Part 24

"I have reread the Bible texts, Mr. Prentiss, and Mrs. Wilson has explained to me that as a priest of the Episcopal Church you could not marry me. I understand that. What I wish you to tell me is whether it would be a sin, a real sin, were I to be married elsewhere. The law allows it, only the church forbids. Has the church no discretion, could no exception be made in a case like mine? In this age of the world it would seem as though justice and the demands which religion makes on the conscience ought to tally. You know the circumstances of my first marriage. Because I made a dreadful mistake, is it my highest duty to renounce this happiness as a forbidden thing? It is for you to tell me. I must trust in you; I cannot decide for myself. My reason whispers to me that it would not be wrong for me to consent, but I am prepared to put this seeming blessing from me if by accepting it I should be guilty of a genuine weakness, should be helping to push society down instead of helping to maintain the standards of the world."

Mr. Prentiss beamed upon her with pitying, gracious approval. Now that he had recovered from his momentary access of temper he beheld in a clear light the reality of the sacrifice, her touching sincerity and his own opportunity. From the standpoint of righteousness there was no room in his mind for doubt or evasion; yet he felt that it behooved him to meet this spiritual conflict with all the tenderness of his priestly office. He had learned to admire this lithe, dark-haired woman, nor was her greater physical attraction lost on him. He realized as she stood before him that under the new dispensation she had waxed in charm and social effectiveness; and once more she was showing herself worthy of his enthusiasm. His ear had noticed the felicity of her last thought, and he was musing on the sophisticated scope of it when Mrs. Wilson's dulcet voice broke the silence.

"I have made clear to Mrs. Stuart, Mr. Prentiss, that the advanced thought of the church finds in the words of Christ not merely an inspired utterance concerning divorce, but the rallying cry in behalf of a profound, practical, social reform."

The rector bent on his ally a discerning glance of satisfaction. He perceived gratefully that she had made the most of her opportunities to till the soil from which he looked for a rich harvest.

"My dear friend," he said to Constance, "you have put upon me a great responsibility from which I must not shrink. But however uncompromising my duty as a servant of Christ may cause me to appear, believe me that my understanding is not blind to the human distress under which you labor. You are asked to renounce what is for woman the greatest of temporal joys, the love of a deserving man." He paused a moment to mark the fervor of his sympathy. "Were I willing to palter with the truth, and did I deem you to be common clay unable to appreciate and live up to it, I might say to you 'go and be married elsewhere. It will be an offence; it will not have the sanction of the church; but others have done the same, and you will have the protection of the secular law.' Although the Roman Catholic priest has but one answer under all circumstances however pitiful, 'who, having a husband or wife living, marries again, cannot remain a member of the church,' it might seem permissible to some of my cloth not to condemn remarriage in the case of a dense soul as a grievous sin. But such palliation would sear my lips were I to utter it for your relief. You have asked me what is the vital truth--your highest Christian duty. There can be but one answer. To respect the marriage bond and, keeping yourself unspotted from the world, hold to one husband for your mortal life so long as you both do live. To yield would not be a crime as the ignorant know crime, but it would be a sapping carnal weakness, inconsistent with the spiritual wisdom which has hitherto led you. It would indeed help to lower the standards of human society. I may not equivocate, my dear friend. This is the ideal of the Christian Church in respect to marriage and divorce. Invoke the human law for your protection against your husband if you will, but he is still your husband in the eyes of God, and if you wed another you commit adultery."

Constance, seeming like a breathing statue, save for her odd disfigurement, her arms before her at full length, her hands folded one upon the other, heard her sentence and love's banishment. Already she felt the thrill of a solemn impulse to bear this cross laid upon her, not as a cross but as a fresh opportunity for service, yet she said:

"Then the law of the church and the law of the State stand opposed to each other!" She spoke in soliloquy as it were, phrasing an existing condition for the explanation of which her intelligence still lacked the key.

Mr. Prentiss drew himself up. "Yes, they stand opposed, as in so many other instances. The law of the State is for the weak; the law of the church--of Christ--is for the strong. Verily the church has been magnanimous and forbearing. It has resigned to the State little by little control of the social machinery. But here, where the foundations of society are at stake, it behooves her to stand firm. The law of spirit is at war with the law of flesh. Monogamy is the corner-stone of Christian civilization."

"And hence it is that marriage is a sacrament; that the marriage bond bears the seal of heaven," added Mrs. Wilson ardently, as the rector, contented with his metaphor, stopped short in his righteous foray.

"If my marriage was made in heaven, we were ill-mated," retorted Constance. The thought seemed so repugnant to her that she revolted at it. But Mr. Prentiss, like a true physician of the soul, was equal to the emergency.

"The choice was yours, and you made a dreadful mistake. Have you yourself not said so? Shall you not pay the penalty, my daughter? You thought you knew him whom you married."

"Oh, yes, indeed; but I was very young."

"May they not all say the same? And yet," pursued the rector, in a tone of proselytizing triumph, "the demon of divorce lurks at our firesides and, stalking through every walk of life, makes light of the holy tie as though it were of straw, mocking the solemn associations of the family, and taking from the innocent child the refining and safe-guarding influence of a stable, unsullied home. Yet the State stands by and winks at--aye, connives at and promotes the foul programme, rehabilitating shallowness and vice through the respectable red seal of the law. Yes, there are two standards. As a modern priest I am aware of the sophistry of the criticism, for who, if the church does not, will stand as the protector of the home? And if it sometimes happens, as it must happen," he concluded in an exalted whisper, "that the apparent earthly happiness of one must be sacrificed for the good of the many, I know that you are not the woman to falter."

"Oh, no--oh, no," answered Constance, shaking her head. "It is a terrible condition of affairs, is it not? I see; I understand." She resumed her seat on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. For a few moments there was silence. Mrs. Wilson restrained a melting impulse to put her arm around her ward's shoulder in pitying encouragement. She felt that it was wiser to wait.

"Terrible," repeated Constance, as though she had been dwelling on the thought, and she looked up. Her manner was calm and sweetly determined. "Thank you, Mr. Prentiss--thank you both so much. There is only one thing to do--one thing I wish to do, now that my duty has been made entirely plain. I shall tell Mr. Perry that though I love him I cannot marry him."

"There is no reason that you should come to a decision on the spot," said Mr. Prentiss, reluctant to take undue advantage of an emotional frame of mind. "Take time to consider the matter."

But Constance shook her head. "That would not help me. I have thought it out already. I could not consent to sin, and you have explained, to me that it would be a sin."

"A sin surely; a carnal sin for you, Mrs. Stuart," said the clergyman with doughty firmness.

Constance gave a little nervous laugh--or was it the echo of a shiver? "I had a conviction that it could never be. It was a pleasant dream."

The pathos of the simple utterance reawoke Mrs. Wilson's strained sensibilities. She bent and kissed Constance on the forehead. Then turning to her rector she murmured with reverent ecstasy:

"Will you not pray with us, Mr. Prentiss?"

It was a grateful, benignant suggestion to the sufferer; the tonic which her yearning, baffled spirit needed. Divining as by telepathy that the moment had arrived for just this spiritual communion, the clergyman set the example to the two women by falling on his knees, and presently his voice was raised in fervent prayer. It was the prayer of praise and victory, not of consolation and distress. He thanked God--as he could do with an overflowing heart--for this triumph of intelligent spiritual discernment over the lures of easygoing and numbing materialism. The outcome of the occasion was indeed for him an oasis, one of those green, fruitful passages in the more or less general dryness of heart-to-heart contact with his parishioners, the occurrence of which made him surer both of his own professional capacity and of the eternal truths of his religion. His invocation of his God was alike a pæan of thanksgiving and an acknowledgment of rekindled faith. As for Constance, his words were so many cups of water to a thirsty soul. Scorched by his exaltation, the cloud mists of doubt no longer perplexed her, and she beheld with radiant eyes her cross, her privilege to renounce what reason and human passion urged, for the sake of an ideal--the higher, vital needs of the human race.

When Mr. Prentiss had finished Mrs. Wilson did not for a moment trust herself to speak. Her eyes were full of tears. She had knelt as close to Constance as she felt to be harmonious. It was a glorious hour also for her. The steadfastness of this woman of the people was not only a subtle personal tribute, but it had refreshed the tired arteries of her being. When her daughter had left her house, secure and cold in the pride of a revolting scheme of life, it had almost seemed that God mocked her. But now the glories of His grace were manifest.

"Constance," she said, "I will call for you to-morrow, to sit in my pew. It is Sunday, you know."

XXI

In saying to Constance that he had pondered the question of their marriage from her standpoint, Gordon Perry felt that he had given indeed the fullest weight to every legitimate scruple, and believed that, provided he was beloved, there was no substance in any one of them. He knew that Constance had shrunk from a divorce. What more natural so long as she was undisturbed by her deserting husband? But now that the element of a new, strong affection was introduced the necessary legal proceedings seemed a paltry bar to her happiness. He had expected that she would demur to the step at first, but he had felt confident that her acute sense would shortly convince her that she was divorced to all intents and purposes already, and that the mere formal abdication of the fact, however unpleasant sentimentally was not a valid obstacle. He had also appreciated that this repugnance to a legal dissolution of the marriage tie for the purpose of becoming a second time a wife would be accompanied by an instinctive feminine aversion to giving her person to another man while it was still possible to encounter the original husband in the flesh. He did not pride himself on his knowledge of women, but the attitude suggested itself to him as possible, even probable, in the case of one whose sensibilities were so delicate as hers, for the reason that there lingered in his mind the remembrance of shrinking words both in books and in real life by other women when the same topic had been broached in the past. Consequently it was a relief to him that Constance did not openly manifest this form of repugnance, and he radiantly jumped to the conclusion that her love for him was so reciprocal and mastering that false delicacy had been shrivelled up as in a furnace. Was not such a process in keeping with her sterling sanity and intelligence? For a moment he had jubilantly assumed that all was won, since, after conscientious if somewhat scornful analysis of the Church's claim, he had already decided that the pure religious objection would never in the end avail to keep them apart. Nor did the foreboding definiteness of her opposition discourage him appreciably. It merely cast a damper on his hopes for an immediate surrender, and indicated to him that he had been premature in supposing that she had been able to purge herself of superstitions and conventional prejudices forthwith. It could simply be a question of time when so human and discerning a bride would come to his arms without a qualm.

Nevertheless he felt that he must convince her. Now that he was sure she loved him, the possibility of losing her was not even to be entertained; but he wished her to succumb as the result of agreement, and not in spite of herself, both because he realized that she would not be happy otherwise, and because the doctrine which she had invoked as a binding obligation jarred not only with his desires, but with his deepest opinions. Therefore, at the conclusion of their interview, he took up straightway the cudgels of thought in defence of his convictions against what seemed to him the essential injustice and unreasonableness of the Church's claim. This necessarily involved fresh consideration of that claim itself. That night before he went to bed he rehearsed the arguments by which he purposed to appeal to her. Did she not appreciate that they were influenced by no base motives? That neither lust nor undue haste, nor covetous trifling with the feelings of others tarnished their mutual passion. Theirs was no case of putting off the old bonds of matrimony in order to be on with the new, but one where love had been starved to death, and been born again by gradual and chaste processes in a lonely, forsaken heart. What could be wrong in such a union? And were not their own consciences and their own intelligences the only fit judges of the eternal merits?

Gordon Perry's attitude toward religion--toward churches and toward churchmen--was abstractly respectful and friendly. He had been brought up by his mother in her faith, and the period of stress through which most young men pass in early life had been productive of a frame of mind which was reverent as well as critical. Not a small portion of mankind in Benham accepted their religious doctrine on trust, as they did their drinking water. Either they were too busy to question what seemed authority, or that particular compartment of the brain where absorbing interest in the unseen germinates was empty. Some of the most pious never reasoned, and their docile worship constituted the cement in the walls of dogma. Again, there was a class--a growing class in Benham as elsewhere--composed of well-equipped, active-minded men who were polite to Religion if they met her in the street, and would even go to church now and again to oblige a wife or preserve outward appearances, for they were still of the opinion that religion is good for the masses. But in their secret souls what did they believe?

Gordon belonged to still another class. Religious truth had an absorbing interest for him, but what was religious truth? Different sects--and they were manifold in Benham--told him different things, and each sect proclaimed its doctrine insistently as vital, if not to salvation, to the highest spiritual development. Like many a young man before him, he argued that all could not be right, and as a result he presently found himself a member of that secret society of able-bodied, able-minded male citizens--the largest class of all--who reasoned about religious doctrine somewhat in this way: That they were hopefully looking forward to the time when the controversial differences which divided the sects into rival camps should disappear; and that until then they and their successors, whose number was sure to be legion, would turn deaf ears to the clashing of the divines, and attend church in order to gain strength and inspiration to play their parts well in complex modern human society, ignoring all else but the spirit of Christian love. If it be said that they and Gordon were not strong on dogma, denied that the laws of the universe had ever been suspended to produce fear or admiration in man, because to believe the contrary seemed to be an insult to God, and looked askance at certain other extraordinary phenomena to which the orthodox cling, it should also be stated that they and he were heartily in sympathy with every effort of all the clergy to improve human nature along intelligent lines, to help the poor to help themselves, to prevent the rich from misappropriating the earth and to foster truth, courage, unselfishness and refinement in the name of religion. Therefore it happened that Gordon was apt to take with a grain of salt what he heard in the pulpit; and now and then he would play golf on Sunday if he were in need of fresh air for his soul; but although he was slightly impatient of clerical sophistries up town, down town he lent a ready hand in the active reforms of the city, in the furtherance of which he had learned to know well, and to admire as good fellows, half a dozen energetic, enthusiastic clergymen. Was not religion one of the great forces of the world? Because one could not believe everything, and revolted at mystical or puerile superstitions, were the highest cravings of one's nature to be allowed to atrophy? So, just as in his social perplexities, he had sought refuge in practical service from the conflict of theories, and on more than one occasion he had been agreeably surprised by the confidential admission of the divines with whom he was co-operating that their and his views were not essentially far apart. Gordon was glad on their account to hear so, and was only the more convinced as a consequence that it was difficult to reconcile most of the strict tenets of theology with the modern ideas of wide-awake, enlightened laymen concerning the workings of the universe or the best social development of the creature man.

Gordon made no attempt to see Constance on the day following his proposal. Impatient as he was to renew his suit, he concluded to let her muse for twenty-four hours on the situation. It occurred to him that he would ask leave to accompany her to church on Sunday morning, but reflecting that it would not be fair to disturb her meditations, he decided instead to attend the service at St. Stephen's and walk home with her after it. Whatever the New Testament language on the subject, would she be able to convince herself that the sundering of such love as theirs would be in keeping with the true spirit of Christianity? It seemed to him that there could be but one answer to this proposition, and as he walked along in the beautiful bracing atmosphere of the autumn day his step was buoyant, for he believed that his happiness would be sealed within a few short hours. Ecstasy ruled his thoughts. Was not the woman of his heart an entrancing prize? Fortune and station she had none, but far more important for him, she was lovable and she was lovely; she was intelligent and she was good.

He had attended service at St. Stephen's once or twice before, and had a bowing acquaintance with Mr. Prentiss; but he knew well and entertained a cordial liking for the latter's assistant, the rector of the Church of the Redeemer, the mission church in the squalid section of the city supported by the larger establishment. St. Stephen's, as the fashionable Episcopalian church of the community, was apt to draw a large congregation, especially when the pew owners were not confronted by wet skies or sidewalks. This brilliant Sunday at the beginning of the social season had drawn most of the regular congregation and also a large contingent of strangers--chiefly women--some of them visitors in Benham, but the majority students and other temporary residents who found the æsthetic music and devotional ritual of St. Stephen's stimulating. Gordon, who was a little late, obtained a seat in the gallery. It had occurred to him that he would be more likely to catch sight of his ladylove from this eminence than if he remained below. His eyes sought at once the so-called free benches where she was accustomed to sit, but she was not in her usual place. After repeated scrutiny of the rows of faces had convinced him of this, he concluded dejectedly that she had not come. Perhaps she had stayed at home hoping he would call. Or had she been loth to display her glasses in public before she had become accustomed to the disfigurement? His glance wandered over the rich flower garden of autumn bonnets, but to no purpose. While in perplexity he reviewed the probable causes of her absence he became aware that the music of the processional had ceased and that Mr. Prentiss was speaking. Ten minutes later, when the congregation rose to take part in the selection from the Psalms, his glance fell on Mrs. Randolph Wilson in one of the front pews. Her profile was almost in a line with his vision. While he looked his heart gave a bound, for he suddenly recognized that the young woman next to her in the gay, attractive bonnet was she for the sight of whom his soul was yearning.

After leaving Constance on the day of their eventful interview, Mrs. Wilson had conceived the plan of presenting her with a new bonnet and jacket. These she brought with her to Lincoln Chambers a little before church time, and placed with her own hands on the surprised recipient. Pleased at the æsthetic progress of her ward, she seized this opportunity to promote it, and also to cater to her own generous instincts at a time when to indulge them was not likely to cause offence. Though astonished, Constance accepted without demur these welcome additions to her toilet, and the donor had the satisfaction of beholding how admirably they became her. Besides, Mrs. Wilson had on the tip of her tongue and was eager to communicate the plan which she had been working out since they separated, and which she imparted to Constance as soon as they were in her brougham on the way to church.

"I have been carefully considering your affairs, my dear, and, in the first place, you are to do nothing for the next six months but get well. I shall insist upon looking after you. You promised me, remember." She paused as though she half expected to encounter opposition to this project, and, though her ward revealed no insubordination, she added the argument which she held in reserve: "For, having deprived you by its counsel of the means of support, it is the Church's duty, and my privilege as a disciple of the Church's cause, to watch over you until you are able to provide for yourself. At the end of the six months, when your eyes are strong again, I wish you to become my private secretary."

On the way from her house she had pictured to herself the astonishment and delight which such an unexpected and splendid proposition must necessarily inspire, and she could not refrain from stealing a sidelong glance at Constance in order to observe the effect it would have on her.

"Your private secretary?"