Chapter 24

"I am so happy to oblige you," she returned. "Though whether your story is true or not must depend, you know, upon the unsupported testimony of the medium--I mean of the speaker."

Maurice rose and went toward her, facing her squarely.

"I understand, Alice," he said, "that you don't love me, and I haven't come to ask favors. This is a matter of simple honesty. I certainly don't think you would willfully keep me out of my property."

"Thank you for drawing the line somewhere. It was so noble of you to interfere at Mrs. Rangely's! You didn't in the least mind robbing me of my good name, and them of the comfort of believing it was real. Besides, I did see things! I swear to you that I did! I am a medium in spite of whatever you say. I can call up spirits!"

Her voice rose as she went on, and he feared lest she should work herself into one of her furies of excitement and temper which he had seen of old.

"Why should we go back to that?" he said, as gently as he could. "That is past, and I only did what I thought was my duty."

"Oh, you did your duty, did you?" she sneered.

"Well, I'll do mine now. Stay here, while I go and empty that old desk. I'll match you in doing my duty!"

She hurried tumultuously from the room, leaving Maurice in anything but an enviable frame of mind. He began to walk up and down, assailed by old memories at every turn, yet so disturbed by Mrs. Singleton's words and manner that he could not heed the recollections. The minutes passed, and Alice did not return. It seemed to him that she took a long time to remove her papers from the desk. Then he smiled to himself in bitter amusement and impatience. Of course his sister-in-law was trying to discover the secret of the double bottom. She would probably persevere until she had gained the precious document of which he had come in search. She would read it, and then--He broke off in his reverie with an exclamation of impatience. What a fool he had been to attempt to deal with this woman alone! He had, it was true, expected to find Mrs. Ashe, but he should have sent a lawyer. What did he, a puppet from the Clergy House, know of managing the affairs of life? He felt that he had failed in his match with Mrs. Singleton; and he had almost made up his mind to go in search of her, when he heard her returning.

She came in with her face flushed, her eyes shining, and an air of triumph which struck dismay to the heart of Maurice.

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she said, "but I had to light a fire in the parlor, I was so cold. However, I have something to show you that will interest you."

"Is it the will?" he asked eagerly.

She answered with a laugh, but led the way across the narrow front entry into the parlor. The pleasant noise of a crackling fire sounded within, and as he entered the room he saw that the fireplace was filled with a ruddy blaze. Then he rushed forward with a cry. There on the top of the blazing logs were the unmistakable remains of the desk, eaten through and through by tongues of red flame. He seized the tongs, and dragged the burning mass to the hearth, but even as he did so he saw that he was too late.

"It is kind of you to want to save my old desk, Maurice," jeered his companion; "but I had the misfortune to put the poker through the bottom of it before I called you, so that I'm afraid it really isn't worth saving."

He saw that the wood had indeed been punched through and through, and that it was reduced almost to a cinder. It was easy to see that the bottom had been double, and burned flakes of paper were visible among the remains; whether of the will or not it was obviously impossible now to discover. He looked at the burned bits of board falling into ashes and cinders at his feet, realizing that here was an end to all his dreams of regaining his aunt's fortune; that with this dream ended, too, his visions of being in a position to offer Berenice--His wrath blazed up in an uncontrollable force.

"You are a fiend!" he cried, facing the woman who smiled beside him. "You are a thief, a shameless, deliberate thief!"

She stood the image of mirthful, innocent girlhood, her smooth forehead unclouded, her eyes gleaming as if with the merriment of a child.

"It is a pretty fire, isn't it, Maurice?"

Then her whole expression changed. Into her dark, dewy eyes came a look of rage, visible murder in a glance.

"You called me a liar, there in Boston," she said hissingly. "I am not surprised to have you add thief now. I have only done what I chose with my own property; but I would have been cut into little bits before you should have had that will through me!"

He could not trust himself to reply. He felt that if he spoke he might break out into curses, and he was conscious of an unmanly longing to strike her, to mar that beautiful, false face, childlike and pure in every line,--for the expression of rage had melted as quickly as it had come,--to feel the joy of seeing her limbs slacken and her red lips grow white. He clinched his hands and turned resolutely away.

"I'm sure I don't know that there was anything there that you had any interest in," she pursued lightly. "I tried as long as I dared to get the bottom open, and I couldn't, so I decided that it wasn't any of my business. Only when I put the poker through there seemed to be papers there."

Maurice could endure no more. He started toward her so fiercely that she recoiled, a sudden pallor blanching her rosy loveliness. Then he turned abruptly away again, and got out of the house.

XXXII

NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4.

Interest in the question who would be bishop increased as Lent waned and the time for the meeting of the convention approached. The general public could not be expected to be greatly concerned about a matter so purely ecclesiastical, but the wide popularity of Mr. Strathmore gave to the election a character of its own. The question was generally held to be that of the prevalence of liberal views. Many who cared nothing about the church were interested in seeing whether new or old ideas would prevail. The age is one in which there is a keen curiosity to see what course the church will take. It is partly due, undoubtedly, to the inherited habit of being concerned in theology; it is perhaps more largely the result of unconscious desire for a liberalism so great that it shall justify those who have been so liberal as to lay aside all religion whatever.

The papers had entered into the discussion with an alacrity quickened by the fact that at this especial season there was not much else in the way of news. Rangely wrote for the "Daily Eagle" a glowing editorial in which he urged the choice of Strathmore on the ground that the new bishop should be not the representative of a faction, but of the whole church, and as far as possible of the people. It insisted that only a man liberal himself could have breadth to understand and sympathize with all shades of feeling. Others of the secular press had taken up the discussion, and Mrs. Wilson declared that the devil was contributing editorials to the papers in his keen fear that Father Frontford would be elected.

Lent wore at last to an end, and the festivities which follow Easter came in with all their usual gayety. One evening, about a week before the election, a musicale was given at the house of Mrs. Gore. Mr. and Mrs. Strathmore were present, the tall figure of the former being conspicuous in the crowd which after the music surged toward the supper-room and later eddied through the parlors. Fred Rangely came upon the clergyman at a moment when he had detached himself from the admiring women who usually surrounded him, and taken refuge in the shadow of a deep window.

"Good-evening, Mr. Strathmore," Rangely said. "Are you making a retreat? I thought Lent was the time for that."

The other smiled with that kindly benevolence which was characteristic.

"Ah, Mr. Rangely," he responded, extending his hand. "I am glad to see you. Will you share my retirement?"

"Thank you," Rangely answered, stepping into the recess. "A retreat is especially grateful to a journalist. We get so tired that even a moment of respite is welcome."

Mr. Strathmore smiled more genially than ever.

"Yes; you journalists are expected to know everything, and it must be wearing to have to learn all that there is to know."

"Oh, it's easy enough to learn instead how to appear to know."

The clergyman regarded him with a quizzical look.

"Is that the way it is done? I've often wondered at the infallibility of your guild."

"A trick, of the trade, I assure you. We have to seem to be infallible to secure any attention at all, you see; and we soon learn the knack of it."

The clergyman, as if unconsciously, drew back a little farther into the shadow of the heavy draperies veiling the nook in which they stood.

"I dare say," he observed, as if speaking at random, "that one of your clever professional writers would be able, for instance, to give the reader quite an inside view even in church matters."

Rangely's face changed, and he in turn altered his position by leaning his elbow against the heavy middle sash of the window. The two men were thus not only concealed from the passing crowd, but stood with faces screened from each other by the shadow.

"Oh, even that might be possible," Rangely returned lightly.

"There is so much interest in church matters now," the other continued dispassionately. "I noticed that the 'Churchman' had rather a striking article two or three weeks ago on a layman's point of view of the bishop question. Did you see it?"

"I seldom see the 'Churchman,'" Rangely replied in a voice not wholly free from constraint.

"It is a pity you didn't see this, it was so well done. It is true that it proved me to be all sorts of a heretic; but if I am, of course it should be known."

There was a pause of a moment. Outside in the drawing-room rose the constant babble of speech, unintelligible and confusing. Then above it Rangely laughed softly.

"The wisdom of the journalist," he remarked, "is as nothing compared to that of the clergy. How did you discover that I wrote it?"

"Discover? Isn't that a word applied to finding things by seeking?"

"What of that?"

"I was merely thinking that you give me credit for more leisure and more curiosity than I possess if you suppose me to have tried to find out about that article."

Rangely laughed again.

"Mr. Strathmore," he said with a new resolution in his tone, "will you pardon me if I am frank? I want to ask you what I can do to help you to secure the election."

"Don't think I am given to word-splitting, Mr. Rangely, but I've no wish to _secure_ it. If the church needs me--but, after all, we need not quibble. Will you pardon me if I say that your question is rather remarkable coming from the author of the 'Churchman' paper."

"Although I wrote the 'Churchman' article, I wrote also the 'Eagle' editorial," was the reply. "I see things in a different light. The fact is that I was trapped into writing that stuff for the 'Churchman,' and now I'm anxious to undo any harm I may have done."

"I am glad that you do not really think me as bad as that article made me out," Strathmore said. "There have been some queer things about this election. Mrs. Gore has a letter that a woman has written which illustrates how injudicious some of those interested have been."

"What sort of a letter?"

"A letter that is amusing in a way. Of course I only mention the thing confidentially. Very likely, though, Mrs. Gore might be willing to let you see it if you are interested. It was written to a clergyman in the western part of the State by Mrs. Wilson."

"Mrs. Wilson?"

"Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. Of course you know that she is much interested in the matter. It isn't a very discreet document. I shall be much relieved when the whole thing is settled. It causes too much excitement, especially for us who have been named in connection with the office."

"It can't be pleasant," Rangely assented.

"It is not, I assure you. Now it is my duty to be talking to ladies and helping Mrs. Gore. She told me that she depended on me."

He moved forward as he spoke, and the two were soon in the company again. Rangely weltered through the crowd to Mrs. Gore and asked about the letter.

"It is a trump card," she said. "I am glad you spoke about it. I was wondering how it could be used to the best advantage. Mr. Strathmore talks about its being a private letter, but I have a shrewd suspicion that he wouldn't mind if somebody else used it. Come in to-morrow about five, and we'll talk it over."

Maurice Wynne was naturally not entirely at home in this sort of a gathering. He had not overcome his shyness and want of familiarity with social usages, so that he was especially relieved when he found himself comfortably seated in a corner with Mrs. Herman, to whom he could talk freely.

"Isn't there something that can be done for Phil, Mrs. Herman?" he asked earnestly. "I haven't seen him since I left the Clergy House. I had to come away without saying good-by to him, and in answer to my letter he says that Father Frontford advises him not to see me for the present."

Mrs. Herman sighed, playing with her fan.

"Life is hard for a nature like his," answered she. "He is born to be a martyr. He has the martyr temperament. It's part of our inheritance from Puritanism, I suppose."

Maurice smiled, looking up impulsively.

"I can't see why you lay so much stress on Puritanism," he said. "What has Puritanism resulted in? Its whole struggle has come to an end in doubt and agnosticism and flippancy. Intellectual curiosity has taken the place of spiritual stress; ethical casuistry or theological amusements seem to me to stand instead of religious conviction."

Mrs. Herman regarded him with an inquiring smile.

"You make me feel old," she interposed; "it is so long since I went through that stage. Will you pardon me for saying that you are not quite a disinterested observer?"

"It is the eyes newly open that see most clearly," he responded, throwing back his head with a little laugh. "The Puritan came into the wilderness to establish a city of God. Time has shown that he dreamed an impossible dream. The result of that effort has been the establishment of a religious liberty"--

"One might almost say a religious license, I own," she interpolated.

"A religious liberty or license as you like, but at any rate something that would have seemed to them appallingly wicked,--a thousand times worse than anything they fled from into the desert."

Mrs. Herman was silent a moment while he waited for her answer. Her eyes grew darker, and the color flushed in her cheeks.

"It is odd enough for me to be the champion of Puritanism," she said at length, "and yet it seems to me that after all they did their work well, and that it was permanent. They left on the land the stress of sincerity and earnestness. Creeds fall away just as leaves drop from the trees, but each leaf has helped. Religions decay, but the salvation of the race must depend upon human steadfastness to conviction."

"Then I suppose that you think Phil is nearer to the heart of things than I am."

"Not in the least. The difference between you is superficial rather than real so long as you are both true to your convictions."

"But it seems to me," Maurice objected, "that Phil is looking at truth as a sort of fetish. He seems to feel that the root of the matter is in a dogma, and a dogma is only the fossil remains of a truth that is gone by."

She laughed appreciatively.

"Have you caught the fever for making epigrams? I'm afraid there's a good deal of truth in what you say about Cousin Philip. He can't help looking at religion as an end rather than a means."

"Has it ever struck you that he might finish by going over to the Catholics?"

"No," she answered, "I confess I'd never thought of it; but I see what you mean."

"It will seem to him a moral catastrophe, a sort of ecclesiastical cataclysm," Maurice continued, "if Father Frontford isn't elected; and as far as I can judge there isn't much chance of that."

"No," she assented, "I don't think there is much chance."

"He said to me one day," added Maurice thoughtfully, "that in the Catholic Church there never could have been any danger of the election of a heretic bishop. I am afraid this will decide him."

Mrs. Herman regarded him with a smile, studying him as if she were reading the working of his mind.

"You think that a misfortune," she commented. "You feel that it is a step farther into the darkness."

"It is to narrow rather than to broaden his horizon, is it not?"

She played with her fan a moment, smiling to herself in a way which he did not understand, and looking down as if considering some old memory. Then she met his glance with a look at once kind and wistful.

"It isn't of much use to argue the matter, I suppose," were her words. "It seems to me as if in talking to you I see my old mental self in a mirror, if you'll pardon me for saying so. When we come out from any conviction, and most of all from a religious belief, it seems to us a profound misfortune that any man should still believe what we have decided is false. By and by I think you will see that the chief point is that a man shall believe. What he believes doesn't so much matter. It must be the thing that best suits his temperament."

"Then to outgrow a dogma is to weaken our power. It certainly weakens our faith in general."

"Yes," she assented, "that is the price we must pay for freedom; but if Philip can still believe, I have long ago passed the place where I should regret it. Perhaps he is to be envied."

Maurice shook his head.

"We may feel like that in some moods," he concluded with a smile, "but certainly nothing would induce you to change places with him." "Oh, no," she cried; "certainly not. But that is mere womanly lack of logic!"

XXXIII

A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN Love's Labor's Lost, i. 1.

The disappointment of Maurice at the failure of his effort to secure his aunt's fortune was perhaps rather more than less keen because the property had never tangibly been his. The title of the fancy is that of which men are most tenacious, and the thing which has been held in fee of the imagination is precisely that which it is most grievous to lose. Maurice returned to Boston completely overcome by the result of his expedition, his mind overflowing with chagrin and anger.

It was not only the money which he had missed, but he had to his thinking lost also the hope of being in a position to press his suit with Berenice. However intangible might be his plans for winning her, they none the less filled his mind. He refused to regard her coldness as enduring. He had in his thoughts imagined so many tender scenes of reconciliation in which he magnanimously forgave her for the sharpness of the repulse of their last meeting or humbly besought pardon for his own offenses, that he came to feel as if all misunderstanding had really been done away with. It had been in his mind that if he were but in a position to meet Berenice on equal terms in regard to fortune all might be well; and to be deprived of this hope was infinitely bitter.

Meanwhile he had before him the problem of reshaping his life. It was necessary that he decide what should take the place of the profession which he had laid down. Fortunately the decision was not difficult, as former inclination had practically settled the matter. The definite shaping of his plans came one day in a talk which he had with his cousin.

"It isn't exactly my affair, Maurice," Mrs. Staggchase said, "but I want to know, and that always makes a thing her affair with a woman,--what are you going to do with your life now that you have pulled it out of the mouth of the church?"

"It is good of you to care to ask," he answered. "I suppose I shall study law."

"May I talk with you quite frankly?" she asked. "Fred does me the honor to say that for a woman I have a reasonably clear head."

"You may say whatever you like, Cousin Diana. I shall only be grateful."

"Well, then, in the first place, how much have you to live on?"

"I've about a thousand dollars a year. What was left of the estate at mother's death amounts to about that. I wanted to give it all to the church when I went into the Clergy House."

"Why didn't you?"

"Father Frontford wouldn't allow it. He said that a continual sacrifice meant more than an act that stripped me of power to decide, and which might be regretted."

"That was a noble temper," Mrs. Staggchase remarked thoughtfully. "A priest is a strange being. As for you, you say you have never believed, and yet you would have given up everything you possessed."

Maurice flushed, and looked a little shamefaced.

"I never did believe, so far as I can see now; but I thought I did, if you see the difference. My wanting to give up everything wasn't belief; it was a sort of instinctive desire to play fair. If I were to do the thing at all, my impulse was to do it thoroughly. It isn't in my blood to do a thing half way. I'm afraid the explanation doesn't speak very well for my common sense; but so far as I can understand myself that's the way of it."

"But if you didn't believe what were you there for?"

"I was there because Phil was. I don't pretend to understand why I, who led Phil in everything else, who did all sorts of things that he couldn't and had to decide everything else for him, should have followed his lead so in religion; but I did. It was part of my caring for him. It would have hurt him so much if I hadn't, that of course I had to."

Mrs. Staggchase regarded him keenly. He turned away his eyes, thinking of his friend and of the wide gulf which had opened between them, so that he but half heard and did not understand the comment she made softly.

"The _ewigweibliche_ in masculine shape," she murmured, smiling to herself. "When the real came, it couldn't hold its power any longer."

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I was speaking in riddles. To come back to business,--you say you've decided upon the law."

"Yes. That was always my choice. I read a good deal of law while I was in college. It wasn't till I graduated two years ago that I fell into theology. It's two years wasted."

"Oh, perhaps, and perhaps not. After all, experience in youth is generally worth what it costs, little as we think so when we pay the price. Well, then, you can easily live on your income if you choose. Mr. Staggchase and I will be glad to have you make this your home, and"--

"But, Cousin Diana," he interrupted in astonishment, "there is certainly no reason why you should burden yourself with me. Not that I am not a thousand times obliged to you, but"--

"Be as obliged as you like," interrupted she in turn, "only don't be foolish. Fred and I are not exactly sentimentalists, and we both know what we wish. He likes to have you to talk with, and when you have learned to smoke you will find him a very clever and agreeable companion after dinner. He knows the world, and he'll teach you a great many things that you'd be slow to find out for yourself. As for me, you amuse me, let us say. The gods have spared us the bother of children; but the gifts of the gods are always to be paid for, and we begin to feel as if there were a sort of loneliness ahead of us with nobody to be especially interested in. To have somebody younger to care for is a luxury when you are young yourself, but it's a necessity to age. I assure you that we shouldn't have you here if we didn't want you, and that we shall turn you out without scruple when we are tired of you."

"Very well, then," he responded with a laugh, "I am rejoiced to remain to be a blessing."

They looked into the fire a little time as if they were considering what effect upon the future this new arrangement would have; then Mrs. Staggchase glanced up with a smile.