Chapter 13

DENIS REFUSES TO SPEAK.

Martin, the postman, was the most deliberate man in Grey Town. He never hurried, and he never made a mistake. If he had twenty letters to deliver at the same address, he would carefully read the address of each one before taking the responsibility of handing it over to the recipient. This accounted for the fact that Martin, the postman, was invariably late.

To Molly Healy, anxiously waiting at the Presbytery gate for the weekly letter from Ireland, Martin was a constantly recurring cause of sin. So keenly did she resent his leisurely methods that her indignation had changed to anger, her anger almost to hatred, when she resolved to check herself.

"It must be stopped," she remarked to Mrs. Quirk, "or one day I will be running at him with the pitchfork, and it would never do for the priest's sister to be pursuing the postman through the town to destroy him."

"Sure, then, if I was you I would be praying for the man, returning good for the evil he was doing you," said Mrs. Quirk.

"But he doesn't mean it, and that is the worst of Martin. His conscience is so big that it takes him all his time to carry it round. He's a poor, good man, but it is murder I sometimes contemplate," cried Molly.

At last she hit upon the device of giving Martin half an hour's grace before expecting him.

"I will be lenient with the man, and not expect him until he has arrived," she said. "But it would do my heart good to pinch him."

The half-hour had been prolonged to an hour, and Molly Healy was in a white heat of fury when Martin arrived.

"And what has kept you to-day?" cried Molly Healy. "You are the slowest man in Grey Town, for sure, and that is saying you are phenomenally slow."

"You are angry," said Martin, in his most deliberate fashion.

"Angry! I am just quivering with ungovernable temper. I could shake you!"

"You require your letters delivered by a twenty horse-power auto-motor," replied Martin.

Therewith he began to run through the letters with a deliberation that was almost cruel.

"When you have done shuffling the cards, perhaps you will give me the one you have in your hand," cried Molly.

"Patience, young lady. I have a duty to perform----."

"Your duty is to give me my letter. If you only knew how near you were to sudden death you would be in haste to get away from me."

"There you are, five letters--one for you. Let me see; is it for you?" Martin began to read the address over.

"Oh, the Lord forgive you! You are an occasion of sin to me."

"Patience, Miss Molly! Here you are, and good-day to you. The Lord send you a better temper!"

Martin delivered the letters, and proceeded placidly on his path of duty. Molly Healy watched him until he had turned a distant corner.

"The man will never get to heaven--he is too slow; and he will prevent me getting there unless Providence removes him to another round."

She carried the letters to Father Healy, and then proceeded to shut herself in her room, and there absorb the news from Ireland. In laughter and in tears she read her letter, and then re-read it, determined to lose not one word of the contents.

Dr. Marsh was with Father Healy when the letters came.

"May I read them?" the priest asked.

"Certainly! Why not?" replied the doctor in his brusque manner. "I will digest a slice of theology."

He took a book from the table and opened it.

"I hope it will agree with you," laughed Father Healy, as he tore the first letter open.

"Humph!" grunted Dr. Marsh. "When I am dying I will send for you; meanwhile I am quite content to remain a sinner."

Father Healy did not reply. He had become keenly interested in his letter. Twice he read it, and then he asked:

"Where was it that Denis Quirk told you he was editing that paper of his?"

"'The Firebrand?'" asked Dr. Marsh, who had become absorbed in the book he was reading.

"Yes! yes!" cried the priest.

"I don't exactly remember. I fancy it was Goldenvale. You had better ask Denis. Now, I can't agree with this," said the doctor, referring to something he had just read.

"I will controvert with you in due season. Just now I am worried. You are a safe and reliable man. Read this."

Father Healy handed the letter to Dr. Marsh, who having glanced at it, became deeply interested in the contents.

"Goldenvale! Do you know this man?" he asked.

"How should I?" replied the priest, almost irritably. "Could you expect me to know every priest in America? But I could find out if there were such a man."

"I would take this letter to Denis Quirk, and allow him to deny it. It's a lie, a palpable lie. I am sure of that."

"And so am I; but lies are more readily credited in Grey Town than the truth. I will see Denis Quirk at once. Will you come with me?" asked Father Healy.

"Not to 'The Mercury' office, but a part of the way. Put your hat on while I finish what I was reading."

Denis Quirk was in the outer office as Father Healy entered. He was inditing a letter to Tim O'Neill, who now claimed, among his other qualifications, a certificate as a typewriter.

"Good-day, Father Healy!" cried Denis Quirk. "What can I do for you? A paragraph to encourage your congregation to build the new school?"

"Not at present, Mr. Quirk. If you will give me five minutes, I will ask no more."

"Then come into my room. Finish that, address it, and post it, Tim."

"Yes, sir. And might I then go down to the hall and report that meeting?"

"Certainly, Tim. This is the keenest man on my staff, Father."

Tim O'Neill beamed all over at this praise, and he settled himself resolutely to his task. Meanwhile Denis Quirk's office door closed with a bang on Father Healy and himself.

"I should like you to read this," said the priest, as he handed the fateful letter to Denis Quirk.

The latter took it and read it frowningly. Then he leaned back in his chair, and regarded the priest with a composed face.

"Well?" asked Father Healy.

"Well?" responded Denis.

"You will, of course, deny the calumny?"

Denis Quirk shook his head.

"The writer is a good man and a priest. As for the accusation, let time be the judge. I shall neither acknowledge nor deny it. There are others concerned besides myself."

Father Healy was for the moment bereft of the power of speech. He could not understand Denis Quirk's attitude. At last he cried:

"You are accused of being a divorced man!"

"If I am, the action was not from me. I then adopted the attitude I now propose to adopt. I merely sat quiet. There are persons concerned in this whom I refuse to injure."

"And what do you intend to do?" asked Father Healy. "There will be a horrible scandal in Grey Town."

"I shall do what I did in the States--just live it down and wait. Time will put everything straight," said Denis Quirk.

"Your wife has married again?" the priest asked.

"I believe she has. Father Healy, all that I ask of you is your confidence and trust. There is certain to be a storm, but I am strong enough to stand it. I don't wish to lose my friends, you least of all. Will you believe in me?"

Father Healy looked in the man's eyes, and Denis Quirk met his gaze unflinchingly. He was particularly ugly that day, but Father Healy could read human nature, and he believed that Denis Quirk was honest.

"I would have preferred you to have proved yourself innocent," he said.

"I cannot do that; others can. It is for them to speak, not me," replied Denis.

"I promise that I will hold to you," said the priest.

"Thank you, Father. If you will do that--you, the old mother, and one other--I am content," he said.

As the good priest left "The Mercury" in a particularly dejected frame of mind, he found Dr. Marsh waiting for him.

"Well?" he said. "A canard, I suppose?"

Father Healy made no reply.

"You don't mean to tell me----," cried the doctor.

"I believe he is a wronged man, but he refuses to speak."

"I must speak to him myself. Don't wait for me, Father. Just get away home, and pray that a miracle may put this straight."

Denis Quirk was still sitting as the priest had left him when Dr. Marsh burst in upon him, and plumped down on the chair that had been vacated by Father Healy.

"See here, Quirk," he began, without further explanation, "I am a man of the world, and I know the utmost capabilities of human wickedness. I don't believe you are a real libertine. But I know Grey Town. Many a dog has been hanged here because of his bad name. You must disprove this."

"No, doctor. If you knew my story you would recognise the strength of my position. I must trust to time to put things straight."

"They will start another paper and fight you."

"Let them. That is what I want, a good fight," replied Denis. "Someone whom I can hit--hard!"

"And what if I withdraw my capital?"

"You won't do that, doctor," replied Denis, with a quiet smile. "I know you."

"Well, Quirk, I'll tell you what I think of you--a clever, Quixotic fool. But I will stand by you to the end. I am a sort of Ishmaelite; nothing pleases me better than an exchange of hard blows."

The two men shook hands in silence, and Dr. Marsh went out to find Father Healy waiting for him.

"We are a pair of idiots, you and I," said the doctor. "We ought to unite in hooting Denis Quirk out of Grey Town, but we shall fight for him to the finish. He is too ugly to be hopelessly wicked," he added, after a pause.

"Then you and I are not altogether bad," laughed the priest.

They walked in silence to the doctor's gate.

"Won't you come in?" he asked, as they paused to say good-bye.

"No, thank you. It is a strange thing I should have received the Bishop's letter to-day," said Father Healy, reflectively.

Dr. Marsh could not grasp the meaning of this remark, so he refrained from comment on it.

"The Bishop wishes me to take a six months' holiday," continued the priest.

"You have earned it by hard work. A most reasonable suggestion. Take a rest before you die suddenly," said the doctor.

"And he suggests that I return to the old home in County Cork," added Father Healy.

"Naturally. Where would you go but to Ireland?"

"Why not America? It is a great country, and cousins of my own in every city. It might be I would find a cousin in Goldenvale itself."

"Goldenvale! Father Healy, you are a strange man, a many-sided man, but I don't think you are the best fitted person I would select to be discovering other men's secrets."

"Denis Quirk won't help himself. I intend to help him," said the priest.

"And if you prove him guilty?"

"No man need know but that I went to Cork, after all. But something tells me I shall find him innocent."

"I am prepared to lay 6 to 4 on that myself. Well, Providence go with you, for you deserve it; and if you require money----," said Dr. Marsh.

"Not one penny. I have a small income of my own, inherited from my mother, God rest her soul! Molly shall go to the Finns, in Brunswick. The change will do her good. And no one need know but that I am in Cork."

"In Cork you shall be, if I have to perjure my soul to prove it!" cried Dr. Marsh. "No man shall come near me when I come to die but you, for you are the best man living."