"I am afraid I could hardly go so far as that."

"Could you go as far as New Jersey?"

"In my time I have ventured into Macedonia. But why do you ask?"

"You see, in a day or two, I'll be free from my present--that is, my absent wife; and I wanted to know if you could come over and marry me."

"But I thought--I fear--do you mean to say you are marrying some young woman from over there?"

"I'm marrying Charity Coe."

"My dear, dear boy! Really! You can't, you know! She has been divorced and so have you."

"Yes, all quite legally."

"And you ask me to join your hands in holy matrimony?"

"No, just plain legal matrimony. I was joined in holy matrimony once, and I don't insist on that part of it again. But Charity wants a clergyman and I don't mind."

"Really, my son, you know better than to a.s.sume this tone to me. You've been away from church too long."

"Well, if you want to get me back, fasten me to Charity. You know she's the best woman that ever lived."

"She is a trifle too rebellious to merit that tribute, I fear."

"Well, give her another chance. She has had enough hard knocks. You ought to go to her rescue."

"Do you think that to be the duty of the Church?"

"It used to be, didn't it? But don't get me into theology. I can't swim.

The point is, will you marry Charity to me?"

"No!"

"Wouldn't you marry her to any man?"

"Only to one."

"Who's that?"

"Her former husband."

"But he's married to another woman."

"I do not recognize that marriage."

"Good Lord! Would you like to see Charity married to Cheever again?"

"Yes."

"To Peter Cheever?"

"Yes."

"Whew! Say, Doctor, that's going it pretty strong."

"I do not care to discuss the sacraments with you in your present humor."

"Did you read the trial of that woman last week who killed her husband and was acquitted? Mrs. What's-her-name? You must have read it."

"I pay little attention to the newspaper scandals."

"You ought to--they're what make life what it is. Anyway, this woman had a husband who turned out bad. He was a grafter and a gambler, a drunkard and a brute. He beat her and their five children horribly, and finally she divorced him. The law gave her her freedom in five minutes and there was no fuss about it, because she was poor, and the newspapers have no room for poor folks' marriage troubles--unless they up and kill somebody.

"Well, this woman was getting along all right when some good religious people got at her about the sin of her divorce and the broken sacrament, and they kept at her till finally she consented to remarry her husband--for the children's sake! There was great rejoicing by everybody--except the poor woman. After the remarriage he returned to his old ways and began to beat her again, and finally she emptied a revolver into him."

"Horrible, horrible!"

"Wasn't it? The jury disagreed on the first trial. But on the second the churchpeople who persuaded her to remarry him went on the stand and confessed--or perhaps you would say, boasted--that they persuaded her to remarry him. And then she was acquitted. And that's why the civil law has always had to protect people from--"

Doctor Mosely turned purple at the implication and the insolence. He scolded Jim loftily, but Jim did not cower. He was upheld by his own religion, which was Charity Coe's right to vindication and happiness.

At length he realized that he was harming Charity and not Doctor Mosely.

Suddenly he was apologizing humbly:

"I'm very much ashamed of myself. You're an older man and venerable, and I--I oughtn't to have forgotten that."

"You ought not."

"I'll do any penance you say, if you'll only marry Charity and me."

"Don't speak of that again."

He thought of his old friend and attorney, money. He put that forward.

"I'll pay anything."

"Mr. Dyckman!"

"I'll give the church a solid gold reredos or contribute any sum to any alms--"

"Please go. I cannot tolerate any more."

Jim left the old man in such agitation that a reporter named Hallard, who shadowed him, feeling in his journalistic bones that a big story would break about him soon, noted his condition and called on Doctor Mosely. He was still shaken with the storm of defending his ideals from profanation, and Hallard easily drew from him an admission that Mr.

Dyckman was bent upon matrimony, also a scathing diatribe on the remarriage of divorced persons as one of the signs of the increasing degeneracy of public morals.

Hallard's paper carried a lovely exclusive story the next morning in noisy head-lines. The other newspapers enviously plagiarized it and set their news-sleuths on Jim's trail. The clergy of all denominations took up the matter as a theme of vital timeliness.