 CHAPTER XXIV Theron and Celia walked in silence for some minutes, until the noises of the throng they had left behind were lost. The path they followed had grown indefinite. Among the grass and creepers of the forest carpet. Now it seemed to end altogether, and the little cops of young birches, the delicately graceful stems of which were clustered about apparent 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 threw herself face-forward upon the soft-green bank, which had formed itself above the roots of the ancient mother-tree. Her companion looked down in pained amazement at what he saw. Her body shook with the violence of recurring sobs, or rather gasps of wrath and grief. Her hands, with stiffened, claw-like fingers, dug into the moss and tangle of tiny vines and tore them by the roots. The half-stifled sounds of weeping that arose from where her face groveled in the leaves were terrible to his ears. He knew not what to say or do, but gazed in resourceless suspense at the strange figure she made. It seemed a cruelly long time that she lay there, almost at his feet, struggling fiercely with the fury that was in her. All at once the paroxysms passed away. The sounds of wild weeping ceased. Celia sat up, and with her handkerchief wiped the tears and leafy fragments from her face. She rearranged her hat and the braids of her hair with swift, instinctive touches, brushed the woodland debris from her front, and sprang to her feet. "'I'm all right now,' she said briskly. There was palpable effort in her light tone, and in the stormy sort of smile which she forced upon her blotched and perturbed countenance. But they were only too welcome to Theron's anxious mood. "'Thank God!' he blurted out, all radiant with relief. "'I feared you were going to have a fit or something.' Celia laughed, a little artificially at first, then with a genuine surrender to the comic side of his visible fright. The mirth came back into the brown depths of her eyes again, and her face cleared itself of tear stains and the marks of agitation. "'I am a nice quiet party for a Methodist minister to go walking in the woods with. Am I not?' She cried, shaking her skirts and smiling at him. "'I am not a Methodist minister, please,' answered Theron, at least not today and here with you. "'I am just a man, nothing more, a man who has escaped from lifelong imprisonment, and feels for the first time what it is to be free.' "'Ah, my friend,' Celia said, shaking her head slowly, "'I'm afraid you deceive yourself. You are not by any means free. You are only looking out 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 what progress I have made. What changes there have been in me since that night. You remember that wonderful night? I am quite another being, I assure you. And really it dates from far beyond that. I from the very first evening, when I came to you in the church. The window in Father Forbes' room was open, and I stood by it listening to the music next door, and I could just faintly see on the dark window across the alleyway a stained glass picture of a woman. I suppose it was the Virgin Mary. She had hair like yours, and your face, too. And that is why I went into the church and found you. Yes, that is why.' "'Celia regarded him with gravity. You will get yourself into great trouble, my friend,' she said. "'That's where you're wrong,' put in Theron. "'Not that I'd mind any trouble in this wide world, so long as you called me my friend. But I'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 used to, and I can get through my work in half the time and keep on the right side of my people and get along with perfect smoothness. I was too green before. I took the thing seriously, and I let every mean-fisted curmudgeon and crazy fanatic worry me and keep me on pins and 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 of it. Why should I deliberately deny myself all possible happiness for the rest of my days, simply because I made a fool of myself when I was in my teens? Other men are not eternally punished like that, for what they did is boys, and I won't submit to it either. I will be as free to enjoy myself as Father Forbes." Celia smiled softly and shook her head again. "'Poor man, call him free,' she said. Why, he is bound hand and foot. You don't in the least realize how he is hedged about. The work he has to do, the thousand suspicious eyes that watch every movement, eager to bring the bishop down upon him, and then think of his sacrifice, the great sacrifice of all, to never know what love means, to furswear his manhood, to live a forlorn, celibate life, you have no idea how sadly that appeals to a woman. Let us sit down here for a while,' said Theron. "'We seem to be at the end of the path.' She seated herself on the root-based mound, and he reclined at 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 you know, there is an enormous fascination in celibacy. You forget that I know the reverse of the metal. I know how the mind can be cramped, the nerves harassed, the ambitions spoiled and rotted, the whole existence darkened and belittled by the other thing. I have never talked to you before about my marriage.' "'I don't think we'd better talk about it now,' observed Celia. There must be many more amusing topics.' "'He missed the spirit of her remark.' "'You are right,' he said slowly. "'It is too sad a thing to talk about. But there it is my load, and I bear it, and there's nothing more to be said.' Theron drew a heavy sigh, and let his fingers toy abstractedly, with a ribbon 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 into a 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 red hair.' "'I think it's kind of a light brown,' answered Theron, with an effect of exerting his memory. "'It seems you only take notice of hair and stained glass windows,' was Celia's comment. "'Oh!' he murmured reproachfully, as if—as if—but I won't say what I was going to.' "'That's not fair,' she said. The little touch of whimsical mockery which she gave to the serious declaration was delicious to him. You have me at such a disadvantage. Here am I, rattling out whatever comes into my head, exposing all my lightest emotions, laying bare my very heart in candor, and you meditate, you turn things over cautiously in your mind, like a second Machiavelli. I grow afraid of you, you are so subtle and mysterious in your reserves.' Theron gave a tug at the ribbon to show the joy he had in her delicate chaff. "'No, it is you who are secretive,' he said. "'You never told me about—about the piano.' The word was out. A minute before it had seemed incredible to him that he should ever have the courage to utter it, but here it was. He laid firm hold upon the ribbon, which it appeared hung from her waist, and drew himself a trifle nearer to her. I could never have consented to take it, I'm afraid,' he said in a low voice, if I had known. And even 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 to them, do they? I've always understood it was like that. I've often read of donation parties—that's what they're called, isn't it—where everybody 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. Unless you mean that my being a Catholic makes a difference, I had supposed you were quite free from that kind of prejudice. So I am, believe me I am,' urged Theron. When I'm with you, it almost seems impossible to realize that there are people so narrow and contracted in their natures as to take account of such things. It is another atmosphere that I breathe near you. How could you imagine that such a thought about our difference of creed would enter my head?' In fact, he concluded with a nervous half-laugh, there isn't any such difference. Whatever your religion is, it's mine, too. You remember, you adopted me as a Greek. "'Did I?' she rejoined. Well, if that's the case, it leaves you without a leg to stand on. I challenge you to find any instance where a Greek made any difficulties about accepting a piano from a friend. But seriously—' 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 to Thurston's people about the price, that the whim seized me. Now, it is the only one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims. Whatever occurs to me is a possibly pleasant thing to do, straight like a flash, I go out and do it. It is the only way that a person with means, with plenty of money, can preserve any freshness of character. If they stop to think what it would be prudent to do, they get crusted over immediately. That is the curse of rich people. They teach themselves to distrust and restrain every impulse toward unusual actions. They get to feel that it is more necessary for them to be cautious and conventional than it is for others. I would rather work at a wash-tub than occupy that attitude toward my bank account. I fight against any sign of it that I detect rising in my mind. The instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratify it. That is my theory of life. That accounts for the piano, and I don't see that you've anything to say about it at all. It seemed very convincing, this theory of life. Somehow the thought of Miss Madden's riches had never before assumed prominence in Thurston's mind. Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurred to him that the daughter's emancipation might run to the length of a personal fortune. He knew so little of rich people and their ways. He lifted his head and looked up at Celia with an awakened humility and awe in his glance. The glamour of a separate banking account shown upon her. Where the soft woodland light played in among the strands of her disordered hair, he saw the veritable gleam of gold. A mysterious new suggestion of power blended itself with the beauty of her face was exhaled in the faint perfume of her garments. He maintained a timorous hold upon the ribbon, wondering at his hardy-hood in touching it or being near her at all. What surprises me, he heard himself saying, is that you are contented to stay in Octavius. I should think that you would travel, go abroad, see the beautiful things of the world, surround yourself with the luxuries of big cities, and that sort of thing. Celia regarded the forest prospect straight in front of her with a pensive gaze. Some time, no doubt I will some time, she said abstractedly. One reads so much nowadays, he went on, of American heiresses going to Europe and marrying Dukes and noblemen. I suppose you will do that too. Princes would fight one another for you. The least touch of a smile softened for an instant the impassivity of her countenance. Then she stared harder than ever at the vague, leafy distance. That is the old-fashioned idea, she said, in amusing 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 different view. I am myself, and I belong to myself, exactly as much as any man. The notion that any other human being could conceivably obtain the slightest property rights in me is as preposterous, as ridiculous as, what shall I say, as the notion of your being taken out with a chain on your neck and sold by auction as a slave, down on the canal bridge. I should be ashamed to be alive for another day if any other thought were possible to me. That is not the generally accepted view, I should think, faltered Theron. No more is it the accepted view that young married Methodist ministers should sit out alone in the woods with red-headed Irish girls. Know, my friend, let us find what the generally accepted views are, and as fast as we find them, set our heels on them. There is no other way to live like real human beings. What on earth is it to me that other women crawl about on all fours, and fawn like dogs on any hand that will buckle a collar on to them, and toss them the leavings of the table? I am not related to them, I have nothing to do with them. They cannot make any rules for me. If pride and independence are dead in them, why, so much the worse for them, it is no affair of mine. Certainly it is no reason why I should get down and grovel also. Know, I at least stand erect 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 surface those epithets which the doctor had hurled and bitter contempt at her, mad ass, a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed lewdness. The words rose in their order on his memory, hard and sharp-edged like arrow-heads. But to sit there quite at her side, to breathe the same air, and behold the calm loveliness of her profile, to touch the ribbon of her dress, and all the while to hold these poisoned darts of abuse leveled in thought at her breast, it was monstrous. He could have killed the doctor at the moment. With an effort he drove the 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 groan that seemed to have been forced from him in the struggle, or was the groan imaginary. Celia continued to sit unmoved, composedly looking upon vacancy. Theron's eyes searched her face in vain for any sign of consciousness that she had astounded and bewildered him. She did not seem to be thinking of him at all. The proud calm of her thoughtful countenance suggested instead occupation with lofty and remote abstractions and noble ideals. Contemplating her, he suddenly perceived that what she had been saying was great, wonderful, magnificent, and involuntary thrill ran through his veins at recollection of her words. His fancy likened it to the sensation he used to feel as a youth when the fourth of July reader bawled forth that opening claws, when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary, etc. It was nothing less than another declaration of 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 voice trembled a little. Most certainly not, said Celia. You spoke so feelingly a little while ago, he ventured along with hesitation, about how sadly the notion of a pre-sacrificing himself, never knowing what love meant, appealed to a woman, I should think that the idea of sacrificing herself would seem to her even sadder still. I don't remember that we mentioned that, she replied. How do you mean sacrificing herself? Theron gathered some of the outlying folds of her dress in his hand, and boldly padded and caressed them. You so beautiful and so free, with such fine talents and abilities, he murmured, you who could have the whole world at your feet. Are you too, never going to know what love means? Do you call that no sacrifice? To me it is the most terrible that my imagination can conceive. Celia laughed, a gentle, amused little laugh, in which Theron's ears traced elements of tenderness. You must regulate that imagination of yours, 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 of arch-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 his eyes, and held his face against the draperies encircling her. I cannot think, he groaned. The thing that came uppermost in his mind, as it swayed and rocked in the tempest of emotion, was the strange reminiscence of early childhood in it all. It was like being a little boy again, nestling in an innocent, unthinking transport of affection against his mother's skirts. The tears he felt scalding his eyes were the spontaneous, unashamed tears of a child. The tremulous and exquisite joy which spread, wave-like, over him, once reposeful and yearning, was full of infantile purity and sweetness. He had not comprehended at all before what wellsprings of spiritual beauty, what limpid depths of idealism his nature contained. We were speaking of our respective religions, he heard Silia say, as imperturbably as if there had been no digression worth mentioning. Yes, he assented, and moved his head so that he looked up at her back hair, and the leaves high above, modelled against the sky. The wish to lie there, where now he could just catch the rose-leaf line of her under-chin as well, was very strong upon him. Yes, yes, he repeated. I cannot talk to you like that, she said, and he sat up again shame-facedly. Yes, I think we were speaking of religions, some time ago, he faltered, to relive the situation. But the dreadful thought that she might be annoyed began to oppress him. Well, you said whatever my religion was, it was yours too. That entitles you at least to be told what the religion is. Now, I am a Catholic. Theron, much mystified, nodded his head. Could it be possible? Was there coming a deliberate suggestion that he should become a convert? Yes, I know, he murmured. But I should explain that I am only a Catholic in the sense that its symbolism is pleasant to me. You remember what Schopenhauer said. You cannot have the water by itself. You must also have the jug that it is in. Very well. The Catholic religion is my jug. I put into it the things I like. They were all there long ago, thousands of years ago. The Jews threw them out. We will put them back again. We will restore art and poetry 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't been for those brutes they call the fathers. They loved ugliness and dirt and the thought of hellfire. They hated women. In all the earlier stages of the church, women were very prominent in it. Jesus himself appreciated women, and delighted to have them about him, and talk with them 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 grace, which twenty generations of cranks and savages, like Paul and Jerome and Cirtulian, weren't able to extinguish. But the very man, Cyril, who killed Hypatia, and thus began the dark ages, unwittingly did another thing which makes one almost forgive him. To please the Egyptians, he secured the church's acceptance of the adoration of the Virgin. It is that idea which has kept the Greek spirit alive, and grown and grown, till at last it will rule the world. It was only the epileptic Jews who could 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 the statues. 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 on the moon, is of Isis in the infant Horus. Another might as well be Mahami, bearing the miraculously born Buddha, or Olympius with her child Alexander, or even Periktiini holding her babe Plato. All those were similar cases, you know. Almost every religion had its immaculate conception. What does it all come to, except to show us that man turns naturally toward the worship of the maternal idea? That is the deepest of all our instincts, love of woman, who as it wants daughter and wife and mother. It is that that makes the world go round. Brave thoughts shape themselves in Theron's mind, and shone forth in a confident yet wistful smile on his face. It is a pity you cannot change estates with me for one minute," he said, in steady low tones. Then you would realize the tremendous truth of what you have been saying. It is only your intellect that has reached out and grasped the idea. If you were in my place, you would discover that 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 what you meant by the worship of the maternal idea. I am much older than you, I am a strong, mature man, but when I lay down there and shut my eyes, because the charm and marvel of this whole experience had for the moment overcome me, the strangest sensation seized upon me. It was absolutely as if I were a boy again, a good, pure-minded, fond little boy, and you were the mother that I idolized. Celia had not taken her eyes from his face. I find myself liking you better at this moment, she said with gravity, than I have ever liked you before. Then as a sudden impulse she sprang to her feet. Come, she cried, her voice and manner all vivacity once more. We have been here long enough. Upon the instant, as Theron was more laboriously getting up, it became apparent 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 tail slung across his shoulder, stood at the entrance to the glade, some dozen paces away, regarding them with undisguised interest. Upon the discovery that he was in turn observed, he resumed his interrupted progress through the woods, whistling softly as he went, and vanished among the trees. Heaven's above, groaned Theron, shudderingly. Know him, he went on, in answer to the glance of inquiry on his companion's face. I should think I did. He spades my wife's garden for her. He used to bring our milk. He works in the law-office of one of my trustees, the one who isn't friendly to me, but is very friendly indeed with Mrs. Ware. Oh, what shall I do? It may easily mean my ruin. Celia looked at him attentively. The color had gone out of his face, and with it the effect of earnestness and mental elevation which, a minute before, had caught her fancy. Somehow I fear I do not like you quite so much just now, my friend, she remarked. In God's name don't say that, urged Theron. He raised his voice and agitated in treaty. You don't know what these people are, how they would leap at the barest hint of a scandal about me. In my position I'm a thousand times more defenseless 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 be seen sitting and talking with me, whatever doubts it may rise as to a gentleman's intellectual condition, need not necessarily blast his social reputation beyond all hope whatever. Men stared at her, as if he had not grasped her meaning. Then he wentst visibly under it, and put out his hands to implore her. Forgive me, forgive me, he pleaded. I was beside myself for the moment with the fright of the thing. Oh, say you do forgive me, Celia. He made haste to support this daring use of her name. I have been so happy today, so deeply, so vastly happy, like the little child I spoke of, and that is so new in my lonely life, that the suddenness of the thing, it just for that instant unstrung me, don't be too hard upon me for it, and I had hope, too, I had had such genuine heartfelt pleasure in the thought, that an hour or two ago, when you were unhappy, perhaps it had been 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, amusing 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 more about it. She took his arm, and they retraced their steps along the path, again in silence. The labored noise of the orchestra, as it were, returned to meet them. They halted at an intersecting footpath. I go back to my slavery, my double bondage, said Theron, letting his voice sink to a sigh. But even if I am put on the rack for it, I shall have had one day of glory. I think you may kiss me, in memory of that one day, or of a few minutes in 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 goodbye, beating upon his brain with every measure of the droning waltz music. CHAPTER XXV The memory of the kiss abode with Theron. Like Aaron's rod, it swallowed up one by one, all competing thoughts and recollections, and made his brain its slave. Even as he strode back through the woods to the camp meeting, it was the kiss that kept his feet in motion, and guided their automatic course. All along the watches of the restless night, it was the kiss that bore him sweet company, and wandered with him from one broken dream of bliss to another. Next day it was the kiss that made of life for him a sort of sunlit wonderland. He preached his sermon in the morning, and took his appointed part in the other services of the 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 glorified the clearing and the forest with its mellow harvest radiance, he could have groaned with the burden of his joy. He went out alone into the light, 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 earnest and soulful thanksgiving. The impulse to kneel there in the pure, tender moonlight, and lift-up offerings of praise to God, kept uppermost in his mind. Some formless reservation restrained him from the act itself, but the spirit of it hallowed his mood. He gazed up at the broad, luminous face of the satellite. You are our God, he murmured, hers and mine. You are the most beautiful of heavenly creatures, and she is of the angels on earth. I am speechless with reverence for you both. It was not until the camp meeting broke up, four days later, and Theron with the rest returned to town, that the material aspects of what had happened, and might be expected to happen, forced themselves upon his mind. The kiss was a child of the forest. So long as Theron remained in the camp, the image of the kiss, which was enshrined in his heart, and ministered to by all his thoughts, continued enveloped in a haze of silvin mystery, like a dry ad. Suggestions of its beauty and holiness came to him in the odors of the woodland, at the sight of wild flowers and water lilies. When he walked alone in unfamiliar parts of the forest, he carried about with him the half-conscious idea of somewhere coming upon a strange hidden pool which mortal eye had not seen before, a deep sequestered mirror of spring-fed waters, walled in by rich, tangled growths of verger, and bearing upon its virgin bosom only the shadows of the primeval wilderness and the light of the eternal skies. His fancy dwelt upon some such nook as the enchanted home of the fairy that possessed his soul. The place, though he never found it, became real to him. As he pictured it, there rose sometimes among the lily-pads, stirring the translucent depths and fluttering over the water's surface like gems, the wonderful form of a woman, with pale leaves wreathed in her luxuriant red hair, and a skin which gave forth light. With the homecoming to Octavius his dreams began to take more account of realities. In a day or two he was wide awake and thinking hard. The kiss was as much as ever the ceaseless companion of his hours, but it no longer insisted upon shrouding itself in vines and woodland creepers or outlining itself in phosphorescent vagueness against mystic backgrounds of nymph-haunted glades. It advanced out into the noon day, and assumed tangible dimensions and substance. He saw that it was related to the facts of his daily life, and had, in turn, altered his own relations to all 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 the initiative had been left to him began to take shape in his mind. From this it seemed but a step to the passionate resolve to act at once. Turning the situation over and over in his anxious thoughts, two things stood out in special prominence. One was that Celia loved him. The other was that the boy in Gorinj's law-office, and possibly Gorinj, and heaven only knew how many others besides, had reasons for suspecting this to be true. And what about Celia? Side by side with the moving rapture of thinking about her as a woman, there rose the substantial satisfaction of contemplating her as Miss Madden. She had kissed him, and she was very rich. The things gradually linked themselves before his eyes. He tried a thousand varying guesses at what she proposed to do, and each time reigned up his imagination by the reminder that she was confessedly a creature of whims who proposed to do nothing, but was capable of all things. And as to the boy, if he had blabbed what he saw, it was incredible that somebody should not take up the subject, and impart a scandalous twist to it, and send it rolling like a snowball to gather up exaggeration and foul innuendo till it was big enough to overwhelm him. What would happen to him if a formal charge were preferred against him? He looked it up in the discipline. Of course, if his accusers magnified their mean suspicions and collumnius imaginings to the point of formulating a charge, it would be one of immorality. They could prove nothing, there was nothing to prove. At the worst it was an indiscretion, which would involve his being admonished by his presiding elder. Or if these narrow bigots confused slanders with proofs, and showed that they intended to convict him, then it would be open to him to withdraw from the ministry in advance of his condemnation. His relation to the church would be the same as if he had been expelled, but to the outer world it would be different, and supposing he did withdraw from the ministry. Yes, this was the important point. What if he did abandon this mistaken profession of his? On its mental side the relief would be prodigious, unthinkable. But on the practical side, the bread and butter side? For some days therein paused with a shutter when he reached this question. The thought of the plunge into unknown material responsibilities gave him a sinking heart. He tried to imagine himself lecturing, canvassing for books or insurance policies, writing for newspapers, and remained frightened. But suddenly one day it occurred to him that these qualms and forebodings were sheer folly, was not Celia rich. Would she not with lightning swiftness draw forth that checkbook, like the flashing sword of a champion with it 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 for him. He saw clearly enough now that she had been grieved at his want of faith in her protection. 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 she had been the cause of his martyrdom. It was plain enough now. When he got into hot water it would be solely on account of his having been seen with her. He had walked into the woods with her, the further the better had been her own words, out of pure kindness and the desire to lead her away from the scene of her brothers and her own humiliation. But why amplify arguments? Her own warm heart would tell her, on the instant, how he had been sacrificed for her sake, and would bring her, eager and devoted, to his succour. That was all right, then. Slowly from this point suggestions expanded themselves. The future could be, if he willed it, one long serene triumph of love, and lofty intellectual companionship, and existence softened and enriched at every point by all that wealth could command, and the most exquisite tastes suggest. Should he will it, ah! The question answered itself. But he could not enter upon this beckoning heaven 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, but unfortunately I am tied by the leg. He should have to leave Octavius, leave the ministry, leave everything. He could not begin too soon to face these contingencies. Very likely Celia had not thought it out as far as this. With her it was a mere vague, some time I may. But the harder masculine sense, Theron felt, existed for the very purpose of correcting and giving point to these loose feminine notions of time and space. It was for him to clear away the obstacles, and map the plans out with definite decision. One warm afternoon as he lulled in his easy chair under the open window of his study, musing upon the ever-shifting phases of this vast complicated urgent problem, some chance words from the sidewalk in front came to his ears, and, coming, remained to clarify his thoughts. Two ladies whose voices were strange to him, had stopped, as so many people almost daily stopped, to admire the garden of the parsonage. One of them expressed her pleasure in general terms, said the other. My husband declares those Dalias alone couldn't be unmatched for fifty dollars, and that some of those gladiolas must have cost three or four dollars 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, the other hesitated. No, I don't think quite that. If you can afford it just as well as not. But it does seem to me that I'd rather live in a little better house, and not spend it all on flowers. Just look at that cactus. The voices died away. Theron sat up, with a look of arrested thought upon his face, then sprang to his feet, and moved hurriedly through the parlor to an open front window. Peering out with caution, he saw that the two women receding from view were fashionably dressed, and evidently came from homes of means. He stared after them in a blank way until they turned a corner. He went into the hall, then, put on his frock-coat and hat, and stepped out into the garden. He was conscious of having rather avoided it here to fore, not altogether without reasons of his own, lying unexamined somewhere in the recesses of his mind. Now he walked slowly about, and examined the flowers with great attentiveness. The season was advancing, and he saw that many plants had gone out of bloom. But what a magnificent plentitude of blossoms still remained! Fifty dollars' worth of dailies! That was what the stranger had said. Theron hardly brought himself to credit the statement. But all the same it 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 Goranj's office had spoken of just one lot of plants costing thirty-one dollars and sixty cents, and there had been two other lots as well. The figures remained surprisingly distinct in his memory. It was no good deceiving himself any longer. Of course these were the plants that Goranj had spent his money upon, here all about him. As he surveyed them with a sour regard, a cool breeze stirred across the garden. The tall, overladen flower spikes of gladioli bent and knotted at him, the hollyhocks and flaming alveas, the clustered blossoms on the standard roses, the delicately painted lilies on their stilt-like stems, fluttering in the wind, and seemed all bowing satirically to him. Yes, Levi Goranj paid for us. He almost heard their mocking declaration. Out in the backyard, where a longer day of sunshine dwelt, there were many other flowers, and notably a bed of geraniums which literally made the eye ache. Standing at this rear corner of the house, he caught the droning sound of Alice's voice, humming a hymn to herself as she went about her kitchen work. He saw her through the open window. She was sweeping, and had a sort of cap on her head which did not add to the graces of her appearance. He looked at her with a hard glance, recalling as a fresh grievance the ten days of intolerable boredom he had spent cooped up in a ridiculous little tent with her at the camp meeting. She must have realized at the time how odious the enforced companionship was to him. Yes, beyond doubt she did. It came back to him now that they had spoken but rarely to each other. She had not even praised his sermon upon the Sabbath question which everyone else had been in raptures over. For that matter she no longer praised anything he did, and took obvious pains to preserve toward him a distant demeanor. So much the better, he felt himself thinking, if she chose to behave in that offish and unwifely fashion, she could blame no one but herself for its results. She had seen him, and came now to the window, watering pot and broom in hand. She put her head out to breathe a breath of dustless air, and began 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 of it, gave immediate urgency to the idea of going somewhere. I may or I may not, he replied. It is quite impossible for me to say. He turned on his heel with this, and walked briskly out of the yard and down the street. It was the most natural thing that presently he should be strolling past the madden house, and letting a covert glance stray over its front and the grounds about it, as he loitered along. Every day since his return from the woods he had given the fates this chance of bringing Celia to meet him without avail. He had hung about in the vicinity of the Catholic Church on several evenings as well, but to no purpose. The organ inside was dumb, and he could detect no signs of Celia's presence on the curtains of the pastorate next door. This day, too, there was no one visible at the home of the maddens, and he walked on a little sadly. It was weary work waiting for the signal that never came, but there were compensations. His mind reverted doggedly to the flowers in his garden, and to Alice's behavior toward him. They insisted upon connecting themselves in his thoughts. Why should Levi Goranj, a moneylender, and therefore the last man in the world to incur reckless expenditure, go and buy perhaps a hundred dollars' worth of flowers for his wife's garden? It was time, high time, to face this question, and his experiencing religion afterward, just when Alice did, and marching down 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. It was incredible, of course, that there should be anything wrong. To even shape a thought of Alice in connection with gallantry would be wholly impossible. Nor could it be said that Goranj, in his new capacity as a professing church member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives or insincerity. But 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 that neither Alice nor Goranj would be free to blame him for anything he might do. He had grounds for complaint against them. If he did not himself know just what these grounds were, it was certain enough that they knew. Very well then, let them take the responsibility for what happened. It was indeed awkward that at the moment, as Theron chanced to emerge temporarily from his brown study, his eyes fell upon the spare, well-knit form of Levi Goranj himself, standing only a few feet away, in the staircase entrance to his law-office. His lean face, browned by the summer's exposure, had a more Arabian aspect than ever. His hands were in his pockets, and he held an unlighted cigar between his teeth. He looked the reverend Mr. Ware over calmly, and not at recognition. Theron had halted instinctively. On the instant he would have given a great deal not to have stopped at all. It was stupid of him to have paused. But it would not do now to go on without words of some sort. He moved over to the doorway, and made a half-hearted pretense of looking at the photographs in one of the showcases at its side. As Mr. Goranj did not take his hands from his pockets, there was no occasion for any formal greeting. I had no idea they took such good pictures in Octavius. Theron remarked, after a minute's silence, still bending in examination of the photographs. They ought to, they charged New York prices, observed the lawyer, senticiously. Theron found in the words confirmation of his feeling that Goranj was not naturally a lavish or extravagant man. Rather, he was a careful and calculating man, who spent money only for a purpose. Though the minister continued gazing at the stiff presentments of local beauties and swains, his eyes seemed to see salmon-hued hollyhocks and spotted lilies instead. Suddenly a resolve came to him. He stood erect and faced his trustee. Speaking of the price of things, he said, with an effort of arrogance in his measured tone, I have never had the opportunity before of mentioning the subject of the flowers you have so kindly furnished for my garden. Why mention it now, queried Goranj, with nonchalance. He turned his cigar about with a movement of his lips and worked it into the corner of his mouth. He did not find it necessary to look at Theron at all. Because, began Mr. Ware, and then hesitated, because, well, it raises a question of my being under obligation, which I— Oh, no, sir, said the lawyer, put that out of your mind. You are no more under obligation to me than I am to you. Oh, no, make yourself easy about 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 Goranj Cooley. I do not object to them. As you like, put in the other, if it be so, why then all the more reason why I should, under the circumstances, under what circumstances, interposed the lawyer, let us be clear about 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 slight protrusion of his lower jaw had given the cigar an upward tilt under the black mustache. The circumstances are that you have brought or sent to my garden a great many very expensive flower-plants and bushes and so on. And you object? I had not supposed that clergymen in general, and you in particular, were so sensitive. Have donation parties then gone out of date? I understand your sneer well enough, retorted Theron, but that can pass. The main point is that you did me the honor to send these plants, or to smuggle them in, but never once dain to hint to me that you had done so. No one told me, except by mere accident I should not have known to this day where they came from. Mr. Goranj twisted the cigar at another angle, with lines of grim amusement about the corner of his mouth. I should have thought, he said, with dry deliberation, that possibly this fact might have raised in your mind the conceivable hypothesis that the plants might not be intended for you at all. That is precisely it, sir, said Theron. There were people passing, and he was forced to keep his voice down. It would have been a relief, he felt, to shout. That is it, they were not intended for me. Well, then, what are you talking about? The lawyer's speech had become abrupt almost to incivility. I think my remarks have been perfectly clear, said the minister, with dignity. It was a new experience to be addressed in that fashion. It occurred to him to add, please remember that I am not in the witness-box to be bullied or insulted by a professional. Theron studied Theron's face attentively with a cold searching scrutiny. You may thank your stars, your not, he said, with significance. What on earth could he mean? The words in the menacing tone greatly impressed Theron. Indeed upon reflection he found that they frightened him. The disposition to adopt a high tone with the lawyer was melting away. I do not see, he began, and then deliberately allowed his voice to take on an injured and plaintive inflection. I do not see why you should adopt this tone toward me, brother Goranj. The lawyer scowled and bit sharply into the cigar, but said nothing. If I have unconsciously offended you in any way, Theron went on, I beg you to tell me now, I liked you from the beginning of my pastorate here, and the thought that laterally we seem to be drifting apart has given me much pain. But now it is still more distressing to find you actually disposed to quarrel with me. Surely brother Goranj, between a pastor and a probationer who— No, Goranj broke in. Choral isn't the word for it. There isn't any quarrel, Mr. Ware. He stepped down from the doorstone to the sidewalk as he spoke, and stood face to face with Theron. Working men with dinner-pales and factory girls were passing close to them, and he lowered his voice to a sharp incisive half whisper as he added, it wouldn't be worth any grown man's while to quarrel with so poor a creature as you are. Theron stood confounded, with an empty stare of bewilderment on his face. It rose in his mind that the right thing to feel was rage, righteous indignation, fury, but for the life of him he could not muster any manly anger. The character of the insult stupefied him. I do not know that I have anything to say to you in reply, he remarked, after what seemed to him a silence of minutes. His lips framed the words automatically, but they expressed well enough the blank vacancy of his mind. The suggestion that anybody deemed him a poor creature grew more astounding, incomprehensible, as it swelled in his brain. No I suppose not, snapped Goranj, you're not the sort to stand up to men. Your form is to go round the corner and take it out of somebody weaker than yourself, a defenceless woman, for instance. O ho! said Theron. The exclamation had uttered itself. The sound of it seemed to clarify his muddled thoughts, and as they ranged themselves in order he began to understand. O ho! he said again, and nodded his 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 to explain to you. It was passing strange, but his self-possession had all at once returned to him. As it became more apparent that the lawyer was losing his temper, Theron found the courage to turn up the corners of his lips and show of a bitter little smile of confidence. He looked into the other's dusky face and flaunted this smile at it in contemptuous defiance. It is not a subject that I can discuss with propriety at this stage, he added. Damn you, are you talking about those flowers? O, I am not talking about anything in particular, returned Theron. Not even the curious choice of language which my latest probationer seems to prefer. Go and strike my name off that list, said Goranj, with rising passion. I was a fool to ever have it there, to think of being a probationer of yours, my God! That will be a pity from one point of view, remarked Theron, with still the ironical smile on his lips. You seem to enter upon the new life with such deliberation and fixity of purpose, too. I can imagine the regrets your withdrawal will cause in certain quarters. I only hope that it will not discourage those who accompanied you to the altar and shared your enthusiasm at the time. He had spoken throughout with studied slowness and an insolent nicety of utterance. You had better go away, broke forth, Goranj. If you don't, I shall forget myself. For the first time, asked Theron, then, warned by the flash in the lawyer's eye, he turned on his heel and sauntered, with the painstaking assumption of a mind quite at ease, up the street. Goranj's own face twitched and his veins tingled as he looked after him. 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 was merged 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 much meaner 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, and she worships the ground he walks on, and he knows that, too. And yet the scoundrel is around trying to sniff out some shadow of a pretext for misusing her worse than he's already done. Yes, sir, he'd be actually tickled to death if he could nose up some hint of a scandal about her, something he could pretend to believe, and work for his own advantage, to levy blackmail, to get rid of her, or whatever suited his book. I didn't think there was such an out-and-out kerr on this whole footstool. I almost wish by God I'd thrown him into the canal. "'Yes, you lawyers 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. From earliest boyhood his mind had always worked most clearly when he walked alone. Every mental process which had left a mark upon his memory and his career, the daydreams of future academic greatness and fame which had fashioned themselves in his brains as a farm lad, the meditations, raptures, and high resolves of his student period at the seminary, the more notable sermons and powerful discourses by which he had revealed the genius that was in him to astonished and delighted assemblages, all were associated in his retrospective thoughts with solitary rambles. He had a very direct and vivid consciousness now that it was good to be on his legs and alone. He had never in his life been more sensible of the charm of his own companionship. The encounter with Goranj seemed to have cleared all the clouds out of his brain and restored lightness to his heart. After such an object lesson the impossibility of his continuing to sacrifice himself to a notion of duty to these low-minded and coarse-natured villagers was beyond all argument. There could no longer be any doubt about his moral right to turn his back upon them, to wash his hands of the miserable combination of hypocrisy and hysterics which they called their spiritual life. And the question of Goranj and Alice, that too stood precisely where he wanted it. Even in his own thoughts he preferred to pursue it no further. Between them somewhere an offence of concealment it might be of conspiracy had been committed against him. It was no business of his to 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 interested to have explained one way or the other. The recollection of Goranj's obvious disturbance of mind was especially pleasant to him. He himself had been magnanimous almost to the point of weakness. He had gone out of his way to call the man brother, and to give him an opportunity of behaving like a gentleman. But his kindly forbearance had been wasted. Which was not the man to understand generous feelings much less rise to their level. He had merely shown that he would be vicious if he knew how. It was more important and satisfactory to recall that he had shown a complete comprehension of the injured husband's grievance. The fact that he had recognized it was enough was in fact everything. In the background of his thoughts therein had carried along a notion of going and dining with father Forbes when the time for the evening meal should arrive. The idea in itself attracted him as a fitting capstone to his resolve not to go home for supper. It gave just the right kind of character to his domestic revolt. But when at last he stood on the doorstep of the pastret, waiting for an answer to the tinkle of the electric bell he had heard ring inside, his mind contained only the single thought that now he should hear something about Celia. Perhaps he might even find her there, but he put that suggestion aside as slightly unpleasant. The hag-faced housekeeper led him, as before, into the dining room. It was still daylight and he saw on the glance that the priest was alone at the table, with a book beside him to read from as he ate. Father Forbes rose and came forward, greeting his visitor with profuse urbanity and smiles. If there was a perfunctory note in the invitation to sit down and share the meal, Theron did not catch it. He frankly displayed his pleasure as he laid aside his hat and took the chair opposite his host. It is really only a few months since I was here in this room before, he remarked, as the priest closed the book and tossed it to one side and the housekeeper came in to lay another place. Yet it might have been years, many long years, so tremendous is the difference that the lapse of time has wrought in me. I am afraid we have nothing to tempt you very much, Mr. Ware, remarked Father Forbes, with a gesture of his plump white hand, which embraced the dishes at the center of the table. May I send you a bit of this boiled mutton? I have very homely taste when I am by myself. I was saying, Theron observed, after some moments had passed in silence, that I date such a tremendous revolution in my thoughts, my beliefs, 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 enormous change 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. I look back at myself now with wonder and pity. It seems incredible that, such a little while ago, I should have been such an ignorant and unimaginative clod of earth, content with such petty ambitions, and actually proud of my limitations. And you have larger ambitions now, asked the other. Pray let me help you to some potatoes. I am afraid that ambitions can only get in our way and trip us up. We clergymen are like street-car horses. The more steadily we jog along between the rails, the better it is for us. Oh, I don't intend to remain in the ministry, declared Theron. The statement seemed to him a little bald, now that he had made it, and as his companion lifted his brows in surprise, he added stumblingly. That is, as I feel now, it seems to me impossible that I should remain much longer. With you, of course, it is different. You have a thousand things to interest and pleasantly occupy you in your work and at ceremonies, so that mere belief or non-belief in the dogma hardly matters. But in our church dogma is everything. If you take that away or cease to have its support, the rest is intolerable, hideous. Father Forbes cut another slice of mutton for himself. It is a pretty serious business to make such a change at your time of life. I take it for granted you will think it all over very carefully before you commit yourself. He said this with an almost indifferent air, which rather chilled his listener's enthusiasm. Oh, yes, Theron made answer. I shall do nothing rash, but I have a good many plans for the future. Father Forbes did not ask what these were, and a brief further period of silence fell upon the table. I hope everything went off smoothly at the picnic. Theron ventured at last. I have not seen any of you since then. The priest shook his head and sighed. No, he said, it is a bad business. I have had a great deal of unhappiness out of it this past fortnight. That young man who was rude to you, of course it was mere drunken irresponsible nonsense on his part, has got himself into a serious scrape, I'm afraid. It is being kept quite within the family, and we hope to manage it so that it will remain there, but it has terribly upset his father and sister. But that, after all, is not so hard to bear as the other affliction which has come upon the Madden's. You remember Michael, the other brother? He seems to have taken cold that evening, or perhaps overexcited himself. He has been seized with quick consumption. He will hardly last till snow flies. Oh, I am grieved to hear that. Theron spoke with tremulous earnestness. It seemed to him as if Michael were in some way related to him. It is very hard upon them all, the priest went on. Michael is as sweet and holy a character as it is possible for anyone to think of. He is the apple of his father's eye. They were inseparable, those two. Do you 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, he has had little enough out of his riches. Ah, the West Coast people, what tragedies I have seen among them over here. They have rudimentary lung organizations, like a frogs, to fit the mild, wet, soft air they live in. The sharp air here kills them off like flies in a frost, whole families go. I should think there are a dozen of old Jeremiah's children in 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. His startled mind was busy all at once, with conjectures as to Celia's age. The sister, Miss Madden, seems extremely strong. He remarked tentatively. Celia may escape the general doom, said the priest. His guest noted that he clenched his shapely white hand on the table as he spoke, and that his gentle, carefully modulated voice had a gritty hardness in its tone. That would be too dreadful to think of. He added. Theron shuddered in silence and strove to shut his mind against the thought. She has taken Michael's illness so deeply to heart, the priest proceeded, and devoted herself to him so untiringly that I get a little nervous about her. I have been urging her to go away and get a change of air and scene, if only for a few days. She does not sleep well, and that is always a bad thing. I think I remember her telling me once, that sometimes she had sleepless spells, said Theron. She said that then she banged on her piano at all hours, or dragged the cushions about from room to room, like a wild woman, a very interesting young lady, don't you find her so? Father Forbes let a wan smile play on his lips. What, our Celia? Interesting. Why, Mr. Ware, there is no one like her in the world. She is as unique as, what shall I say, as the Irish are among races. Her father and mother were both born in mud cabins, and she, she might be the daughter of a hundred kings, except that they seem mostly rather underwitted than otherwise. She always impresses me as a sort of adivistic idealization of the old kelp at his finest and best. There in Ireland you got a strange mixture of elementary early peoples walled off from the outer world by the Four Seas, and free to work out their own racial amalgam on their own lines. They brought with them at the outset a great inheritance of Eastern mysticism. Others lost it, but the Irish, all alone on their island, kept it alive and brooded on it, and rooted 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 2,000 years ago is incarnated in her. They are the merriest people and the saddest, the most turbulent and the most docile, the most talented and the most unproductive, the most practical and the most visionary, the most devout and the most pagan. These impossible contradictions 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 them all. Fair and gazed at the speaker with open admiration. I love to hear you talk, he said simply. An unbidden memory flitted upward in his mind. Those were the very words that Alice had so often on her lips in their old courtship days, how curious it was. He looked at the priest and had a faint sensation of feeling as a romantic woman must feel in the presence of a specially impressive masculine personality. It was indeed strange that this soft-voiced, portly creature in a gown with his white, fat hands and his feline suavity of manner should produce such a commanding and unique effect of virility. No doubt this was a part of the great sex mystery which historically surrounded the figure of the celibate priest as with an atmosphere. Women had always been prostrating themselves before it. Theron, watching his companion's full, pallid face in the lamplight, tried to fancy himself in the priest's place, looking down upon these worshiping female forms. He wondered what the celibate's attitude really was. The enigma fascinated him. Father Forbes, after his rhetorical outburst, had been eating. He pushed aside his cheese-plate. I grow enthusiastic on the subject of my race sometimes, he remarked, with the suggestion of an apology, but I make up for it other times, most of the time by scolding them. If it were not such a noble thing to be an Irishman, it would be ridiculous. Ah! said Theron deprecatingly. Who would not be enthusiastic in talking of Miss Madden? What you said about her was perfect. As you spoke, I was thinking how proud and thankful we ought to be for the privilege of knowing her. We who do know her well. Although, of course, your friendship with her is vastly more intimate than mine, than mine could ever hope to be. The priest offered no comment, and Theron went on. I hardly know how to describe the remarkable impression she makes upon me. I can't imagine to myself any other young woman so brilliant or broad in her views, or so courageous. Of course, her being so rich makes it easier for her to do just what she wants to do, but her bravery is astonishing all the same. We had a long and very sympathetic talk in the woods at that day of the picnic, after we left you. I don't know whether she spoke to you about it. Father Forbes made a movement of the head and eyes, which seemed to negative the suggestion. Her talk, continued Theron, gave me quite new ideas of the range and capacity of the female mind. I wonder that everybody in Octavius isn't full of praise and admiration for her talents and exceptional character. In such a small town as this, you would think she would be the center of attention, the pride of the place. I think she has as much praise as is good for her, remarked the priest quietly. And here's the thing that puzzles me, pursued Mr. Ware. I was immensely surprised to find that Dr. Ledzmar doesn't even think she is smart, or at least he professes the utmost intellectual contempt for her, and says he 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 great ability. The priest smiled in a dubious way. Don't borrow unnecessary alarm about that, Mr. Ware, he said, with studied smoothness of modulated tones. These two good friends of mine have much enjoyment out of the idea that they are fighting for the mastery over my poor, unstable character. 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 intellectual diversions open to us here, and they make the most of this one. It amuses them, and it is not without its charms for me, in my capacity as an interested observer. It is a part of the game that they should pretend to themselves that they detest each other. In reality, I fancy they like each other very much. At any rate, there is nothing to be disturbed about. His malifluous tones had somehow the effect of suggesting to Theron that he was an outsider, and would better mind his own business. Ah, if this purring pussycat of a priest only knew how little of an outsider he really was, the thought gave him an easy self-control. Of course, he said, our warm mutual friendship makes the observation of these little individual vagaries merely a part of a delightful whole. I should not dream of discussing Miss Madden's confidences to me, or the doctors either, outside of our own little group. Father Forbes reached behind him and took from a chair his black three-cornered cap with the tassel. Unfortunately, I have a sick call waiting me, he said, gathering up his gown and slowly rising. Yes, I saw the man sitting in the hall, remarked Theron, getting to his feet. I would ask you to go upstairs and wait, the priest went on, but my return, unhappily, is quite uncertain. Another evening I may be more fortunate. I am leaving town to-morrow for some days, but when I get back, the polite sentence did not complete itself. Father Forbes had gone out into the hall, giving a cool nod to the working man, who rose from the bench 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 can be done with them. I rather fancy the idea of a triptych and carved old English if you can manage it. After the workmen had gone away, Father Forbes put on slippers and an old loose sultan, lighted a cigar, and pushing an easy chair over to the 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, I will have the coffee and fine champagne sent up here if it is no trouble. And, oh Maggie, I was compelled this evening to turn the blameless visit of the frameworker into a venial sin, and that involves a needless wear and tear of conscience. I think that, hereafter, you understand, I am not invariably at home when the reverend Mr. Ware does me the honour to call. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of The Damnation of Theran Ware. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Damnation of Theran Ware by Harold Frederick. Chapter 27. That night brought the first frost of the season worth counting. In the morning, when Theran came downstairs, his casual glance through the window caught a desolate picture of black and dahlia stalks and shriveled blooms. The gayety and colour of the garden were gone, and in their place was shabby and dishevelled ruin. He flung the sash up and leaned out. The nipping autumn air was good to breathe. He looked about him, surveying the havoc the frost had wrought among the flowers, and smiled. At breakfast, he smiled again, a mirthless and calculated smile. I see that Brother Goring's flowers have come to grief overnight, he remarked. Alice looked at him before she spoke, and saw on his face a confirmation of the hostile hint in his voice. She nodded in a constrained way and said nothing. Or rather, I should say, Theran went on, with deliberate words, the late Brother Goring's flowers. How do you mean late? asked his wife swiftly. O calm yourself, replied the husband, he is not dead. He is only intimated to me his desire to sever his connection. I may add that he did so in a highly offensive manner. I am very sorry, said Alice, in a low tone, with her eyes on her plate. I took it for granted you would be grieved at his backsliding, remarked Theran, making his phrases as pointed as he could. He was such a promising probationer, and you took such a keen interest in his spiritual awakening. But the frost has nipped his zeal, along with the hundred or more dollars worth of flowers, by which he testified his faith. I find something interesting, and there having been blasted simultaneously. Alice dropped all pretense of interest in her breakfast. With a flushed face and lips tightly compressed, she made a movement as if to rise from her chair. Then, changing her mind, she sat bolt upright and faced her husband. I think we had better have this out right now, she said, in a voice which Theran hardly recognized. You have been hinting round the subject long enough, too long. There are some things nobody is obliged to put up with, and this is one of them. You will oblige me by saying out in so many words what it is you are driving at. With the outburst astounded Theran, he laid down his knife and fork, and gazed at his wife in frank surprise. She had so accustomed him, of late, to a demeanor almost abject in its depressed facility, that he had quite forgotten the Alice of the old days, when she had spirit and courage enough for two, and a notable tongue of her own. The flash in her eyes, and the lines of resolution about her mouth and chin for a moment daunted him. Then he observed by a flutter of the frill at her wrist that she was trembling. I am sure I have nothing to say out in so many words, as you put it. He replied, forcing his voice into cool, impassive tones. I merely commented upon a coincidence, that was all. If, for any reason under the sun, the subject chances to be unpleasant to you, I have no earthly desire to pursue it. But I insist upon having it pursued, returned Alice. I've had just all I can stand of your insinuations and innuendos, and it's high time we had some plain talk. Ever since the revival, you have been dropping sly, underhanded hints about Mr. Goringe and—and me. Now I ask you what you mean by it. Yes, there was a shake in her voice, and he could see how her bosom heaved in a tremor of nervousness. It was easy for him to be very calm. It is you who introduced these astonishing suggestions, not I, he replied coldly. It is you who couple your name with his, somewhat to my surprise, I admit, but let me suggest that we drop the subject. You are excited just now, and you might say things that you would prefer to leave unsaid. It would surely be better for all concerned to say no more about it. Alice, staring across the table at him with knitted brows, emitted a sharp little snort of indignation. Well, I never, Theron, I wouldn't have thought it of you. There are so many things you wouldn't have thought on such a variety of subjects, he observed, with a show of resuming his breakfast. But why continue, we are only angering each other. Never mind that, she replied, with more control over her speech. I guess 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 asked wearily. I have displayed no curiosity. I don't ask for any explanations. I think I mentioned that the man had behaved insultingly to me, but that doesn't matter. I don't bring it up as a grievance. I am very well able to take care of myself. I have no wish to recur to the incident 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 he looked up with a nod of attention and reflected as well as she was able among her thoughts for a minute or two. This is what I want to say to you. Ever since we came to this hateful Octavius, you and I have been drifting apart, or no, that doesn't express it, simply rushing away from each other. It only began last spring, and now the space between us is so wide that we are worse than complete strangers. For strangers, at least, don't hate each other, and I've had a good many occasions lately to 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't interrupt me. There have been times, too, when I've had to ask myself if I wasn't getting almost to hate you in return. I tell you this frankly. Yes, you are undoubtedly frank, commented the husband, toying with his teaspoon. A hypercritical person might consider almost too frank. Alice scanned his face closely while he spoke, and held her breath as if in expectant suspense. Her countenance clouded once more. You don't realize, Theron, she said gravely. Your voice, when you speak to me, your look, your manner, they have all changed. You are like another man, some man who never loved me, and doesn't even know me much less like me. I want to know what the end of it is to be. Up to the time of your sickness last summer, until the Soulsbees went away, I didn't let myself get downright discouraged. It seemed too monstrous for belief that you should go away out of my life like that. It didn't seem possible that God could allow such a thing. It came to me that I had been lax in my Christian life, especially in my position as a minister's wife, and that this was my punishment. I went to the altar to intercede with him, and to try to loose my burden at his feet. But nothing has come of it. I got no help from you. Really, Alice, broke in, Theron. I explained over and over again to you how preoccupied I was with the book and affairs generally. I got no assistance from heaven either, she went on, declining the diversion he offered. I don't want to talk impiously, but if there is a God, he has forgotten me, his poor, heartbroken handmaiden. You are talking impiously, Alice, observed her husband, and you are doing me a 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 whole conception of me and of what you were pleased to describe as my change toward you is an entire and utter mistake. Of course, the married state is no more exempt from the universal law of growth, development, alteration, than any other human institution. On its spiritual side, of course, viewed either as a sacrament or as, don't let us go into that, interposed Alice abruptly. In fact, there is no good in talking any more at all. It is as if we don't speak the same language. You don't understand what I say. It makes no impression upon your mind. Quite to the contrary, he assured her. I have been deeply interested and concerned in all you have said. I think you are laboring under a great delusion and I have tried my best to convince you of it, but I 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 me a little more credit for intelligence, she said, you would find that I am not such a blockhead as you think I am. Come, come, he said, with a smiling show of impatience. You really mustn'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 as if I had absolutely no mind at all. You have a very admirable mind, he responded, and took up his teaspoon again. She reached for his cup and poured out hot coffee for him, and almost cheerful spirit had suddenly descended upon the breakfast table. And now let me say the thing I have been aching to say for months. She began in a less burdened voice. He lifted his brows. Haven't things been discussed pretty fully already? He asked. The doubtful, harassed expression clouded upon her face at the words, and she paused. No, no, she said resolutely, after an instant's reflection. It is my duty to discuss this, too. It is a misunderstanding all round. You remember that I told you Mr. Gorinch had given me some plants, which he got from some garden or other. If you really wish to go on on the subject, yes, I have a recollection of 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 and run down. And he said I stayed indoors too much, and it would do me all sorts of good to work in the garden, and he would send me some plants. The next thing I knew, here they were, with a book about mixing soils and planting and so on. When I saw him next and thanked him, I suppose I showed some apprehension about his having laid out money on them, and he, just to ease my mind, invented the story about his getting them for nothing. When I found out the truth, I got it out of that boy, Harvey Semple. 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 disemble the sneer in his voice. Well, answered Alice, with a touch of acerbity, I have told you now, and it is off my mind. There never would have been the slightest concealment 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, there seemed the magnetic premonition in the air of some further and kindlier word. Then he turned and walked sedately into the next room and closed the door behind him. The talk was finished, and Alice, left alone, passed the knuckle of her thumb over one swimming eye and then the other, and bit her lips and swallowed down the sob that rose in her throat. End of Chapter 27. Chapter 28 of the damnation of Theron Ware. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederick. Chapter 28. It was early afternoon when Theron walked out of his yard, bestowing no glance upon the withered and tarnished snow of the garden, and started with a definite step down the street. The tendency to ruminative loitering, which those who saw him abroad always associated with his tall spare figure, was not suggested to-day. He moved forward like a man with a purpose. All the forenoon in the seclusion of the sitting-room, with a book opened before him, he had been thinking hard. It was not the talk with Alice that occupied his thoughts. That rose in his mind from time to time, only as a disagreeable blur, and he refused to dwell upon it. It was nothing to him, he said to himself, what Goring's motives in lying had been. As for Alice, he hardened his heart against her. Just now it was her mood to try and make up to him. But it had been something different yesterday, and who could say what it would be tomorrow? He really had passed the limit of patience with her shifting emotional vagaries, now lurching in this direction, now in that. She had had her chance to maintain a hold upon his interest and imagination, and had let it slip. These were the accidents of life, the inevitable harsh happenings in the great tragedy of nature. They could not be helped, and there was nothing more to be said. He had bestowed much more attention upon what the priest had said the previous evening. He passed in review all the glowing tributes Father Forbes 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 more than priestly. He remembered how the priest had turned pale and faltered when the question whether Celia would escape the general doom of her family came up. It was not a merely pastoral agitation that, he felt sure. A hundred obscure hints, doubts, stray little suspicions crowded upward together in his thoughts. It became apparent to him now that from the outset he had been conscious of something queer. Yes, from that very first day when he saw the priest and Celia together and noted their glance of recognition inside the house of death. He realized now, upon reflection, that the tone of the other people, his own parishioners, and his casual acquaintances in Octavius alike, had always had a certain note of reservation in it when it touched upon Miss Madden. Her running in and out of the pastorate at all hours, the way the priest patted her on the shoulder before others, the obvious dislike the priest's ugly old housekeeper bore her, the astonishing freedom of their talk with each other. These dark memories loomed forth out of a mass of sinister conjecture. He could bear the uncertainty no longer. Was it indeed not entirely his own fault that it had existed thus long? No man with the spirit of a mouse would have shilly-shallied in this preposterous fashion week after week with the fever of a beautiful woman's kiss in his blood and the woman herself living only around the corner. The whole world had been as good as offered to him, a bewildering world of wealth and beauty and spiritual exaltation and love and he, like a weak fool, had waited for it to be brought to him on a savor, as it were, and actually forced upon his acceptance. This is my failing, he reflected. These miserable ecclesiastical bandages of mine have dwarfed my manly side. The meanest of Thurston's clerks would have shown a more adventurous spirit and a bolder nerve. If I do not act at once, with courage and resolution, everything will be lost. Already she must think me unworthy of the honor it was in her sweet will to bestow. Then he remembered that she was always now at home. Not another hour of foolish indecision he whispered to himself, I will put my destiny to the test, I will see her to-day. A middle-aged, plain-faced servant answered his ring at the doorbell of the Madden mansion. She was palpably Irish and looked at him with a saddened preoccupation in her gray eyes, holding the door only a little ajar. Theron had got out one of his cards. I wish to make inquiry about young Mr. Madden, Mr. Michael Madden, he said, holding the card forth tentatively. I have only just heard of his illness, and it has been a great grief to me. He is no better, answered the woman briefly. I am the reverend Mr. Ware, he went on, and you may say that, if he is well enough, I should be glad to see him. The servant peered out at him with a suddenly altered expression, then shook her head. I don't think he would be wishing to see you, she replied. It was evident from her tone that she suspected the visitor's intentions. Theron smiled in spite of himself. I have not come as a clergyman, he explained, but as a friend of the family. If you will tell Miss Madden that I am here, it will do just as well. Yes, we won't bother him. She will kindly hand my card to his sister. When the domestic turned at this and went in, Theron felt like throwing his hat in the air, there where he stood. The woman's churlish, sectarian prejudices, had played ideally into his hands. In no other imaginable way could he have asked for Celia so naturally. He wondered a little that a servant at such a grand house as this should leave collars standing on the doorstep. Still more he wondered what he should say to the lady of his dreams when he came into her presence. Will you please to walk this way? The woman had returned. She closed the door noiselessly behind him, and led the way, not up the sumptuous staircase, as Theron had expected, but along through a broad hall, passed several large doors, to a small curtained archway at the end. She pushed aside this curtain, and Theron found himself in a sort of conservatory, full of the hot, vague light of sunshine falling through the ground glass. The air was moist and close, and heavy with the smell of verger and wet earth. A tall bank of palms, with fern sprawling at their base, reared itself directly in front of him. The floor was of mosaic, and he saw now that there were rugs upon it, and that there were chairs and sofas, and other signs of habitation. It was indeed only half a greenhouse, for the lower part of it was in rosewood panels, with floral paintings on them like a room. Moving to one side of the barrier of palms, he discovered, to his great surprise, the figure of Michael, sitting propped up with pillows in a huge, easy chair. The sick man was looking at him with big, gravely, intent eyes. His face did not show as much change as Theron had in fancy pictured. It had seemed almost as bony and cadaverous on the day of the picnic. The hands spread out on the chair-arms were very white and thin, though, and the gaze in the blue eyes had a spectral quality which disturbed him. Michael raised his right hand, and Theron, stepping forward, took it limply in his for an instant. Then he laid it down again. The touch of people about to die had always been repugnant to him. He could feel on his own warm palm the very damp of the grave. "'I only heard from Father Forbes last evening of your ill health,' he said, somewhat hesitatingly. He seated himself on a bench beneath the palms, facing the invalid, but still holding his hat. I hope very sincerely that you will soon be all right again.' "'My sister is lying down in her room,' answered Michael. He had not once taken his somber and embarrassing gaze from the other's face. The voice in which he uttered this uncalled-for remark was thin in fiber, cold and impassive. It fell upon Theron's ears with a suggestion of hidden meaning. He looked uneasily into Michael's eyes and then away again. They seemed to be looking straight through him, and there was no shirking the sensation that they saw and comprehended things with an unnatural prescience. "'I hope she is feeling better,' Theron found himself saying. Father Forbes mentioned that she was a little under the weather. I dined with him last night. "'I am glad that you came,' said Michael, after a pause. His earnest, unblinking eyes seemed to supplement his tongue with speech of their own. "'I do be thinking a great deal about you. I have matters to speak of to you, now that you are here.' Theron bowed his head gently, in token of grateful attention. He tried the experiment of looking away from Michael, but his glance went back again irresistibly, and fastened itself upon the sick man's gaze and clung there. "'I am next door to a dead man,' he went on, paying no heed to the other's deprecatory gesture. "'It is not years or months with me, but weeks. Then I go away to stand up for judgment of my sins, and if it is his merciful will, I shall seek God. So I say my goodbyes now, and so you will let me speak plainly, and not think ill of what I say. You are much changed, Mr. Ware, since you came to Octavius, and it is not a change for the good.' Theron lifted his brows in unaffected surprise, and put inquiry into his glance. "'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 clergy about that, and of course it is not for me, only a plain mechanic, to be sure where learned and pious scholars are in doubt. But I am sure about one thing. Those Protestants and others too, mind you, who profess and preach good deeds, and themselves do bad deeds, they will never be saved. They will have no chance at all to escape hellfire.' "'I think we are all agreed upon that, Mr. Madden,' said Theron, with surface suavity. "'Then I say to you, Mr. Ware, you are yourself in a bad path. Take the warning of a dying man, sir, and turn from it.' The impulse to smile tugged at Theron's facial muscles. This was really too droll. He looked up at the ceiling, the while he forced his countenance into a polite composure, then turned again to Michael, with some conciliatory commonplace ready for utterance. But he said nothing, and all suggestion of levity left his mind, under the searching inspection bent upon him by the young man's hollow eyes. What did Michael suspect? What did he know? What was he hinting at in this strange talk of his? "'I saw you often on the street when you first came here,' continued Michael. "'I knew the man who was here before you, that is, by sight, and he was not a good man. But your face, when you came, pleased me. I liked to look at you. I was tormented just then, do you see, by so many decent kindly people, old schoolmates and friends and neighbors of mine, and, for that matter, others all over the country, must lose their souls because they were Protestants. All my boyhood and young manhood, that thought took the joy out of me. Sometimes I usent to sleep a whole night long, for thinking that some lad I had been playing with perhaps in his own house, that very day would be taken when he died, and his mother, too, when she died, and thrown into the flames of hell for all eternity. It made me so unhappy that finally I wouldn't go to any Protestant boy's house, and have his mother be nice to me, and give me cake and apples, and me thinking all the while that they were bound to be damned, no matter how good they were to me. The primitive humanity of this touched Theron, and he knotted approbation with a tender smile in his eyes, forgetting for the moment that a personal application of the monologue had been hinted at. But then later, as I grew up, the sick man went on. I learned that it was not altogether certain. Some of the authorities I found maintained that it was doubtful, and some said openly that there must be salvation possible for good people who lived in ignorance of the truth through no fault of their own. Then I had hope one day, and no hope the next, and as I did my work I thought it over, and in the evenings my father and I talked it over, and we settled nothing of it at all. Of course, how could we? Did you ever discuss the question with your sister? It occurred suddenly to Theron to interpose. He was conscious of some daring in doing so, and he fancied that Michael's drawn face clouded a little at his words. My sister is no theologian, he answered briefly. Women have no call to meddle in such matters. But I was saying, it was in the middle of these doubtings of mine that you came here to Octavius, and I noticed you in the streets, and once in the evening I made no secret of it to my people. I sat in the back of your church and heard you preach. As I say, I liked you. It was your face and what I thought it showed of the man underneath it, that helped settle my mind more than anything else. I said to myself, here is a young man only about my own age, and he has education 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 a bookkeeper, and devote all his time to prayer and the meditation of his religion and preaching, and visiting the sick and the poor and comforting them. His very face is a pleasure and a help for those in suffering and trouble to look at. The very sight of it makes one believe in pure thoughts and merciful deeds. I will not credit it that God intends damning such a man as that, or any man like him. Theron bowed, with a slow, hesitating gravity of manner, and deep, not wholly complacent attention on his face, evidently all this was by way of preparation for something unpleasant. That was only last spring, said Michael. His tired voice sank for a sentence or two into a meditative half-whisper, and it was my last spring of all. I shall not be growing weak any more or drawing hard breaths. When the first warm weather comes, it will be one season to me hereafter, always the same. He lifted his voice with perceptible effort. I am talking too much, the rest I can say in a word. Only half a year has gone by, and you have another face on you entirely. I had noticed 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 more now, as you sit there. If it seemed to me like the face of a saint before, it is more like the face of a barkeeper now. This was quite too much. Theron rose, flushed to the temples, and scowled down at the helpless man in the chair. He swallowed the sharp words which came uppermost, and bit and moistened his lips as he forced himself to remember that this was a dying man and Celia's brother, to whom she was devoted, and whom he himself felt he wanted to be very fond of. He got the shadow of a smile onto his countenance. I fear you have tired yourself unduly, he said, in as non-contentious a 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 agrees with me so wonderfully. I am getting as fat as a seal. But I do hope I am not paying for it by such a wholesale deterioration inside. If my own opinion could be of any value, I should assure you that I feel myself an infinitely better and broader and stronger man than I was when I came here. The devil shook his head dogmatically. That is the greatest pity of all, he said, with renewed earnestness. You are entirely deceived about yourself. 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, that you 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 spoke a truer word. Keep among your own people, Mr. Ware. When you go among others, you know what I mean. You have no proper understanding of what their sayings and doings really mean. You do not realize that they are held up by the power of the true church, as a little child learning to walk 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 the people whose ways are different from yours. You are a married man, and you are the preacher of a religion, such as it is. There can be nothing better for you than to go and strive to be a good husband, and to set a good example to the people of your church, who look up to you, and mix yourself up no more with outside people and outside notions that only do you mischief. And that is what I wanted to say to you. Theron took up his hat. I take it in all kindness what you have felt at your duty to say to me, Mr. Madden, he said. I am not sure that I have altogether followed you, but I am very sure you mean it well. I mean well by you, replied Michael, wirly moving his head on the pillow, and speaking in an undertone of languor and pain. And I mean well by others, that are nearer to me, and that I have a right to care more about. When a man lies by the side of his open grave, he does not be meaning ill to any human soul. Yes, thanks, quite so, faltered Theron. He dallied for an instant, with the temptation to seek some further explanation. But the side of Michael's half-closed eyes and worn-out expression decided him against it. It did not seem to be expected, either, that he should shake hands, and with a few perfunctory words of hope for the Inverledge Recovery, which fell with a jarring note of falsehood upon his own ears, he turned and left the room. As he did so, Michael touched a bell on the table beside 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 heat of the flower-room, and from that ridiculous bore of a Michael as well. The middle-aged, grave-faced servant, warned by the bell, stood waiting to conduct him to the door. I am sorry to have missed Miss Madden, he said to her. She must be quite worn out, perhaps later in the day. She will not be seeing anybody today, returned the woman. She is going to New York this evening, and she is taking some rest against her journey. Will she be away long? He asked mechanically. The servant's answer, I have no idea, hardly penetrated his consciousness at all. He moved down the steps and along the gravel to the street, in a maze of mental confusion. When he reached the sidewalk, under the familiar elms, he paused, and made a definite effort to pull his thoughts together, and take stock of what had happened, of what was going to happen. But the thing baffled him. It was as if some drug had stupefied his faculties. He began to walk, and gradually saw that what he was thinking about was the fact of Celia's departure for New York that evening. He stared at this fact, at first in its nakedness, then clothed, with reassuring suggestions, that this was no doubt a trip she very often made. There was a blind sense of comfort in this idea, and he rested himself upon it. Yes, of course, she traveled a great deal. New York must be as familiar to her as Octavius was to him. Her going there now was quite a matter, of course, the most natural thing in the world. Then there burst suddenly uppermost in his mind the other fact that Father Forbes was also going to New York that evening. The two things spindled upward, side by side, yet separately, in his mental vision, then they twisted and twined themselves together. He followed their convolutions 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 no possibility, no notion, of shirking any detail of the pain. The priest had 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 well that she was going, but of that he had been careful to drop no hint. The possibility of accident was too slight to be worth considering. People on such intimate terms as Celia and the priest, people with such facilities for seeing each other whenever they desired, did not find themselves on the same train of cars with the same long journey in view by mere chance. Theron walked until dusk began to close in upon the autumn day. It grew colder as he turned his face homeward. He wondered if it would freeze again overnight, and then remembered the shriveled flowers in his wife's garden. For a moment they shaped themselves in a picture before his mind's eye. He saw their blackened foliage, their sicklead, drooping stalks, and wilted blooms, and as he looked they restored themselves to the vigor and grace and richness of color of summertime, as vividly as if they had been painted on a canvas. Or no, the picture he stared at was not on canvas, but on the glossy, varnished panel of a luxurious sleeping car. He shook his head angrily and blinked his eyes again and again to prevent their seeing. Seated together in the open window above this panel, the two people he knew were there, gloved and habited for the night's journey, waiting for the train to start. Very much to my surprise, he found himself saying to Alice, watching her nervously as she laid the supper table, I find I must go to Albany tonight. That is, it isn't absolutely necessary, for that matter, but I think it might 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 I see the bishop about it the better. Things like that occur in a man's life, we're boldly striking out a line of action, and following it up without an instance delay can make the difference in the world to him. Tomorrow it might be too late, and besides, I can be home the sooner again. Alice's face showed surprise, but no trace of suspicion. She spoke with studied amiability during the meal, and deferred with such unexpected tact to his implied desire not to be questioned as to the mysterious motives of the journey, that his mood instinctively softened and warmed toward her as they finished supper. He smiled a little, I do hope I shan't have to go to Morrow to New York, but these bishops of ours are such gadabouts one never knows where 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 to chase him up. But after all, perhaps the trip will do me good, the change of air and scene, you know. I'm sure I hope so, said Alice, honestly enough. If you do go down to New York, I suppose you'll go by the riverboat. Everybody talks so much of that beautiful sail down the Hudson. That's an idea, exclaimed Theron, welcoming it with enthusiasm. It hadn't occurred to me, if I do have to go, and it is as lovely as they make out, the next time I promise I won't go without you, my girl. I have been rather out of sorts lately, he continued. When I come back, I dare say I shall be feeling better, more like my old self. Then I'm going to try, Alice, to be nicer to you than I have been of late. I'm afraid there was only too much truth in what you said this morning. Never mind what I said this morning, or any other time, broken Alice 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 was it, he wondered, that he had last kissed her? It seemed years, ages ago. An hour later, with hat and overcoat on, and his fleece in his hand, he stood on the doorstep of the parsonage, and kissed her once more before he turned and descended into the darkness. He felt like whistling, as his feet sounded firmly on the plank sidewalk beyond the gate. It seemed as if he had never been in such capital good spirits before in his life. End of Chapter 28