Part 37

The tone of the senior Burbeck was scornful in the extreme. Increasing anger at being thus interfered with, especially by Rollie had turned the Elder's face almost purple. "Young man," he commanded harshly, "you stand aside and let this church declare its will."

"I will not stand aside," protested the son. "I will not let you, my father, do this great wrong. He forbade me to speak; but I will speak. Yes, no matter what happens, I must speak."

The young man turned a frightened glance upon his mother. Mrs. Burbeck was gazing intently at her son, a look of shock giving way to one of comprehension and then a pitiful half-smile of encouragement, as if she urged him to go on and do his duty, whatever that involved.

"That man," Rollie began afresh, his neck thrust forward desperately, while he pointed to the minister, who had stepped back once more as though he felt the purposes of God in operation and no longer dared to interfere; "that man is innocent. I am the thief. I stole the diamonds. I did it to get the money to cover a defalcation at the bank. Fearful of the consequences, I turned to him in my distress. He got the money to restore what I had stolen. I put the diamonds in his box for an hour, and by a mistake he went off with the key. That explains all. When I returned from the cruise on the Bay and learned what had happened, I was paralyzed with fear. At first I did not even have the manhood to go and tell him how the diamonds got into his box. When I did, he made me keep the silence for fear the blow would kill my mother. It seemed to me that this was not a sufficient reason. But I was weak; I was a coward. Yet the spectacle of seeing this man stand here day after day while his reputation was torn to pieces, unwavering and unyielding whether for the sake of my mother or such a worthless wretch as I am, or for the sake of his priestly vow, made me stronger and stronger. Yet I was not strong enough to speak. Not until to-night. Not until I saw my mother's hand tremble when she held it up to vote for him. I only came down here to stand beside her. But one touch of hers compelled me to speak. I am prepared to assume my guilt before this church and before the world. I was a defaulter, and John Hampstead saved me. I was a thief, and he saved me. I was a coward, and he made me brave enough at least for this. I tell you, the man is innocent, absolutely innocent. He is so good that you should fall down and worship him."

Rollie's confession in detail was addressed to the congregation as a whole, and he finished with his arms extended and chest thrown forward like a man who had bared his soul.

After standing for a moment motionless, his eyes turned to his mother, and with a low cry he dashed to where Hampstead was bending over her. She lay chalk-white and motionless, one hand in her lap, the other swinging pendant, the hand that had just been raised to vote. The eyes were closed; the lips half parted; the expression of her face, if expression it might be termed, one of utter exhaustion of vital forces.

For a moment the young man stood transfixed by the spectacle of what he had done. How shadow thin she looked! This was not the figure of a woman, but some exquisite pattern of the spiritual draped limply in this chair.

And yet, as if affected by his appealing gaze, the features moved, some of the looseness departed from the corners of the mouth, the eye-lashes fluttered and a delicate tint showed upon the cheek, disappeared, came again, and went away again; but with each appearance lingered longer. The lips moved too as if a breath were passing through them; almost indistinguishably and yet surely, the bosom of her dress stirred, collapsed, and stirred again. The young man had rather unconsciously seized both wilted hands, forcing the minister somewhat away in order to do so. It was his mother. He had struck her defenseless head this blow. Unmindful of the sudden awe of silence about him, followed by murmurings, ejaculations, and then a universal stir of feet, the blank looks, the questionings, the staring wonder with which neighbor looked to neighbor, the young man watched intently that stirring of the mother breast until it became regular and rhythmical.

The lips were moving now again; but this time as if in the formation of words. Rollie bent low, until his ear was close.

"Let me think, let me think," the lips murmured wearily. "My son--was a defaulter and a thief--John Hampstead knew. John Hampstead showed him the better way." She turned her head weakly and eased her body in the chair, as if to make even this slight effort at conversation less laborious, and then began to speak once more:

"But he was not strong enough to walk that better way, so John Hampstead took the burden upon his own shoulders and carried it until my boy was strong enough to bear it for himself."

Sufficient strength had returned for one of her hands to exert a pressure on the hand that held it.

"Yes, mother," Rollie breathed fervently into her ear.

"But now," and the voice gained more volume, "but now he is strong enough. He has done a brave and noble thing at last. I forget my shame in pride and gratitude to God for my son that was lost and is alive again--forever more."

The last tone flowed out upon the current of a long, wavering sigh, which seemed to take the final breath from her body.

"Yes, mother!" the young man urged anxiously, putting an instinctive pressure upon the hands he held, as if to call the spirit back into her again. There was an instant in which he felt that it was gone. She had left him. But the next instant he felt it coming back again like a tide and stronger, much stronger, so that there was real color in her cheeks, and then the eyes opened and looked at him with a clear and steady light, with the glow of love and admiration in them.

"Thank God!" murmured the voice of Hampstead hoarsely. "She is back. She will stay."

"Yes," Mrs. Burbeck affirmed, faintly but valiantly, turning from the face of her son to that of the minister with a look of inexpressible gratitude and devotion. "Yes, I am back," she smiled reassuringly, "and to stay. I never had so much reason--so much to live for as now."

The enactment of this scene at the chair, so intense and so significant, could have consumed no more than two minutes of time. The congregation, keenly alive to the effect the disclosure must have upon the life of the mother, was in a state to witness with the most perfect understanding every detail of the action about the invalid's chair. While the issue was in doubt, the audience remained in an agony of suspense and apprehension.

With the sudden look of relief upon the face of the minister, followed presently by a luminous smile of pure joy while his shoulders straightened to indicate the rolling off of the burden of his fears, the suspense for the congregation was completely ended. Reactions began immediately to occur.

Far up in the gallery a woman laughed, an excited, hysterical, brainless laugh, and every eye darted upon her in reproach. Then down in front somewhere near the first line of the Burbeck adherents, a man began to sob, hoarsely and with a wailing note, as if in utter despair. Again every eye swung from the woman who had laughed to the man who was crying. As they fell on him, he stood up. It was Elder Brooks, the man who had written the resolution declaring the pastoral relation severed. With streaming eyes he was hurrying toward Hampstead. But now other women were laughing hysterically, other men were sobbing. Everywhere was exclamation, movement, and a sudden impulse toward the minister. The people in the gallery came down, crowding dangerously, to the rail. On the main floor little rivulets of excited human beings trickled out from the pews and streamed down the aisles. The first to reach Hampstead was a woman. She caught his hand and kissed it. Elder Brooks came next. He flung an arm about the minister's neck, but instead of looking at him or addressing him, covered his face in shame.

But it was no longer possible to describe what any one individual was doing. The entire audience had become a sea which at first rolled toward Hampstead and then swirled and tossed its individual waves laughing, cheering or applauding frothily. In mutual congratulation men shook each other's hands and some appeared even to shake their own hands. Women kissed or flung their arms about one another. Two thirds of the main floor was devoid entirely of people. The other third was a struggling eddy in which the tall form of the ex-pastor,--for they had just voted him out of the pulpit,--stood receiving every one who reached him with a sad kind of graciousness.

Songs broke out. For a time the people in the gallery were singing: "Blessed be the tie that binds." Those below sobbed through "My faith looks up to Thee", and presently all were singing "Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee." This continued until the gathering seemed to sing itself somewhat out of its hysteria; and then, weaving to and fro, the tide began to ebb back up the aisles and into the pews again.

At first the people thought they had done this of their own accord, but later it appeared that it was Hampstead who was making them do it. He was a leader. In the temporary chaos, his will alone retained its poise, and it was the suggestion in the glance of his eye and finally in the gestures of his hands that sent them back to their seats.

When the singing stopped, and the audience sat somewhat composed and considering what should happen next, the minister remained master of the situation.

To protect himself somewhat from the surging waves of humanity, Hampstead had stepped upon the platform. He stood now with one hand resting easily upon the back of the chair beside the communion table. The chair was not empty, for it contained the huge, collapsed bulk of the Elder, the upper half of whose body had sunk sideways upon the end of the table, with his huge red face fenced off from view by one arm, as if to shroud the shame of his features. He was inert and still. The fragile human orchid in the chair had not been more motionless than he. The tip of an ear, one bald knob of his head, were all that showed to those in front; and the other arm was extended across the table, the fingers overhanging the edge of it.

The spectacle of the man lying crushed and broken upon the very table from which so often he had administered the communion, cast a deepening spell over all. But it also forced on all a thought of sympathy for this rashly misguided man, who as a spiritual leader of this church had shown himself so utterly lacking in spiritual discernment. This was quite in keeping with John Hampstead's mood.

"Our very first emotion," the minister began, "must be one of sympathy for this well-meaning brother of ours who has been the unfortunate victim of a series of mistakes in which his has been by no means the greatest. While he sits before us overcome with humiliation and remorse, Elder Burbeck will pardon me if I speak for a moment as if he were not here. I wish to urge upon you all that no one--least of all myself--should reproach him for the thing which he has done. I have never doubted that he was acting in all good conscience. The succession of events, once it had begun to march, has been so remarkable that now, looking back, we must each and all of us feel how puny are men and women to resist the winds of circumstance which blow upon them.

"To me, granting the beginning of this strange series of events for which I am at least in part to blame, it seems now that all the rest has been inevitable. I think we should reproach no one. Certainly I shall not. Instead, I am thinking that it is a time for great rejoicing. That mother who has so many times shown us the better way, has shown it to-night. Looking up to her son whose act of moral courage, witnessing to the new character that he has been building, has made possible the happy climax of this tragic hour--looking up to him she has said: 'I never had so much to live for as now.' That should be the feeling of each one of us.

"The events of to-night must have been graven deeply into all our hearts. None of us can ever be quite the same. Each must start afresh, with our lives enriched by the lesson and by the experiences of this hour.

"It has brought to me the keenest suffering, the bitterest disappointment, that I have ever known. It has brought to me also a deepening faith in the marvelous power of God to overrule the most untoward incidents to His glory. It has brought to me also the greatest gift that any man can have upon the side of his earthly relations,--a joy so great, so supreme, so ineffable that I cannot speak farther than to say to you that it is mine to-night; and that you look into my eyes at the happiest moment I have ever known."

There was a movement in the gallery. A tall woman, heavily veiled, with an air of unmistakable distinction about her, arose and mounted the aisle step by step to the stairway leading downward.

Desiring with all the violent impetuosity of her nature to break out with the truth that would vindicate the man she loved so hopelessly and had involved so terribly, Marien had nevertheless been true to her vow of silence. But she had brought Rollie Burbeck to this meeting, and she had kept him there. At the critical moment she had sent him down to stand beside his mother, until the young man's clay-like soul at last had fluxed and fused into the moulding of a man. Having seen the mischief she had wrought undone, so far as anything done ever is undone, she was leaving now, when the minister had begun to speak of what she could not bear to hear.

Hampstead's gaze watched the receding figure, and a poignant regret for her smote in upon him in the midst of all his joy.

Desperately, with that enormous resolution of which she was capable, Marien Dounay was stepping undemonstratively out of his life. But as she went, he knew that the verdict pronounced upon him by the court was one now pronounced upon her. All through life she would be held to answer for the love she had slain for the sake of her ambition.

Of those who followed the eye of the minister as it marked the departure of the woman from the gallery, some, of course, recognized her, and for a moment they may have been puzzled over the mystery of the part she had played in that moving drama, the last act of which was now drawing to its end before them; but the minister was speaking again:

"It seems to me best for us all," he was saying, "to disperse quietly, to go each to his or her own home, to our own families, into the deeper recesses of our own hearts, to ponder that through which we have passed and plan for each the future duty.

"Upon one point I am inclined to break into homily. The great lesson which I myself have learned can be best expressed in the verdict of the court at my preliminary hearing: 'Held to Answer.' It seems to me there is a great philosophy of life in that. In the crowding events of the week past, I have been 'Held to Answer' for many mistakes of mine. Some of you must find yourselves held to answer now for the manner in which you have borne yourselves. Our young brother, Rollie Burbeck, for whom we feel so deeply and whose courage to-night we have so greatly admired, will be held to answer to-morrow before his associates and the world for his past mistakes and for his proposals for the future. But we shall be held to answer also for our blessings and our opportunities. A great joy has come to me. The woman I have loved devotedly, but perhaps undeservingly, for years, has come thundering half way across the continent to stand beside me here to-night. She brings me great happiness, an increasing opportunity to do good. For that also I shall be held to answer, since joys are not given to us for selfish use, but that we may enlarge and give them back again.

"And now, though I am no longer your pastor, you will permit me, I am sure, to lift my hand above you for this last time and invoke the benediction of God which is eternal upon the life of every man and woman here to-night."

"But," faltered Elder Brooks, starting up, his voice trembling, "that was our great mistake, our great sin. You are to be our pastor again!"

The minister shook his head slowly and decisively. The Elder stared in dumb, helpless amazement, while a murmur of dissent rose from the congregation, but quieted before the upraised hand of the minister.

"It seems to me," said Hampstead, speaking in tones of deep conviction and yet with humility, "that God has declared the pulpit of All People's vacant; that both you and I are to be held to answer for our mutual failure by a stern decree of separation. For there is another lesson which has been graven deeply in my life. It is this: No man can go back. No life ever flows up stream. The tomb of yesterday is sealed. The decision of this congregation is irrevocable. Less than a quarter of an hour has passed; but you are not the same, and I am not the same."

In the minister's solemn utterance, the message of the inevitable consequence of what had happened was carried into every consciousness. There was no longer any protest. The congregation bowed, mutely submissive, while John Hampstead pronounced the benediction of St. Jude:

"Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power before all time, and now, and forever more. Amen."

The meeting was over. But the audience sat uncertainly in the pews, with expectant glances at Elder Burbeck. It seemed as if he should rouse and say something. John, in recognition of the naturalness of this impulse, turned and laid his hand upon the shoulder of the man.

"My brother," he began, and applied a gentle pressure. But something in the unyielding bulk of the man made him stop with a puzzled look, after which he turned and glanced toward Mrs. Burbeck. Already Rollie was pushing her chair forward, her face expressing both anxiety and love. She had been eager to go to her husband before, but consideration for his own pride, which would resent a demonstration, had withheld her. She touched first the outstretched drooping finger.

"Hiram!" she breathed softly, coaxingly, "Hiram!"

Receiving no response, Mrs. Burbeck drew the obscuring hand gently from before the face. Her own features were a study. It was curious of Hiram to act this way. He was a man of stern purpose. Having been overwhelmingly shamed by his error, it would have been like him to stand bravely and confess his wrong. But his parted lips had no purpose in their form at all. The redness of his skin had changed to a purple. She laid her fingers on his cheek and held them there, for a moment, curiously and apprehensively. Then a startled expression crossed her face, and a little exclamation broke from her lips. Instead of leaning forward, she drew back and lifted her eyes helplessly to the minister.

Hampstead met her questioning, pitiful glance with a sad shake of the head and affirmation in his own tear-filling eyes. He had sensed the solemn truth from the moment of that first touch upon the huge, unresponsive shoulder.

For an appreciable interval the face of the woman was white and set and unbelieving, and then she folded her hands and bowed her head in mute acknowledgment of the widowhood which had come upon her.

With the audience aghast and breathless in sympathetic understanding, Hampstead looked down upon the silent figures where they posed like a sculptured group, the upper bulk of the man unmoving upon the table, the woman unmoving in the chair, and behind the chair, the son, also bowed and motionless.

Hiram Burbeck was dead. He, too, had been held to answer, but before the highest court,--for his harsh legalism, for his unsympathetic heart, for his blind leadership of the blind.

How strange were the issues of life! This leaflike shadow of a woman, her mortal existence hanging by a thread, had withstood the shock for which the minister had feared and risen strong above it. She still had strength to bear and strength to give. But the proud, stern father had crumpled and died.

Again there was the sound of sobbing in the church; but the intimates of Mrs. Burbeck quickly gathered round and screened the group of mourners from the eyes of the people who filed quietly out of the building. For a time the steady tramp of feet upon the gallery stairs, with the snort and cough of motor-cars outside, resounded harshly, and then the church was emptied. Rollie had taken his mother away. Rose, Dick, and Tayna were gone. The huge chair by the end of the communion table was emptied of its burden. That, too, was gone. All the wreckage, all the past, was gone.

The old sexton stood sadly by the vestibule door, his hand upon the light switch, waiting the pleasure of his pastor for the last time.

Absently, John Hampstead climbed the pulpit stairs and stood leaning on the pulpit itself, surveying in farewell the empty pews and the empty, groined arches. They had stood for something that he had tried to do and failed; but he would try again more humbly, more in the fear of God, more in the spirit of one who had turned failure into victory.

Standing thus, looking thus, reflecting thus, John heard a soft step upon the pulpit stair. It was Bessie, who had lingered in appreciative silence, the faithful, indulgent companion of her lover's mood. As she approached, the rapt man swung out his arm to enfold her, and they stood together, both leaning upon the pulpit.

"To-night one ministry has ended," John said presently; "to-morrow another shall begin."

"And it will be a better ministry," breathed Bessie softly, "because there are two of us."

"_And they twain shall become one flesh!_"

THE END