Aunt Bell paused, enthusiastic, but somewhat out of breath.

"I'll quit, Aunt Bell--that's enough--"

"Mr. Spencer is an example for you. Contrast his hold on the ma.s.ses with Mrs. Eddy's, who appeals to the imagination. I'm told by those who have read his works that he had quite the knack of logic, and yet the President of Princeton Theological Seminary preaches a sermon in which he calls him 'the greatest failure of the age.' I read it in this morning's paper. His text was, 'Ye believe in G.o.d, believe also in me.'

You see, there was an appeal to the imagination--the most audacious appeal that the world has ever known--and the crowd will be with this clergyman who uses it to refute the arguments of a man who worked hard through forty years of ill-health to get at the mere dry common-sense of things. If Jesus had descended to logic, he'd never have made a convert.

But he appealed magnificently to the imagination, and see the result!"

His mind had been dwelling on Allan's trouble, but now he came back to his gracious adviser.

"You do me good, Aunt Bell--you've taken all that message nonsense out of me. I suppose I _could_ be one of them, you know--one of those fellows that get into trouble--if I saw it was needed; but it isn't. Let the men who can't help it do it--they have no choice. Hereafter I shall worry as little about the world's salvation as I do about my own."

When they had finished dinner he let it be known that he was not a little anxious concerning a message that was late in arriving, and he made it a point, indeed, that the maid should advise Mrs. Linford to this effect, with an inquiry whether she might not have seen the delayed missive.

Then, after a word with Allan, he went to his room and from his south window smoked into the night--smoked into something approaching quietude a mind that had been rebelliously running back to the bare-armed girl in dusky white--the wondering, waiting girl whose hand had trembled into his so long ago--so many years during which he had been a dreaming fool, forgetting the world to worship certain impalpable G.o.ds of idealism--forgetting a world in which it was the divinely sensible custom to eat one's candy cane instead of preserving it superst.i.tiously through barren years!

He knew that he had awakened too late for more than a fleeting vision of what would have made his life full. Now he must be off, up the path again, this time knowing certainly that the woman would never more stand waiting and wondering at the end, to embitter his renunciations. The woman was definitely gone. That was something, even though she went with that absurd, unreasoning, womanish suspicion. And he had one free, dear look from her to keep through the empty days.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FELL FINGER OF CALUMNY SEEMS TO BE AGREEABLY DIVERTED

Shut in his study, the rector of St. Antipas paced the floor with nicely measured steps, or sat at his desk to make endless squares, circles, and triangles. He was engrossed in the latter diversion when he heard the bell sound below. He sat back to hear the steps of the maid, the opening of the door; then, after an interval, her steps ascending the stairs and stopping at his own door; then her knock.

"A letter for Mr. Bernal, sir!"

He glanced at the envelope she held, noting its tint.

"He's not here Nora. Take it to Mrs. Linford. She will know where he is."

He heard her go down the hall and knock at another door. She was compelled to knock twice, and then there was delay before the door opened.

He drew some pages of ma.n.u.script before him and affected to be busy at a work of revision, crossing out a word here, interlining one there, scanning the result with undivided attention.

When he heard a knock he did not look up, but said, "Come!" Though still intent at his work, he knew that Nancy stood there, looking from the letter to him.

"Nora said you sent this letter to me--it's for Bernal--"

He answered, still without looking up,

"I thought he might be with you, or that you might know where he was."

"I don't."

He knew that she studied the superscription of the envelope.

"Well, leave it here on my desk till he comes. I sent it to you only because I heard him inquiring if a letter had not come for him--he seemed rather anxious about some letter--troubled, in fact--doubtless some business affair. I hoped this might be what he was expecting."

His eyes were still on the page before him, and he crossed out a word and wrote another above it, after a meditative pause. Still the woman at the door hesitated.

"Did you chance to notice the address on the envelope?"

He glanced at her now for the first time, apparently in some surprise: "No--it is not my custom to study addresses of letters not my own. Nora said it was for Bernal and he had seemed really distressed about some letter or message that didn't come--if you will leave it here--"

"I wish to hand it to him myself."

"As you like." He returned to his work, crossing out a whole line and a half with broad, emphatic marks. Then he bent lower, and the interest in his page seemed to redouble, for he heard the door of Bernal's room open. Nancy called:

"Bernal!"

He came to the door where she stood and she stepped a little inside so that he might enter.

"I am anxious about a letter. Ah, you have it!"

She was scanning him with a look that was acid to eat out any untruth in his face.

"Yes--it just came." She held it out to him. He looked at the front of the envelope, then up to her half-shut eager eyes--eyes curiously hardened now--then he blushed flagrantly--a thorough, riotous blush--and reached for the letter with a pitiful confusion of manner, not again raising his uneasy eyes to hers.

"I was expecting--looking--for a message, you know--yes, yes--this is it--thank you very much, you know!"

He stammered, his confusion deepened. With the letter clutched eagerly in his hand he went out.

She looked after him, intently. When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his ma.n.u.script and apparently unconscious of her presence.

A long time she stood in silence, trying to moderate the beating of her heart. Once she turned as if to go, but caught herself and turned again to look at the bent head of Allan.

At last it seemed to her that she could trust herself to speak. Closing the door softly, she went to the big chair at the end of the desk. As she let herself go into this with a sudden joy in the strength of its supporting arms, her husband looked up at her inquiringly.

She did not speak, but returned his gaze; returned it, with such steadiness that presently he let his own eyes go down before hers with palpable confusion, as if fearing some secret might lie there plain to her view. His manner stimulated the suspicion under which she now seemed to labour.

"Allan, I must know something at once very clearly. It will make a mighty difference in your life and in mine."

"What is it you wish to know?" His glance was oblique and his manner one of discomfort, the embarra.s.sed discomfort of a man who fears that the real truth--the truth he has generously striven to withhold--is at last to come out.

"That letter which Bernal was so troubled about came from--from that woman--how could I avoid seeing that when it was handed to me? Did you know it, too?"

"Why, Nancy--I knew--of course--I knew he expected--I mean the poor boy told me--" Here he broke off in the same pitiful confusion that had marked Bernal's manner at the door--the confusion of apprehended deceit.

Then he began again, as if with gathered wits--"What was I saying? I know nothing whatever of Bernal's affairs or his letters. Really, how should I? You see, I have work on my mind." As if to cover his awkwardness, he seized his pen and hastily began to cross out a phrase on the page before him.

"Allan!" Though low, it was so near a cry that he looked up in what seemed to be alarm. She was leaning forward in the chair, one hand reaching toward him over the desk, and she spoke rapidly.

"Allan, I find myself suspecting now that you tried to deceive me this afternoon--that Bernal did, also, incredible as it sounds--that you tried to take the blame of that wretched thing off his shoulders. That letter to him indicates it, his own pitiful embarra.s.sment just now--oh, an honest man wouldn't have looked as he did!--your own manner at this instant. You are both trying--Oh, tell me the truth now!--you'll never dream how badly I need it, what it means to my whole life--tell me, Allan--for G.o.d's sake be honest this instant--my poor head is whirling with all the lies! Let me feel there is truth somewhere. Listen. I swear I'll stay by it, wherever it takes me--here or away from here--but I must have it. Oh, Allan, if it should be in you, after all--Allan! dear, _dear_--Oh! I do see it now--you _can't_ deceive--you _can't_ deceive!"

Slowly at first his head bent under her words, bent in cowardly evasion of her sharp glance, the sidelong shiftings of his eyes portraying him, the generous liar, brought at last to bay by his own honest clumsiness.

Then, as her appeal grew warmer, tenderer, more insistent, the fine head was suddenly erected and proud confession was written plainly over the glowing face--that beautiful contrition of one who has willed to bear a brother's shame and failed from lack of genius in the devious ways of deceit.