill, he flatteredhimself. It gave him a pleasurable sense of being a man of affairs, almost a detective, to be confronted by the necessity now of bafflingobservation once again. He was still rather without plans for keepingthem in view, once they left the station. He had supposed that he wouldbe able to hear what hotel they directed their driver to take them to, and, failing that, he had fostered a notion, based upon a story he hadread when a boy, of throwing himself into another carriage, and biddinghis driver to pursue them in hot haste, and on his life not fail totrack them down. These devices seemed somewhat empty, now that theurgent moment was at hand; and as he drew back behind some otherloiterers, out of view, he sharply racked his wits for some way ofcoping with this most pressing problem. 

It turned out, however, that there was no difficulty at all. FatherForbes and Celia seemed to have no use for the hackmen, but movedstraight forward toward the street, through the doorway next to thatin which Theron cowered. He stole round, and followed them at a safedistance, making Celia's hat, and the portmanteau perched on theshoulder of the porter behind her, his guides. To his surprise, theystill kept on their course when they had reached the sidewalk, and wentover the pavement across an open square which spread itself directlyin front of the station. Hanging as far behind as he dared, he saw thempass to the other sidewalk diagonally opposite, proceed for a block orso along this, and then separate at a corner. Celia and the negro ladwent down a side street, and entered the door of a vast, tall red-brickbuilding which occupied the whole block. The priest, turning on hisheel, came back again and went boldly up the broad steps of the frontentrance to this same structure, which Theron now discovered to be theMurray Hill Hotel. 

Fortune had indeed favored him. He not only knew where they were, but hehad been himself a witness to the furtive way in which they enteredthe house by different doors. Nothing in his own limited experience ofhotels helped him to comprehend the notion of a separate entrancefor ladies and their luggage. He did not feel quite sure about thesignificance of what he had observed, in his own mind. But it wasapparent to him that there was something underhanded about it. 

After lingering awhile on the steps of the hotel, and satisfying himselfby peeps through the glass doors that the coast was clear, he venturedinside. The great corridor contained many people, coming, going, orstanding about, but none of them paid any attention to him. At lasthe made up his mind, and beckoned a colored boy to him from a groupgathered in the shadows of the big central staircase. Explaining thathe did not at that moment wish a room, but desired to leave his bag, theboy took him to a cloak-room, and got him a check for the thing. Withthis in his pocket he felt himself more at his ease, and turned to walkaway. Then suddenly he wheeled, and, bending his body over the counterof the cloak-room, astonished the attendant inside by the eagerness withwhich he scrutinized the piled rows of portmanteaus, trunks, overcoats, and bundles in the little enclosure. 

"What is it you want? Here's your bag, if you're looking for that, " thisman said to him. 

"No, thanks; it's nothing, " replied Theron, straightening himself again. He had had a narrow escape. Father Forbes and Celia, walking side byside, had come down the small passage in which he stood, and had passedhim so closely that he had felt her dress brush against him. Fortunatelyhe had seen them in time, and by throwing himself half into thecloak-room, had rendered recognition impossible. 

He walked now in the direction they had taken, till he came to thepolite colored man at an open door on the left, who was bowing peopleinto the breakfast room. Standing in the doorway, he looked about himtill his eye lighted upon his two friends, seated at a small table bya distant window, with a black waiter, card in hand, bending over inconsultation with them. 

Returning to the corridor, he made bold now to march up to the desk andexamine the register. The priest's name was not there. He found only thebrief entry, "Miss Madden, Octavius, " written, not by her, but by FatherForbes. On the line were two numbers in pencil, with an "and" betweenthem. An indirect question to one of the clerks helped him to anexplanation of this. When there were two numbers, it meant that theguest in question had a parlor as well as a bedroom. 

Here he drew a long, satisfied breath, and turned away. The first halfof his quest stood completed--and that much more fully and easily thanhe had dared to hope. He could not but feel a certain new respect forhimself as a man of resource and energy. He had demonstrated that peoplecould not fool with him with impunity. 

It remained to decide what he would do with his discovery, now thatit had been so satisfactorily made. As yet, he had given this hardly athought. Even now, it did not thrust itself forward as a thing demandinginstant attention. It was much more important, first of all, to get agood breakfast. He had learned that there was another and less formaleating-place, downstairs in the basement by the bar, with an entrancefrom the street. He walked down by the inner stairway instead, feelinghimself already at home in the big hotel. He ordered an ample breakfast, and came out while it was being served to wash and have his bootsblacked, and he gave the man a quarter of a dollar. His pockets werefilled with silver quarters, half-dollars, and dollars almost to aburdensome point, and in his valise was a bag full of smaller change, including many rolls of copper cents which Alice always counted andpacked up on Mondays. In the hurry of leaving he had brought with himthe church collections for the past two weeks. It occurred to him thathe must keep a strict account of his expenditure. Meanwhile he gave tencents to another man in a silk-sleeved cardigan jacket, who had merelystood by and looked at him while his boots were being polished. Therewas a sense of metropolitan affluence in the very atmosphere. 

The little table in the adjoining room, on which Theron found his mealin waiting for him, seemed a vision of delicate napery and refinedappointments in his eyes. He was wolfishly hungry, and the dishes helooked upon gave him back assurances by sight and smell that he was veryhappy as well. The servant in attendance had an extremely white apronand a kindly black face. He bowed when Theron looked at him, with theair of a lifelong admirer and humble friend. 

"I suppose you'll have claret with your breakfast, sir?" he remarked, asif it were a matter of course. 

"Why, certainly, " answered Theron, stretching his legs contentedlyunder the table, and tucking the corner of his napkin in hisneckband. --"Certainly, my good man. "

CHAPTER XXX

At ten o'clock Theron, loitering near the bookstall in the corridor, sawFather Forbes come downstairs, pass out through the big front doors, getinto a carriage, and drive away. 

This relieved him of a certain sense of responsibility, and he retiredto a corner sofa and sat down. The detective side of him being off duty, so to speak, there was leisure at last for reflection upon the otheraspects of his mission. Yes; it was high time for him to consider whathe should do next. 

It was easier to recognize this fact, however, than to act upon it. His mind was full of tricksy devices for eluding this task of seriousthought which he sought to impose upon it. It seemed so much pleasanternot to think at all--but just to drift. He found himself watching withenvy the men who, as they came out from their breakfast, walked over tothe bookstall, and bought cigars from the row of boxes nestling thereamong the newspaper piles. They had such evident delight in the workof selection; they took off the ends of the cigars so carefully, andlighted them with such meditative attention, --he could see that he waswofully handicapped by not knowing how to smoke. He had had the mostwonderful breakfast of his life, but even in the consciousness ofcomfortable repletion which pervaded his being, there was an obstinatesense of something lacking. No doubt a good cigar was the thing neededto round out the perfection of such a breakfast. He half rose once, fired by a sudden resolution to go over and get one. But of course thatwas nonsense; it would only make him sick. He sat down, and determinedlyset himself to thinking. 

The effort finally brought fruit--and of a kind which gave him a veryunhappy quarter of an hour. The lover part of him was uppermost now, insistently exposing all its raw surfaces to the stings and scalds ofjealousy. Up to this moment, his brain had always evaded the directquestion of how he and the priest relatively stood in Celia'sestimation. It forced itself remorselessly upon him now; and histhoughts, so far from shirking the subject, seemed to rise up to meetit. It was extremely unpleasant, all this. 

But then a calmer view asserted itself. Why go out of his way toinvent anguish for himself? The relations between Celia and the priest, whatever they might be, were certainly of old standing. They had begunbefore his time. His own romance was a more recent affair, and must takeits place, of course, subject to existing conditions. 

It was all right for him to come to New York, and satisfy his legitimatecuriosity as to the exact character and scope of these conditions. Butit was foolish to pretend to be amazed or dismayed at the discovery oftheir existence. They were a part of the situation which he, with hiseyes wide open, had accepted. It was his function to triumph over them, to supplant them, to rear the edifice of his own victorious passion upontheir ruins. It was to this that Celia's kiss had invited him. It wasfor this that he had come to New York. To let his purpose be hampered orthwarted now by childish doubts and jealousies would be ridiculous. 

He rose, and holding himself very erect, walked with measureddeliberation across the corridor and up the broad staircase. There wasan elevator near at hand, he had noticed, but he preferred the stairs. One or two of the colored boys clustered about the foot of the stairslooked at him, and he had a moment of dreadful apprehension lest theyshould stop his progress. Nothing was said, and he went on. The numberson the first floor were not what he wanted, and after some wanderingabout he ascended to the next, and then to the third. Every now and thenhe encountered attendants, but intuitively he bore himself with an airof knowing what he was about which protected him from inquiry. 

Finally he came upon the hall-way he sought. Passing along, he foundthe doors bearing the numbers he had memorized so well. They were quiteclose together, and there was nothing to help him guess which belongedto the parlor. He hesitated, gazing wistfully from one to the other. Inthe instant of indecision, even while his alert ear caught the sound offeet coming along toward the passage in which he stood, a thought cameto quicken his resolve. It became apparent to him that his discoverygave him a certain new measure of freedom with Celia, a sort of right totake things more for granted than heretofore. He chose a door at random, and rapped distinctly on the panel. 

"Come!"

The voice he knew for Celia's. The single word, however, recalledthe usage of Father Forbes, which he had noted more than once at thepastorate, when Maggie had knocked. 

He straightened his shoulders, took his hat off, and pushed open thedoor. It WAS the parlor--a room of sofas, pianos, big easy-chairs, andluxurious bric-a-brac. A tall woman was walking up and down in it, withbowed head. Her back was at the moment toward him; and he looked at her, saying to himself that this was the lady of his dreams, the enchantressof the kiss, the woman who loved him--but somehow it did not seem to hissenses to be Celia. 

She turned, and moved a step or two in his direction before shemechanically lifted her eyes and saw who was standing in her doorway. She stopped short, and regarded him. Her face was in the shadow, and hecould make out nothing of its expression, save that there was a generaleffect of gravity about it. 

"I cannot receive you, " she said. "You must go away. You have nobusiness to come like this without sending up your card. "

Theron smiled at her. The notion of taking in earnest her inhospitablewords did not at all occur to him. He could see now that her face hadvexed and saddened lines upon it, and the sharpness of her tone remainedin his ears. But he smiled again gently, to reassure her. 

"I ought to have sent up my name, I know, " he said, "but I couldn't bearto wait. I just saw your name on the register and--you WILL forgive me, won't you?--I ran to you at once. I know you won't have the heart tosend me away!"

She stood where she had halted, her arms behind her, looking him fixedlyin the face. He had made a movement to advance, and offer his hand ingreeting, but her posture checked the impulse. His courage began tofalter under her inspection. 

"Must I really go down again?" he pleaded. "It's a crushing penalty tosuffer for such little indiscretion. I was so excited to find you werehere--I never stopped to think. Don't send me away; please don't!"

Celia raised her head. "Well, shut the door, then, " she said, "since youare so anxious to stay. You would have done much better, though, verymuch better indeed, to have taken the hint and gone away. "

"Will you shake hands with me, Celia?" he asked softly, as he came nearher. 

"Sit there, please!" she made answer, indicating a chair in the middleof the room. He obeyed her, but to his surprise, instead of seatingherself as well, she began walking up and down the length of the flooragain. After a turn or two she stopped in front of him, and looked himfull in the eye. The light from the windows was on her countenance now, and its revelations vaguely troubled him. It was a Celia he had neverseen before who confronted him. 

"I am much occupied by other matters, " she said, speaking with coldimpassivity, "but still I find myself curious to know just what limitsyou set to your dishonesty. "

Theron stared up at her. His lips quivered, but no speech came to them. If this was all merely fond playfulness, it was being carried to aheart-aching point. 

"I saw you hiding about in the depot at home last evening, " she went on. "You come up here, pretending to have discovered me by accident, but Isaw you following me from the Grand Central this morning. "

"Yes, I did both these things, " said Theron, boldly. A fine braverytingled in his veins all at once. He looked into her face and found thespirit to disregard its frowning aspect. "Yes, I did them, " he repeateddefiantly. "That is not the hundredth part, or the thousandth part, of what I would do for your sake. I have got way beyond caring for anyconsequences. Position, reputation, the good opinion of fools--what arethey? Life itself--what does it amount to? Nothing at all--with you inthe balance!"

"Yes--but I am not in the balance, " observed Celia, quietly. "That iswhere you have made your mistake. "

Theron laid aside his hat. Women were curious creatures, he reflected. Some were susceptible to one line of treatment, some to another. His ownreading of Celia had always been that she liked opposition, of a smart, rattling, almost cheeky, sort. One got on best with her by saying brightthings. He searched his brain now for some clever quip that would strikesparks from the adamantine mood which for the moment it was her whim toassume. To cover the process, he smiled a little. Then her beauty, as she stood before him, her queenly form clad in a more stifflyfashionable dress than he had seen her wearing before, appealed afreshand overwhelmingly to him. He rose to his feet. 

"Have you forgotten our talk in the woods?" he murmured with a wooingnote. "Have you forgotten the kiss?"

She shook her head calmly. "I have forgotten nothing. "

"Then why play with me so cruelly now?" he went on, in a voice of tenderdeprecation. "I know you don't mean it, but all the same it bruises myheart a little. I build myself so wholly upon you, I have made existenceitself depend so completely upon your smile, upon a soft glance in youreyes, that when they are not there, why, I suffer, I don't know how tolive at all. So be kinder to me, Celia!"

"I was kinder, as you call it, when you came in, " she replied. "Itold you to go away. That was pure kindness--more kindness than youdeserved. "

Theron looked at his hat, where it stood on the carpet by his feet. Hefelt tears coming into his eyes. "You tell me that you remember, " hesaid, in depressed tones, "and yet you treat me like this! Perhaps I amwrong. No doubt it is my own fault. I suppose I ought not to have comedown here at all. "

Celia nodded her head in assent to this view. 

"But I swear that I was helpless in the matter, " he burst forth. "I HADto come! It would have been literally impossible for me to have stayedat home, knowing that you were here, and knowing also that--that--"

"Go on!" said Celia, thrusting forth her under-lip a trifle, andhardening still further the gleam in her eye, as he stumbled over hissentence and left it unfinished. "What was the other thing that you were'knowing'?"

"Knowing--" he took up the word hesitatingly--"knowing that life wouldbe insupportable to me if I could not be near you. "

She curled her lip at him. "You skated over the thin spot very well, "she commented. "It was on the tip of your tongue to mention the factthat Father Forbes came with me. Oh, I can read you through and through, Mr. Ware. "

In a misty way Theron felt things slipping from his grasp. The risingmoisture blurred his eyes as their gaze clung to Celia. 

"Then if you do read me, " he protested, "you must know how utterly myheart and brain are filled with you. No other man in all the world canyield himself so absolutely to the woman he worships as I can. You havetaken possession of me so wholly, I am not in the least master of myselfany more. I don't know what I say or what I do. I am not worthy of you, I know. No man alive could be that. But no one else will idolize andreverence you as I do. Believe me when I say that, Celia! And how canyou blame me, in your heart, for following you? 'Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be mypeople, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there willI be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but deathpart thee and me!'"

Celia shrugged her shoulders, and moved a few steps away from him. Something like despair seized upon him. 

"Surely, " he urged with passion, "surely I have a right to remind you ofthe kiss!"

She turned. "The kiss, " she said meditatively. "Yes, you have a rightto remind me of it. Oh, yes, an undoubted right. You have another righttoo--the right to have the kiss explained to you. It was of the good-byeorder. It signified that we weren't to meet again, and that just for onelittle moment I permitted myself to be sorry for you. That was all. "

He held himself erect under the incredible words, and gazed blankly ather. The magnitude of what he confronted bewildered him; his mind wasincapable of taking it in. "You mean--" he started to say, and thenstopped, helplessly staring into her face, with a dropped jaw. It wastoo much to try to think what she meant. 

A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain. It grewuntil it spread a bitter smile over his pale face. "I know so littleabout kisses, " he said; "I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing. You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brandof kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able todistinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country--on a farm. They don't have kisses in assorted varieties there. "

She bowed her head slightly. "Yes, you are entitled to say that, " sheassented. "I was to blame, and it is quite fair that you should tellme so. You spoke of your inexperience, your innocence. That was why Ikissed you in saying good-bye. It was in memory of that innocence ofyours, to which you yourself had been busy saying good-bye ever since Ifirst saw you. The idea seemed to me to mean something at the moment. Isee now that it was too subtle. I do not usually err on that side. "

Theron kept his hold upon her gaze, as if it afforded him bodilysupport. He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but hedared not look away from her. "Do you not err now, on the side ofcruelty?" he asked her piteously. 

It seemed for the instant as if she were wavering, and he swiftly thrustforth other pleas. "I admit that I did wrong to follow you to New York. I see that now. But it was an offence committed in entire good faith. Think of it, Celia! I have never seen you since that day--that day inthe woods. I have waited--and waited--with no sign from you, no chanceof seeing you at all. Think what that meant to me! Everything in theworld had been altered for me, torn up by the roots. I was a new being, plunged into a new existence. The kiss had done that. But until saw youagain, I could not tell whether this vast change in me and my life wasfor good or for bad--whether the kiss had come to me as a blessing or acurse. The suspense was killing me, Celia! That is why, when I learnedthat you were coming here, I threw everything to the winds and followedyou. You blame me for it, and I bow my head and accept the blame. Butare you justified in punishing me so terribly--in going on after I haveconfessed my error, and cutting my heart into little strips, putting meto death by torture?"

"Sit down, " said Celia, with a softened weariness in her voice. Sheseated herself in front of him as he sank into his chair again. "I don'twant to give you unnecessary pain, but you have insisted on forcingyourself into a position where there isn't anything else but pain. Iwarned you to go away, but you wouldn't. No matter how gently I may tryto explain things to you, you are bound to get nothing but suffering outof the explanation. Now shall I still go on?"

He inclined his head in token of assent, and did not lift it again, butraised toward her a disconsolate gaze from a pallid, drooping face. 

"It is all in a single word, Mr. Ware, " she proceeded, in low tones. "I speak for others as well as myself, mind you--we find that you are abore. "

Theron's stiffened countenance remained immovable. He continued to stareunblinkingly up into her eyes. 

"We were disposed to like you very much when we first knew you, "Celia went on. "You impressed us as an innocent, simple, genuine youngcharacter, full of mother's milk. It was like the smell of early springin the country to come in contact with you. Your honesty of nature, your sincerity in that absurd religion of yours, your general NAIVETE ofmental and spiritual get-up, all pleased us a great deal. We thought youwere going to be a real acquisition. "

"Just a moment--whom do you mean by 'we'?" He asked the question calmlyenough, but in a voice with an effect of distance in it. 

"It may not be necessary to enter into that, " she replied. "Let me goon. But then it became apparent, little by little, that we had misjudgedyou. We liked you, as I have said, because you were unsophisticated anddelightfully fresh and natural. Somehow we took it for granted you wouldstay so. Rut that is just what you didn't do--just what you hadn't thesense to try to do. Instead, we found you inflating yourself withall sorts of egotisms and vanities. We found you presuming upon thefriendships which had been mistakenly extended to you. Do you wantinstances? You went to Dr. Ledsmar's house that very day after I hadbeen with you to get a piano at Thurston's, and tried to inveigle himinto talking scandal about me. You came to me with tales about him. Youwent to Father Forbes, and sought to get him to gossip about us both. Neither of those men will ever ask you inside his house again. But thatis only one part of it. Your whole mind became an unpleasant thingto contemplate. You thought it would amuse and impress us to hear youridiculing and reviling the people of your church, whose money supportsyou, and making a mock of the things they believe in, and which you foryour life wouldn't dare let them know you didn't believe in. You talkedto us slightingly about your wife. What were you thinking of, notto comprehend that that would disgust us? You showed me once--do youremember?--a life of George Sand that you had just bought, --boughtbecause you had just discovered that she had an unclean side to herlife. You chuckled as you spoke to me about it, and you were for all theworld like a little nasty boy, giggling over something dirty that olderpeople had learned not to notice. These are merely random incidents. They are just samples, picked hap-hazard, of the things in you whichhave been opening our eyes, little by little, to our mistake. Ican understand that all the while you really fancied that you wereexpanding, growing, in all directions. What you took to be improvementwas degeneration. When you thought that you were impressing us most byyour smart sayings and doings, you were reminding us most of the fableabout the donkey trying to play lap-dog. And it wasn't even an honest, straightforward donkey at that!"

She uttered these last words sorrowfully, her hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes sinking to the floor. A silence ensued. Then Theron reacheda groping hand out for his hat, and, rising, walked with a lifeless, automatic step to the door. 

He had it half open, when the impossibility of leaving in this waytowered suddenly in his path and overwhelmed him. He slammed the doorto, and turned as if he had been whirled round by some mighty wind. He came toward her, with something almost menacing in the vigor of hismovements, and in the wild look upon his white, set face. Haltingbefore her, he covered the tailor-clad figure, the coiled red hair, theupturned face with its simulated calm, the big brown eyes, the ringsupon the clasped fingers, with a sweeping, comprehensive glare ofpassion. 

"This is what you have done to me, then!"

His voice was unrecognizable in his own ears--hoarse and broken, butwith a fright-compelling something in it which stimulated his rage. Thehorrible notion of killing her, there where she sat, spread over thechaos of his mind with an effect of unearthly light--red and abnormallyevil. It was like that first devilish radiance ushering in Creation, ofwhich the first-fruit was Cain. Why should he not kill her? In all ages, women had been slain for less. Yes--and men had been hanged. Somethingrose and stuck in his dry throat; and as he swallowed it down, thesinister flare of murderous fascination died suddenly away intodarkness. The world was all black again--plunged in the Egyptian nightwhich lay upon the face of the deep while the earth was yet without formand void. He was alone on it--alone among awful, planetary solitudeswhich crushed him. 

The sight of Celia, sitting motionless only a pace in front of him, wasplain enough to his eyes. It was an illusion. She was really a star, many millions of miles away. These things were hard to understand; butthey were true, none the less. People seemed to be about him, but infact he was alone. He recalled that even the little child in the car, playing with those two buttons on a string, would have nothing to dowith him. Take his money, yes; take all he would give her--but not smileat him, not come within reach of him! Men closed the doors of theirhouses against him. The universe held him at arm's length as a nuisance. 

He was standing with one knee upon a sofa. Unconsciously he had movedround to the side of Celia; and as he caught the effect of her face nowin profile, memory-pictures began at once building themselves in hisbrain--pictures of her standing in the darkened room of the cottage ofdeath, declaiming the CONFITEOR; of her seated at the piano, under thepure, mellowed candle-light; of her leaning her chin on her hands, andgazing meditatively at the leafy background of the woods they were in;of her lying back, indolently content, in the deck-chair on the yacht ofhis fancy--that yacht which a few hours before had seemed so brilliantlyand bewitchingly real to him, and now--now--!

He sank in a heap upon the couch, and, burying his face among itscushions, wept and groaned aloud. His collapse was absolute. He sobbedwith the abandonment of one who, in the veritable presence of death, lets go all sense of relation to life. 

Presently some one was touching him on the shoulder--an incisive, pointed touch--and he checked himself, and lifted his face. 

"You will have to get up, and present some sort of an appearance, andgo away at once, " Celia said to him in low, rapid tones. "Some gentlemenare at the door, whom I have been waiting for. "

As he stupidly sat up and tried to collect his faculties, Celia hadopened the door and admitted two visitors. The foremost was FatherForbes; and he, with some whispered, smiling words, presented to her hiscompanion, a tall, robust, florid man of middle-age, with a frock-coatand a gray mustache, sharply waxed. The three spoke for a momenttogether. Then the priest's wandering eye suddenly lighted upon thefigure on the sofa. He stared, knitted his brows, and then lifted themin inquiry as he turned to Celia. 

"Poor man!" she said readily, in tones loud enough to reach Theron. "Itis our neighbor, Father, the Rev. Mr. Ware. He hit upon my name inthe register quite unexpectedly, and I had him come up. He is in soredistress--a great and sudden bereavement. He is going now. Won't youspeak to him in the hall--a few words, Father? It would please him. Heis terribly depressed. "

The words had drawn Theron to his feet, as by some mechanical process. He took up his hat and moved dumbly to the door. It seemed to him thatCelia intended offering to shake hands; but he went past her with onlysome confused exchange of glances and a murmured word or two. The tallstranger, who drew aside to let him pass, had acted as if he expected tobe introduced. Theron, emerging into the hall, leaned against the walland looked dreamily at the priest, who had stepped out with him. 

"I am very sorry to learn that you are in trouble, Mr. Ware, " FatherForbes said, gently enough, but in hurried tones. "Miss Madden is alsoin trouble. I mentioned to you that her brother had got into a seriousscrape. I have brought my old friend, General Brady, to consult withher about the matter. He knows all the parties concerned, and he can setthings right if anybody can. "

"It's a mistake about me--I 'm not in any trouble at all, " said Theron. "I just dropped in to make a friendly call. "

The priest glanced sharply at him, noting with a swift, informedscrutiny how he sprawled against the wall, and what vacuity his eyes andloosened lips expressed. 

"Then you have a talent for the inopportune amounting to positivegenius, " said Father Forbes, with a stormy smile. 

"Tell me this, Father Forbes, " the other demanded, with impulsivesuddenness, "is it true that you don't want me in your house again? Isthat the truth or not?"

"The truth is always relative, Mr. Ware, " replied the priest, turningaway, and closing the door of the parlor behind him with a decisivesound. 

Left alone, Theron started to make his way downstairs. He found hislegs wavering under him and making zigzag movements of their own in abewildering fashion. He referred this at first, in an outburst of freshdespair, to the effects of his great grief. Then, as he held tight tothe banister and governed his descent step by step, it occurred to himthat it must be the wine he had had for breakfast. Upon examination, hewas not so unhappy, after all. 

CHAPTER XXXI

At the second peal of the door-bell, Brother Soulsby sat up in bed. It was still pitch-dark, and the memory of the first ringing flutteredmusically in his awakening consciousness as a part of some dream he hadbeen having. 

"Who the deuce can that be?" he mused aloud, in querulous resentment atthe interruption. 

"Put your head out of the window, and ask, " suggested his wife, drowsily. 

The bell-pull scraped violently in its socket, and a third outburst ofshrill reverberations clamored through the silent house. 

"Whatever you do, I'd do it before he yanked the whole thing to pieces, "added the wife, with more decision. 

Brother Soulsby was wide awake now. He sprang to the floor, and, gropingabout in the obscurity, began drawing on some of his clothes. He rappedon the window during the process, to show that the house was astir, anda minute afterward made his way out of the room and down the stairs, theboards creaking under his stockinged feet as he went. 

Nearly a quarter of an hour passed before he returned. Sister Soulsby, lying in sleepy quiescence, heard vague sounds of voices at the frontdoor, and did not feel interested enough to lift her head and listen. A noise of footsteps on the sidewalk followed, first receding from thedoor, then turning toward it, this second time marking the presence ofmore than one person. There seemed in this the implication of a guest, and she shook off the dozing impulses which enveloped her faculties, and waited to hear more. There came up, after further muttering of malevoices, the undeniable chink of coins striking against one another. Thenmore footsteps, the resonant slam of a carriage door out in the street, the grinding of wheels turning on the frosty road, and the racket of avehicle and horses going off at a smart pace into the night. Somebodyhad come, then. She yawned at the thought, but remained well awake, tracing idly in her mind, as various slight sounds rose from the lowerfloor, the different things Soulsby was probably doing. Their spare roomwas down there, directly underneath, but curiously enough no one seemedto enter it. The faint murmur of conversation which from time totime reached her came from the parlor instead. At last she heard herhusband's soft tread coming up the staircase, and still there had beenno hint of employing the guest-chamber. What could he be about? shewondered. 

Brother Soulsby came in, bearing a small lamp in his hand, the reddishlight of which, flaring upward, revealed an unlooked-for display ofamusement on his thin, beardless face. He advanced to the bedside, shading the glare from her blinking eyes with his palm, and grinned. 

"A thousand guesses, old lady, " he said, with a dry chuckle, "and youwouldn't have a ghost of a chance. You might guess till Hades froze overseven feet thick, and still you wouldn't hit it. "

She sat up in turn. "Good gracious, man, " she began, "you don't mean--"Here the cheerful gleam in his small eyes reassured her, and she sighedrelief, then smiled confusedly. "I half thought, just for the minute, "she explained, "it might be some bounder who'd come East to try andblackmail me. But no, who is it--and what on earth have you done withhim?"

Brother Soulsby cackled in merriment. "It's Brother Ware of Octavius, out on a little bat, all by himself. He says he's been on the loose onlytwo days; but it looks more like a fortnight. "

"OUR Brother Ware?" she regarded him with open-eyed surprise. 

"Well, yes, I suppose he's OUR Brother Ware--some, " returned Soulsby, genially. "He seems to think so, anyway. "

"But tell me about it!" she urged eagerly. "What's the matter with him?How does he explain it?"

"Well, he explains it pretty badly, if you ask me, " said Soulsby, witha droll, joking eye and a mock-serious voice. He seated himself on theside of the bed, facing her, and still considerately shielding herfrom the light of the lamp he held. "But don't think I suggested anyexplanations. I've been a mother myself. He's merely filled himself upto the neck with rum, in the simple, ordinary, good old-fashioned way. That's all. What is there to explain about that?"

She looked meditatively at him for a time, shaking her head. "No, Soulsby, " she said gravely, at last. "This isn't any laughing matter. You may be sure something bad has happened, to set him off like that. I'm going to get up and dress right now. What time is it?"

"Now don't you do anything of the sort, " he urged persuasively. "Itisn't five o'clock; it'll be dark for nearly an hour yet. Just you turnover, and have another nap. He's all right. I put him on the sofa, withthe buffalo robe round him. You'll find him there, safe and sound, whenit's time for white folks to get up. You know how it breaks you up allday, not to get your full sleep. "

"I don't care if it makes me look as old as the everlasting hills, " shesaid. "Can't you understand, Soulsby? The thing worries me--gets on mynerves. I couldn't close an eye, if I tried. I took a great fancy tothat young man. I told you so at the time. "

Soulsby nodded, and turned down the wick of his lamp a trifle. "Yes, Iknow you did, " he remarked in placidly non-contentious tones. "Ican't say I saw much in him myself, but I daresay you're right. " Therefollowed a moment's silence, during which he experimented in turning thewick up again. "But, anyway, " he went on, "there isn't anything you cando. He'll sleep it off, and the longer he's left alone the better. Itisn't as if we had a hired girl, who'd come down and find him there, andgive the whole thing away. He's fixed up there perfectly comfortable;and when he's had his sleep out, and wakes up on his own account, he'llbe feeling a heap better. "

The argument might have carried conviction, but on the instant the soundof footsteps came to them from the room below. The subdued noise roseregularly, as of one pacing to and fro. 

"No, Soulsby, YOU come back to bed, and get YOUR sleep out. I'm goingdownstairs. It's no good talking; I'm going. "

Brother Soulsby offered no further opposition, either by talk ordemeanor, but returned contentedly to bed, pulling the comforter overhis ears, and falling into the slow, measured respiration of tranquilslumber before his wife was ready to leave the room. 

The dim, cold gray of twilight was sifting furtively through the lacecurtains of the front windows when Mrs. Soulsby, lamp in hand, enteredthe parlor. She confronted a figure she would have hardly recognized. The man seemed to have been submerged in a bath of disgrace. From thecrown of his head to the soles of his feet, everything about him wasaltered, distorted, smeared with an intangible effect of shame. In thevague gloom of the middle distance, between lamp and window, she noticedthat his shoulders were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp. The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw and throat. Hisclothes were crumpled and hung awry; his boots were stained with mud. The silk hat on the piano told its battered story with dumb eloquence. 

Lifting the lamp, she moved forward a step, and threw its light upon hisface. A little groan sounded involuntarily upon her lips. Out of a maskof unpleasant features, swollen with drink and weighted by the physicalcraving for rest and sleep, there stared at her two bloodshot eyes, shining with the wild light of hysteria. The effect of dishevelled hair, relaxed muscles, and rough, half-bearded lower face lent to these eyes, as she caught their first glance, an unnatural glare. The lamp shookin her hand for an instant. Then, ashamed of herself, she held out herother hand fearlessly to him. 

"Tell me all about it, Theron, " she said calmly, and with a soothing, motherly intonation in her voice. 

He did not take the hand she offered, but suddenly, with a wailing moan, cast himself on his knees at her feet. He was so tall a man that themovement could have no grace. He abased his head awkwardly, to buryit among the folds of the skirts at her ankles. She stood still for amoment, looking down upon him. Then, blowing out the light, she reachedover and set the smoking lamp on the piano near by. The daylight madethings distinguishable in a wan, uncertain way, throughout the room. 

"I have come out of hell, for the sake of hearing some human being speakto me like that!"

The thick utterance proceeded in a muffled fashion from where his facegrovelled against her dress. Its despairing accents appealed to her, buteven more was she touched by the ungainly figure he made, sprawling onthe carpet. 

"Well, since you are out, stay out, " she answered, as reassuringly asshe could. "But get up and take a seat here beside me, like a sensibleman, and tell me all about it. Come! I insist!"

In obedience to her tone, and the sharp tug at his shoulder with whichshe emphasized it, he got slowly to his feet, and listlessly seatedhimself on the sofa to which she pointed. He hung his head, and begancatching his breath with a periodical gasp, half hiccough, half sob. 

"First of all, " she said, in her brisk, matter-of-fact manner, "don'tyou want to lie down there again, and have me tuck you up snug with thebuffalo robe, and go to sleep? That would be the best thing you coulddo. "

He shook his head disconsolately, from side to side. "I can't!" hegroaned, with a swifter recurrence of the sob-like convulsions. "I'mdying for sleep, but I'm too--too frightened!"

"Come, I'll sit beside you till you drop off, " she said, with masterfuldecision. He suffered himself to be pushed into recumbency on the couch, and put his head with docility on the pillow she brought from the spareroom. When she had spread the fur over him, and pushed her chair closeto the sofa, she stood by it for a little, looking down in meditation athis demoralized face. Under the painful surface-blur of wretchednessand fatigued debauchery, she traced reflectively the lineaments of theyounger and cleanlier countenance she had seen a few months before. Nothing essential had been taken away. There was only this pestiferousoverlaying of shame and cowardice to be removed. The face underneath wasstill all right. 

With a soft, maternal touch, she smoothed the hair from his foreheadinto order. Then she seated herself, and, when he got his hand out fromunder the robe and thrust it forth timidly, she took it in hers andheld it in a warm, sympathetic grasp. He closed his eyes at this, andgradually the paroxysmal catch in his breathing lapsed. The daylightstrengthened, until at last tiny flecks of sunshine twinkled in themeshes of the further curtains at the window. She fancied him asleep, and gently sought to disengage her hand, but his fingers clutched at itwith vehemence, and his eyes were wide open. 

"I can't sleep at all, " he murmured. "I want to talk. "

"There 's nothing in the world to hinder you, " she commented smilingly. 

"I tell you the solemn truth, " he said, lifting his voice in doggedassertion: "the best sermon I ever preached in my life, I preached onlythree weeks ago, at the camp-meeting. It was admitted by everybody to befar and away my finest effort! They will tell you the same!"

"It's quite likely, " assented Sister Soulsby. "I quite believe it. "

"Then how can anybody say that I've degenerated, that I've become afool?" he demanded. 

"I haven't heard anybody hint at such a thing, " she answered quietly. 

"No, of course, YOU haven't heard them!" he cried. "I heard them, though!" Then, forcing himself to a sitting posture, against therestraint of her hand, he flung back the covering. "I'm burning hotalready! Yes, those were the identical words: I haven't improved; I'vedegenerated. People hate me; they won't have me in their houses. Theysay I'm a nuisance and a bore. I'm like a little nasty boy. That's whatthey say. Even a young man who was dying--lying right on the edge of hisopen grave--told me solemnly that I reminded him of a saint once, but Iwas only fit for a barkeeper now. They say I really don't know anythingat all. And I'm not only a fool, they say, I'm a dishonest fool into thebargain!"

"But who says such twaddle as that?" she returned consolingly. Theviolence of his emotion disturbed her. "You mustn't imagine such things. You are among friends here. Other people are your friends, too. Theyhave the very highest opinion of you. "

"I haven't a friend on earth but you!" he declared solemnly. His eyesglowed fiercely, and his voice sank into a grave intensity of tone. "Iwas going to kill myself. I went on to the big bridge to throw myselfoff, and a policeman saw me trying to climb over the railing, and hegrabbed me and marched me away. Then he threw me out at the entrance, and said he would club my head off if I came there again. And then Iwent and stood and let the cable-cars pass close by me, and twenty timesI thought I had the nerve to throw myself under the next one, and thenI waited for the next--and I was afraid! And then I was in a crowdsomewhere, and the warning came to me that I was going to die. The foolneedn't go kill himself: God would take care of that. It was my heart, you know. I've had that terrible fluttering once before. It seized methis time, and I fell down in the crowd, and some people walked overme, but some one else helped me up, and let me sit down in a big lightedhallway, the entrance to some theatre, and some one brought me somebrandy, but somebody else said I was drunk, and they took it away again, and put me out. They could see I was a fool, that I hadn't a friendon earth. And when I went out, there was a big picture of a woman intights, and the word 'Amazons' overhead--and then I remembered you. Iknew you were my friend--the only one I have on earth. "

"It is very flattering--to be remembered like that, " said SisterSoulsby, gently. The disposition to laugh was smothered by a painedperception of the suffering he was undergoing. His face had grown drawnand haggard under the burden of his memories as he rambled on. 

"So I came straight to you, " he began again. "I had just money enoughleft to pay my fare. The rest is in my valise at the hotel--the MurrayHill Hotel. It belongs to the church. I stole it from the church. When Iam dead they can get it back again!"

Sister Soulsby forced a smile to her lips. "What nonsense youtalk--about dying!" she exclaimed. "Why, man alive, you'll sleep thisall off like a top, if you'll only lie down and give yourself a chance. Come, now, you must do as you're told. "

With a resolute hand, she made him lie down again, and once more coveredhim with the fur. He submitted, and did not even offer to put out hisarm this time, but looked in piteous dumbness at her for a long time. While she sat thus in silence, the sound of Brother Soulsby moving aboutupstairs became audible. 

Theron heard it, and the importance of hurrying on some furtherdisclosure seemed to suggest itself. "I can see you think I'm justdrunk, " he said, in low, sombre tones. "Of course that's what HEthought. The hackman thought so, and so did the conductor, andeverybody. But I hoped you would know better. I was sure you would seethat it was something worse than that. See here, I'll tell you. Thenyou'll understand. I've been drinking for two days and one whole night, on my feet all the while, wandering alone in that big strange New York, going through places where they murdered men for ten cents, mixingmyself up with the worst people in low bar-rooms and dance-houses, andthey saw I had money in my pocket, too, and yet nobody touched me, oroffered to lay a finger on me. Do you know why? They understood that Iwanted to get drunk, and couldn't. The Indians won't harm an idiot, orlunatic, you know. Well, it was the same with these vilest of the vile. They saw that I was a fool whom God had taken hold of, to break hisheart first, and then to craze his brain, and then to fling him on adunghill to die like a dog. They believe in God, those people. They'rethe only ones who do, it seems to me. And they wouldn't interfere whenthey saw what He was doing to me. But I tell you I wasn't drunk. Ihaven't been drunk. I'm only heart-broken, and crushed out of shapeand life--that's all. And I've crawled here just to have a friend by mewhen--when I come to the end. "

"You're not talking very sensibly, or very bravely either, Theron Ware, "remarked his companion. "It's cowardly to give way to notions likethat. "

"Oh, I 'm not afraid to die; don't think that, " he remonstrated wearily. "If there is a Judgment, it has hit me as hard as it can already. Therecan't be any hell worse than that I've gone through. Here I am talkingabout hell, " he continued, with a pained contraction of the musclesabout his mouth--a stillborn, malformed smile--"as if I believed in one!I've got way through all my beliefs, you know. I tell you that frankly. "

"It's none of my business, " she reassured him. "I'm not your Bishop, oryour confessor. I'm just your friend, your pal, that's all. "

"Look here!" he broke in, with some animation and a new intensity ofglance and voice. "If I was going to live, I'd have some funny things totell. Six months ago I was a good man. I not only seemed to be good, toothers and to myself, but I was good. I had a soul; I had a conscience. I was going along doing my duty, and I was happy in it. We were poor, Alice and I, and people behaved rather hard toward us, and sometimes wewere a little down in the mouth about it; but that was all. We reallywere happy; and I--I really was a good man. Here's the kind of joke Godplays! You see me here six months after. Look at me! I haven't got anhonest hair in my head. I'm a bad man through and through, that's whatI am. I look all around at myself, and there isn't an atom left anywhereof the good man I used to be. And, mind you, I never lifted a fingerto prevent the change. I didn't resist once; I didn't make any fight. I just walked deliberately down-hill, with my eyes wide open. I toldmyself all the while that I was climbing uphill instead, but I knew inmy heart that it was a lie. Everything about me was a lie. I wouldn't betelling the truth, even now, if--if I hadn't come to the end of my rope. Now, how do you explain that? How can it be explained? Was I reallyrotten to the core all the time, years ago, when I seemed to everybody, myself and the rest, to be good and straight and sincere? Was it all asham, or does God take a good man and turn him into an out-and-out badone, in just a few months--in the time that it takes an ear of corn toform and ripen and go off with the mildew? Or isn't there any God atall--but only men who live and die like animals? And that would explainmy case, wouldn't it? I got bitten and went vicious and crazy, andthey've had to chase me out and hunt me to my death like a mad dog! Yes, that makes it all very simple. It isn't worth while to discuss me atall as if I had a soul, is it? I'm just one more mongrel cur that's gonemad, and must be put out of the way. That's all. "

"See here, " said Sister Soulsby, alertly, "I half believe that a goodcuffing is what you really stand in need of. Now you stop all thisnonsense, and lie quiet and keep still! Do you hear me?"

The jocose sternness which she assumed, in words and manner, seemed tosoothe him. He almost smiled up at her in a melancholy way, and sighedprofoundly. 

"I've told you MY religion before, " she went on with gentleness. "Thesheep and the goats are to be separated on Judgment Day, but not aminute sooner. In other words, as long as human life lasts, good, bad, and indifferent are all braided up together in every man's nature, andevery woman's too. You weren't altogether good a year ago, any more thanyou're altogether bad now. You were some of both then; you're someof both now. If you've been making an extra sort of fool of yourselflately, why, now that you recognize it, the only thing to do is to slowsteam, pull up, and back engine in the other direction. In that wayyou'll find things will even themselves up. It's a see-saw with allof us, Theron Ware--sometimes up; sometimes down. But nobody is rottenclear to the core. "

He closed his eyes, and lay in silence for a time. 

"This is what day of the week?" he asked, at last. 

"Friday, the nineteenth. "

"Wednesday--that would be the seventeenth. That was the day ordained formy slaughter. On that morning, I was the happiest man in the world. No king could have been so proud and confident as I was. A wonderfulromance had come to me. The most beautiful young woman in the world, themost talented too, was waiting for me. An express train was carrying meto her, and it couldn't go fast enough to keep up with my eagerness. Shewas very rich, and she loved me, and we were to live in eternal summer, wherever we liked, on a big, beautiful yacht. No one else had such alife before him as that. It seemed almost too good for me, but I thoughtI had grown and developed so much that perhaps I would be worthy of it. Oh, how happy I was! I tell you this because--because YOU are not likethe others. You will understand. "

"Yes, I understand, " she said patiently. "Well--you were being sohappy. "

"That was in the morning--Wednesday the seventeenth--early in themorning. There was a little girl in the car, playing with some buttons, and when I tried to make friends with her, she looked at me, and shesaw, right at a glance, that I was a fool. 'Out of the mouths of babesand sucklings, ' you know. She was the first to find it out. It beganlike that, early in the morning. But then after that everybody knew it. They had only to look at me and they said: 'Why, this is a fool--like alittle nasty boy; we won't let him into our houses; we find him a bore. 'That is what they said. "

"Did SHE say it?" Sister Soulsby permitted herself to ask. 

For answer Theron bit his lips, and drew his chin under the fur, andpushed his scowling face into the pillow. The spasmodic, sob-like gaspsbegan to shake him again. She laid a compassionate hand upon his hotbrow. 

"That is why I made my way here to you, " he groaned piteously. "I knewyou would sympathize; I could tell it all to you. And it was so awful, to die there alone in the strange city--I couldn't do it--with nobodynear me who liked me, or thought well of me. Alice would hate me. Therewas no one but you. I wanted to be with you--at the last. "

His quavering voice broke off in a gust of weeping, and his face franklysurrendered itself to the distortions of a crying child's countenance, wide-mouthed and tragically grotesque in its abandonment of control. 

Sister Soulsby, as her husband's boots were heard descending the stairs, rose, and drew the robe up to half cover his agonized visage. She pattedthe sufferer softly on the head, and then went to the stair-door. 

"I think he'll go to sleep now, " she said, lifting her voice to thenew-comer, and with a backward nod toward the couch. "Come out into thekitchen while I get breakfast, or into the sitting-room, or somewhere, so as not to disturb him. He's promised me to lie perfectly quiet, andtry to sleep. "

When they had passed together out of the room, she turned. "Soulsby, "she said with half-playful asperity, "I'm disappointed in you. For a manwho's knocked about as much as you have, I must say you've picked up anastonishingly small outfit of gumption. That poor creature in there isno more drunk than I am. He's been drinking--yes, drinking like afish; but it wasn't able to make him drunk. He's past being drunk; he'sgrief-crazy. It's a case of 'woman. ' Some girl has made a fool of him, and decoyed him up in a balloon, and let him drop. He's been hurt bad, too. "

"We have all been hurt in our day and generation, " responded BrotherSoulsby, genially. "Don't you worry; he'll sleep that off too. It takeslonger than drink, and it doesn't begin to be so pleasant, but it can beslept off. Take my word for it, he'll be a different man by noon. "

When noon came, however, Brother Soulsby was on his way to summon oneof the village doctors. Toward nightfall, he went out again to telegraphfor Alice. 

CHAPTER XXXII

Spring fell early upon the pleasant southern slopes of the Susquehannacountry. The snow went off as by magic. The trees budded and leavedbefore their time. The birds came and set up their chorus in the elms, while winter seemed still a thing of yesterday. 

Alice, clad gravely in black, stood again upon a kitchen-stoop, andlooked across an intervening space of back-yards and fences to where thetall boughs, fresh in their new verdure, were silhouetted against thepure blue sky. The prospect recalled to her irresistibly another sunlitmorning, a year ago, when she had stood in the doorway of her ownkitchen, and surveyed a scene not unlike this; it might have been withthe same carolling robins, the same trees, the same azure segment ofthe tranquil, speckless dome. Then she was looking out upon surroundingsnovel and strange to her, among which she must make herself at home asbest she could. But at least the ground was secure under her feet; atleast she had a home, and a word from her lips could summon her husbandout, to stand beside her with his arm about her, and share her buoyant, hopeful joy in the promises of spring. 

To think that that was only one little year ago--the mere revolution offour brief seasons! And now--!

Sister Soulsby, wiping her hands on her apron, came briskly out uponthe stoop. Some cheerful commonplace was on her tongue, but a glance atAlice's wistful face kept it back. She passed an arm around her waistinstead, and stood in silence, looking at the elms. 

"It brings back memories to me--all this, " said Alice, nodding her head, and not seeking to dissemble the tears which sprang to her eyes. 

"The men will be down in a minute, dear, " the other reminded her. "They'd nearly finished packing before I put the biscuits in the oven. We mustn't wear long faces before folks, you know. "

"Yes, I know, " murmured Alice. Then, with a sudden impulse, she turnedto her companion. "Candace, " she said fervently, "we're alone here forthe moment; I must tell you that if I don't talk gratitude to you, it'ssimply and solely because I don't know where to begin, or what to say. I'm just dumfounded at your goodness. It takes my speech away. I onlyknow this, Candace: God will be very good to you. "

"Tut! tut!" replied Sister Soulsby, "that's all right, you dear thing. Iknow just how you feel. Don't dream of being under obligation to explainit to me, or to thank us at all. We've had all sorts of comfort out ofthe thing--Soulsby and I. We used to get downright lonesome, here allby ourselves, and we've simply had a winter of pleasant company instead, that s all. Besides, there's solid satisfaction in knowing that atlast, for once in our lives we've had a chance to be of some real use tosomebody who truly needed it. You can't imagine how stuck up that makesus in our own conceit. We feel as if we were George Peabody and LadyBurdett-Coutts, and several other philanthropists thrown in. No, seriously, don't think of it again. We're glad to have been able to doit all; and if you only go ahead now, and prosper and be happy, why, that will be the only reward we want. "

"I hope we shall do well, " said Alice. "Only tell me this, Candace. Youdo think I was right, don't you, in insisting on Theron's leaving theministry altogether? He seems convinced enough now that it was the rightthing to do; but I grow nervous sometimes lest he should find it harderthan he thought to get along in business, and regret the change--andblame me. "

"I think you may rest easy in your mind about that, " the otherresponded. "Whatever else he does, he will never want to come withingunshot of a pulpit again. It came too near murdering him for that. "

Alice looked at her doubtfully. "Something came near murdering him, Iknow. But it doesn't seem to me that I would say it was the ministry. And I guess you know pretty well yourself what it was. Of course, I'venever asked any questions, and I've hushed up everybody at Octaviuswho tried to quiz me about it--his disappearance and my packing upand leaving, and all that--and I've never discussed the question withyou--but--"

"No, and there's no good going into it now, " put in Sister Soulsby, with amiable decisiveness. "It's all past and gone. In fact, I hardlyremember much about it now myself. He simply got into deep water, poorsoul, and we've floated him out again, safe and sound. That's all. But all the same, I was right in what I said. He was a mistake in theministry. "

"But if you'd known him in previous years, " urged Alice, plaintively, "before we were sent to that awful Octavius. He was the very ideal ofall a young minister should be. People used to simply worship him, he was such a perfect preacher, and so pure-minded and friendlywith everybody, and threw himself into his work so. It was all thatmiserable, contemptible Octavius that did the mischief. "

Sister Soulsby slowly shook her head. "If there hadn't been a screwloose somewhere, " she said gently, "Octavius wouldn't have hurt him. No, take my word for it, he never was the right man for the place. He seemedto be, no doubt, but he wasn't. When pressure was put on him, it foundout his weak spot like a shot, and pushed on it, and--well, it came nearsmashing him, that's all. "

"And do you think he'll always be a--a back-slider, " mourned Alice. 

"For mercy's sake, don't ever try to have him pretend to be anythingelse!" exclaimed the other. "The last state of that man would be worsethan the first. You must make up your mind to that. And you mustn't showthat you're nervous about it. You mustn't get nervous! You mustn't beafraid of things. Just you keep a stiff upper lip, and say you WILL getalong, you WILL be happy. That's your only chance, Alice. He isn't goingto be an angel of light, or a saint, or anything of that sort, and it'sno good expecting it. But he'll be just an average kind of man--a littlesore about some things, a little wiser than he was about some others. You can get along perfectly with him, if you only keep your courage up, and don't show the white feather. "

"Yes, I know; but I've had it pretty well taken out of me, " commentedAlice. "It used to come easy to me to be cheerful and resolute and allthat; but it's different now. "

Sister Soulsby stole a swift glance at the unsuspecting face of hercompanion which was not all admiration, but her voice remained patientlyaffectionate. "Oh, that'll all come back to you, right enough. You'llhave your hands full, you know, finding a house, and unpacking all yourold furniture, and buying new things, and getting your home settled. It'll keep you so busy you won't have time to feel strange or lonesome, one bit. You'll see how it'll tone you up. In a year's time you won'tknow yourself in the looking-glass. "

"Oh, my health is good enough, " said Alice; "but I can't help thinking, suppose Theron should be taken sick again, away out there amongstrangers. You know he's never appeared to me to have quite got hisstrength back. These long illnesses, you know, they always leave a markon a man. "

"Nonsense! He's strong as an ox, " insisted Sister Soulsby. "You mark myword, he'll thrive in Seattle like a green bay-tree. "

"Seattle!" echoed Alice, meditatively. "It sounds like the other end ofthe world, doesn't it?"

The noise of feet in the house broke upon the colloquy, and the womenwent indoors, to join the breakfast party. During the meal, it wasBrother Soulsby who bore the burden of the conversation. He was full ofthe future of Seattle and the magnificent impending development of thatPacific section. He had been out there, years ago, when it was next doorto uninhabited. He had visited the district twice since, and the changesdiscoverable each new time were more wonderful than anything Aladdin'slamp ever wrought. He had secured for Theron, through some of hisfriends in Portland, the superintendency of a land and real estatecompany, which had its headquarters in Seattle, but ambitiously linkedits affairs with the future of all Washington Territory. In an hour'stime the hack would come to take the Wares and their baggage to thedepot, the first stage in their long journey across the continentto their new home. Brother Soulsby amiably filled the interval withreminiscences of the Oregon of twenty years back, with instructivedissertations upon the soil, climate, and seasons of Puget Sound and theColumbia valley, and, above all, with helpful characterizations of thesocial life which had begun to take form in this remotest West. He hadnothing but confidence, to all appearances, in the success of his youngfriend, now embarking on this new career. He seemed so sanguine aboutit that the whole atmosphere of the breakfast room lightened up, and theparting meal, surrounded by so many temptations to distraught broodingsand silences as it was, became almost jovial in its spirit. 

At last, it was time to look for the carriage. The trunks and hand-bagswere ready in the hall, and Sister Soulsby was tying up a package ofsandwiches for Alice to keep by her in the train. 

Theron, with hat in hand, and overcoat on arm, loitered restlessly intothe kitchen, and watched this proceeding for a moment. Then he saunteredout upon the stoop, and, lifting his head and drawing as long a breathas he could, looked over at the elms. 

Perhaps the face was older and graver; it was hard to tell. The longwinter's illness, with its recurring crises and sustained confinement, had bleached his skin and reduced his figure to gauntness, but there wasnone the less an air of restored and secure good health about him. Onlyin the eyes themselves, as they rested briefly upon the prospect, dida substantial change suggest itself. They did not dwell fondly upon thepicture of the lofty, spreading boughs, with their waves of sap-greenleafage stirring against the blue. They did not soften and glow thistime, at the thought of how wholly one felt sure of God's goodness inthese wonderful new mornings of spring. 

They looked instead straight through the fairest and most movingspectacle in nature's processional, and saw afar off, in conjecturalvision, a formless sort of place which was Seattle. They surveyed itsimpalpable outlines, its undefined dimensions, with a certain coolglitter of hard-and-fast resolve. There rose before his fancy, out ofthe chaos of these shapeless imaginings, some faces of men, then morebehind them, then a great concourse of uplifted countenances, crowdedclose together as far as the eye could reach. They were attentive facesall, rapt, eager, credulous to a degree. Their eyes were admiringly bentupon a common object of excited interest. They were looking at HIM; theystrained their ears to miss no cadence of his voice. Involuntarilyhe straightened himself, stretched forth his hand with the pale, thinfingers gracefully disposed, and passed it slowly before him from sideto side, in a comprehensive, stately gesture. The audience rose at him, as he dropped his hand, and filled his day-dream with a mighty roar ofapplause, in volume like an ocean tempest, yet pitched for his hearingalone. 

He smiled, shook himself with a little delighted tremor, and turned onthe stoop to the open door. 

"What Soulsby said about politics out there interested me enormously, "he remarked to the two women. "I shouldn't be surprised if I foundmyself doing something in that line. I can speak, you know, if I can'tdo anything else. Talk is what tells, these days. Who knows? I may turnup in Washington a full-blown senator before I'm forty. Stranger thingshave happened than that, out West!"

"We'll come down and visit you then, Soulsby and I, " said SisterSoulsby, cheerfully. "You shall take us to the White House, Alice, andintroduce us. "

"Oh, it isn't likely I would come East, " said Alice, pensively. "Mostprobably I'd be left to amuse myself in Seattle. But there--I thinkthat's the carriage driving up to the door. "