She paled, and then flushed to her temples. She cast her eyes down, and seemed to be struggling for self-control. He did not offer to touch her, although his throat contracted with the intensity of his effort to maintain his outward calm. Then she looked up with a smile light and cold.

"We are not called upon to play Filippo and Lucretia in reversed parts," she said. "I am not trying to tempt you away from your calling. Wouldn't it be better to talk about the weather?"

He was unable to answer her, but sat staring with hot eyes into her face, feeling its beauty like a pain.

"It has been very cold for the season during the past week," she went on.

"Miss Morison," he retorted hotly, "I had no right to say that, but you needn't insult me. It is cruel enough as it is."

Her face softened a little, but she ignored his words.

"Tell me," she remarked, as if more personal subjects had not come into the conversation, "what are the chances of the election? I hear so many things said that I have ceased to have any clear ideas on the subject at all."

Maurice sat upright, throwing back his shoulders. This girl should not get the better of him. He lifted his head, his nostrils distending.

"It is too soon to speak with certainty," he responded; "but it is in regard to that that I came—that I was sent to see you this afternoon. We are under vows of obedience at the Clergy House."

He said this defiantly, fancying he saw in her face a smile at the idea of his servitude.

"You will regard what I say as the words of a messenger."

"All?" she interrupted.

He flushed with confusion, but he was determined that he would not again lose control of himself.

"All that I shall say," he responded. "What I have said is to be forgotten."

"By me or by you?" she asked, dimpling into a smile so provoking that he had to look away from her or he should have given in.

"By you," was his reply; but he could not help adding under his breath: "If you wish to forget it."

She laughed outright.

"I will consider the matter. But this errand from the powers that be at the Clergy House; I am curious about that."

"You will remember," he urged, his face falling, "that it is only a message for which I have no responsibility."

"Certainly; although you would of course bring no message of which you didn't approve."

"I am not asked whether I approve or disapprove. It is the decision of the Father Superior that it should be said; and that is the whole of it."

"Well," she inquired, as he paused, unable to go on, "after this tremendous preamble, what is it?"

It seemed to Maurice that he could not say it; but he cleared his throat, and forced himself to look her in the face.

"It has to do with your inheritance of the—your inheritance through Mrs. Frostwinch."

"My inheritance? What do you mean?" she demanded, suddenly becoming grave.

As briefly as possible he explained to her the errand which had been given to him. He could see indignation gathering in her look.

"But who has told Father Frontford that Mrs. Frostwinch is so ill?" she broke out at last. "Cousin Anna is not so well since she came from the South, but that is all. It is shameful to be speculating on her death and disposing of her property as if she were buried already! I wonder at you!"

Wynne smiled bitterly.

"I have already said that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter," he answered.

"You had no right to come to me with such a message. It puts me in the position of waiting for her death! Oh, it's an insult! It's an insult to me and to Cousin Anna! What will she think?"

"She will think nothing," he said, roused by a sense of her injustice, "because she will never know."

"Why will she not?"

"Because if it is cruel for me to say a thing which harms nobody except me for bringing the message, it would be a thousand times more cruel for you to tell your cousin that her death was counted on."

He rose as he spoke, and stood looking down on her with the full purpose of constraining her to his will. She sprang up in her turn.

"Very well; I will not tell her. You may say to Father Frontford from me that it will be time enough for him to undertake the disposal of my property when it is mine. I thank him for his officiousness!"

"You are unjust to Father Frontford. I have made his wish seem offensive by the way I have put it, I suppose. At any rate, he is simply seeking the good of the church."

"And to have himself made bishop."

"He would vote to-morrow for any man that he thought would do better than he can do. He would support Mr. Strathmore himself if he believed it well for the church. I do not find myself in sympathy with everything that he does, but I know him, and of one thing I am sure: he would be burned alive in slow fires to advance the good of the church."

She looked at him curiously. Then she turned away in seeming carelessness, and began to arrange some pink roses which stood in a big vase on a table near at hand.

"Good-by," he said. "I am sorry to have offended you."

"Must you go?" responded she with a society manner which cut him to the quick. "Let me give you a rose."

She broke one off, and handed it to him. He took it awkwardly, wholly at a loss to understand her.

"They are lovely, aren't they?" she said. "Mr. Stanford sent them to me this morning."

He looked at her until her eyes fell. Then he laid the rose on the table near the hand which had given it to him, and without further speech went out.



XXIV

FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL, AND EVER Richard II., ii. 2.

Although Ashe had said that he should not go again to the poverty- stricken dwelling of Mrs. Murphy, he found himself a few days later beside her bed. Word had been brought to him that she was dying, and that she begged to see him before her death. There was no resisting a call like this, and on a gloomy afternoon he had gone down to the dingy court, torn by memories and worn with inward struggles.

He found the old woman almost speechless with weakness. The room was more comfortable, and he knew that Maurice had been at work. The slatternly girl was in attendance, and there was also the pleasant- faced priest whom Philip and Maurice had encountered in the court. The priest had come with an acolyte to administer the last rites, and the woman had made her confession. So intent, however, was Mrs. Murphy upon the purpose for which she had summoned Ashe that she cried out to him as he entered, and apparently for the moment forgot all else.

Ashe looked at the priest in apology, but the latter said kindly:—

"Let her speak to you, and then she will be done with things of this earth."

It was the safety of her husband for which the poor creature was concerned. It was on her mind that Ashe and Mrs. Fenton could save him from punishment if they chose. She pleaded piteously with Philip to have the prisoner set free.

"He'll be all alone of me," she moaned. "That'll be more punishment than you're thinking, your riverince. He'll come out of jail sober, and he'll remember how he had me to do for him night and day these long years. He'll not be liking that, your riverince; and he'll be uneasy to think maybe he had some small thing to do with it himself. Not that I say he did," she added hastily. "His little fun wouldn't be the cause of harm to me as is used to his ways, but maybe he'll be after thinking so. It's the fever I have, from poor living, and maybe from being so long without Tim and worrying the heart out of my body for him, and he there in jail. Only if you'll promise to let him go, you and the sweet lady that very likely didn't know his pleasant ways when he had a drop too much, you'd make it easier dying without him."

She gasped out her words as if every syllable were an effort, her eyes appealing with a wildness which touched his heart. The girl went to the bed and leaned over, taking in hers the thin, withered hand.

"There, there, Mrs. Murphy," she said, "of course the gentleman'll do it. He couldn't have the heart to resist your dying prayer."

"I am ready to do all I can, Mrs. Murphy," Philip stammered, struggling with his conscience to promise as much as he could; "and I'll see Mrs. Fenton. I'm sure she won't wish to have anything done that you would not like."

The sick woman burst into weak tears, stammering half inarticulate blessings.

"I don't know," Philip began, feeling that it was not honest to give her the impression that he could set her husband free, "how much"—

The priest crossed to him and laid a hand quickly on his shoulder.

"Whist!" he said in Philip's ear. "There's no need of troubling her with that. You'll do what you can, and the rest's with heaven that is good to the poor."

Mrs. Murphy had not heard or heeded what Ashe said, and still mumbled her thanks while the Father prepared to administer the viaticum. The acolyte and the girl looked at Ashe as if expecting him to withdraw.

"May I remain?" Philip asked, looking at the priest with deep feeling.

The other regarded him benignly.

"Remain, my brother; and may the Holy Virgin bless the sacrament to your soul as well as to hers."

Ashe could not have told why he had yielded to the impulse to stay. He had for months been coming more and more to feel that the church of Rome was his true refuge, yet he hardly now dared confess this to himself. He had been deeply affected by the discovery that Maurice had been to confession at St. Eulalia, and he longed himself to follow the example of his friend. To Ashe, however, it seemed like trifling with sacred things, and he could not do it. Now as he knelt on the unclean and uneven floor of that sordid chamber he experienced a peace and a security such as he had never before known. He was moved almost to tears; yet he would not yield.

"It is not Rome," he insisted to himself. "It is the simple faith of these poor souls. That is beautiful and holy. It would be easy for me to think that I was becoming a Catholic."

He left as soon as the rite was concluded, but the memory of it remained.

He saw Mrs. Fenton on the afternoon following. He had not been alone with her since his mad declaration of love. He wished now to meet her calmly, yet the moment he entered her house his heart quickened its beating. He was no longer a priest bent on an errand of mercy; he was an ardent lover, acutely conscious that he was in the rooms through which she passed day by day, that in a moment he should see her, hear her voice, perhaps touch her hand. He was shown into the library where she was sitting, and she rose to greet him frankly and simply.

"She was not touched by what happened in the carriage," Philip said to himself, with the woeful wisdom of love, "or she could not so completely ignore it."

"How do you do, Mr. Ashe?" she said with perfect calmness. "You are just in time for a cup of tea. I am having mine early, because I came in a little chilled."

He was too confused with the joy of her presence to decline.

"I have come on an errand which is not over pleasant," he remarked, watching her handling the cups, "and I am afraid that it is useless too."

"Does that mean that it is something you wish me to do but think I'm too hard-hearted or selfish to agree to?"

"It is not a question of willingness so much as of power. Mrs. Murphy is dying,—very likely by this time she is not living,—and she begs us to save her husband from being punished."

"But how could that be done?"

"I doubt if it could be done; but I promised her that I would speak to you. I suppose that if we did not give evidence there would not be much that could be told; but I hardly think that we have the right not to."

Mrs. Fenton thoughtfully regarded the fire a moment; then seemed to be recalled to the present by the active boiling of the little silver teakettle.

"I'm afraid women would drive justice out of the world if they had their way," she said with a smile.

He smiled in reply, full of delight in her mere presence. They talked the matter over, arriving at some sort of a compromise between their sympathy for the dying woman and their feeling that a man like Murphy should be dealt with by the law. They came for the moment to seem to be on the old footing of simple friendliness, while she made the tea and they discussed the situation.

"One lump or two?" Mrs. Fenton asked, pausing with tongs suspended over the sugar.

"Two," answered he. "I am afraid I am self-indulgent in my tea, but then I very seldom take it."

"So small an indulgence," she said, handing him his cup, "does not seem to me to indicate any great moral laxity."

"It is the principle of the thing," Philip returned, smiling because she smiled.

Mrs. Fenton shook her head.

"Come," she said, "this is a good time for me to say something that has been in my mind for a long time. You may think that it isn't my affair, but I can't help saying that it seems to me you have allowed yourself to get into a frame of mind that is rather—well, that isn't entirely healthy. I hope you don't think me too presuming."

"You could not be," was his reply; "but I do not understand what you mean."

She had grown graver, and leaned back in her chair with downcast eyes.

"I hardly know how to say it," she began slowly, "but you seem to me to be feeling rather morbidly about the virtue of personal discomfort. If you will pardon me, I can't think that you really believe it to be any merit in the sight of heaven that a man should make himself needlessly uncomfortable."

"But if the mortification of the flesh helps us to"—

She put up her hand and interrupted him.

"I am a good churchwoman, but I am not able to believe in scoring off the sins of the soul by abusing the body. The old monks scourging themselves and the Hindus swinging by hooks in their backs seem to me both pathetically mistaken, and both to be moved by the same feelings."

"Then you do not believe in asceticism at all?"

"Mr. Fenton used to say that asceticism was the most insolent insult to Heaven that human vanity ever invented."

"But if we are to follow the devices and desires of our own hearts," Ashe broke out, his inner excitement bursting forth through his calmness, "if we are to give way to the joys of this life, if—Do you not see, Mrs. Fenton, that this covers so much? It goes down into the depths of a man's heart. It comes almost at once, for instance, to the question of the marriage of priests."

She flushed, and her manner grew perceptibly colder.

"That is naturally not a subject that I care to go into," she said; "but I have no scruple against saying that I do not believe in a celibate priesthood. In our church and our time, it is out of place."

"But it is the supreme test whether a man is willing to give up all his earthly joy for the service of Heaven."

She frowned slightly, and he realized how significant his manner must have been.

"The marriage of the clergy is not a subject that it seems to me necessary for us to discuss," she said.

"Mrs. Fenton," Philip said, "I have given you too good a right to be offended with me once, but I must say something that I fear may offend you again. It is not about myself. It is about a better man."

She looked at him in evident surprise and disquiet.

"I asked what you think of the marriage of the clergy," he went on, "because it seems to me right to tell you that Mr. Candish loves you."

She flushed to her temples, starting impulsively in her seat.

"Mr. Ashe," she said vehemently, "what right have you to talk to me of such subjects at all?"

"None," he answered, "none at all,—unless—None that you would recognize; but I wish to atone for the wrong I did in speaking to you, and to say what he would never say. If it were possible that you cared for him, I should perhaps help you both."

"You forget, I think, that I have been married."

"I do not forget anything," Philip returned desperately. "It is only that he is a good man, a noble man, a man that would never have fallen under his weakness as I did, and if you cared for him, he is too fine to be allowed to suffer. He loved you long before I ever saw you."

"He has never given me any sign of it."

Her flushed cheeks and something in the way in which she said this seemed to him to indicate that she did love Candish. He had been moved by the most sincere desire to sacrifice his own will and happiness to the well-being of the woman he loved, and if it were that she loved his rival he had been ready to forget everything but that. Now by a quick revulsion it seemed to him that he could not endure the success of this man whose cause he had been pleading.

"Ah!" he cried, bending toward her, "you love him!"

She rose indignantly to her feet.

"Your impertinence is amazing!" she exclaimed. "It is time that somebody told you the truth. It is hard for me to say unkind things to one who has saved my life, but you ought to know how you appear. You have got yourself into a thoroughly unwholesome state of mind and body; and unless you get out of it you will ruin your whole career. Does it seem to you that a man who has so little control over himself is a fit leader for others? Can't you see that you have brooded over this question of celibacy until you are completely morbid? Find some wholesome, right-minded woman, Mr. Ashe; love her and marry her, and be done with all this wretched, unwholesome mawkishness. As for me, when I married once, I married for life. My son will never be given a second father."

He had risen also, and his self-possession had returned to him.

"I have annoyed you," he said with a new dignity. "You are perhaps right in saying that I am morbid, but in what I said to-day I was trying to put self entirely out of the question. There is only one thing more that I want to say; and that is that it is not fair to judge our order by me. I know only too well how natural it is that you should think all the men at the Clergy House weak and despicable like me; but that is not so. They are sincere, self-forgetful fellows. You have seen my friend Wynne. He, for instance, is as manly and fine and honest as any man alive."

"I do not misjudge them or you, Mr. Ashe. I only feel that in these past weeks you have not been yourself. We will forget it all, and I hope that you will forgive me if I have hurt you."

"I have nothing to forgive. It is you who must do that. Good-by."

He went away with the remembrance of her beautiful eyes looking in pity into his, and once more the phrase of the Persian came into his mind like a refrain: "O thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave!"



XXV

WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED Comedy of Errors, i. I

Maurice soon heard from his lawyer that the missing desk had passed into the hands of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Singleton, and that that lady was staying at Montfield as the guest of Mrs. Ashe. He determined to go down himself, feeling unwilling to trust business so important to any other. In order to leave the Clergy House, it was necessary to have permission from the Father Superior, and on Monday of Shrove week Wynne requested what the deacons jestingly called among themselves a dispensation. He did not think it honest to conceal the reason for his wishing leave of absence, and briefly related the story of his finding his old nurse and of her revelation.

"Poor old Norah is dead," he concluded, "but I had her affidavit taken, and if the will can be found there should be no difficulty in establishing it. The other witnesses are alive." They were sitting in the Father's study, a room severely plain in its furnishings, like all the apartments in the Clergy House. The table by which the Superior sat was covered with papers and letters, the signs of the large correspondence which Wynne knew Frontford to keep up with members of his order in England and this country. The furniture was stiff and uncompromising, the windows covered only by plain shades, while the bookshelves took an austere air from the dull leather of the bindings of their tall, formal volumes. Father Frontford leaned back in his uncushioned chair and pressed together his thin finger-tips in the gesture which was habitual with him, regarding the young man with keen eyes.

"This property, if I understand you rightly, is now in the possession of the church?"

"It was given by the will that was found to the church and to missions. Some of it went to the founding of a home for invalid priests. My aunt was the one of my relatives who was a churchwoman."

"And if you succeed in finding and establishing this new will, you mean to divert the money to your own use?"

"If the will is valid, is not the money mine?"

The Father looked at him a moment before he answered. Then he sighed.

"My son," he asked, "would you have put that question six months ago?"

Maurice flushed, but he did not wish to show that he understood.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"There was not then in your heart a wish to wrest property from the church that you might enjoy it yourself."

"I haven't any wish now to take from the church anything which is not mine already."

"By divine right or by human?" the Father inquired with cold inflexibility.

Maurice began to be irritated. He felt that he was being treated with too high a hand.

"Have I no rights as a man?" demanded he warmly.

The other sighed once more, and a look of genuine pain came into his face.

"My son," he said with a gentleness which touched Maurice in spite of himself, "when you gave yourself to the church, did you keep back part of the price? Was not your gift all you were and all you might possess?"

Maurice was silent. He could not for shame answer, that he did not then know that he had so much to give, and he realized too that this would then have made no difference. He felt as if he were now being held to a pledge which he had never meant to make, yet he could not see what reply there was to the words of the Superior. He cast down his eyes, but he said in his heart that he would not yield his claim; that the demand was unjust.

"I have for some time," Father Frontford went on, "in fact ever since your return, seen with pain that your heart is no longer single to the good of the church. An earthly passion has eaten into your soul. Your confessions are evidently attempts to satisfy your own conscience by telling as little as possible of the doubts which you have been harboring in your heart. Now there is given you an opportunity to see for yourself, without the possibility of disguise, what your true feeling is. The question now is whether you are seeking your own will or the good of religion. Will you fail us and yourself?"

Maurice was touched by the tone in which this was said. While he had been growing to be less and less in sympathy with Father Frontford and with the ideals which the brotherhood represented, he had never for an instant ceased to believe in the sincerity of the Superior. He might think him narrow, mistaken, even at times so blinded by desire for the success of the brotherhood as to become almost Jesuitical in method; but he felt that the Father lived faithful to his belief, ready, if the cause required, to sacrifice himself utterly. He could not but be moved by the appeal which the priest made, and by the genuine feeling which rang through every word.

"Father," he said, raising his eyes to the face of the other, "I cannot deny that I am less satisfied about our faith than I used to be. I can see now that I perhaps have not been entirely frank in confession, though I hadn't recognized it before. I cannot go into a discussion of my doubts now. I am not in a mood to talk with you when we must look at so many things from different points of view. I haven't hidden from you anything that has happened, and you could not be persuaded that all the change in me has not come from the fact that I—has not come from my feeling toward—my feeling about marriage. This is not true. Everything has changed; and while I may be wrong, I have been trying to act conscientiously. I feel that it is right for me to follow up this matter of my aunt's will; and if I cannot make you share my feeling, I can only say that I don't wish to do anything that seems to me wrong."

The other smiled sadly.

"What does that mean in plainer words?" asked he. "It means that you do not wish to do wrong because whatever you desire will seem to you right."

"You are unjust!" Maurice retorted, flushing.

The face of the Father grew stern. "Since when did the rule of the order allow you to use such language to your superiors? If you are not thinking of evading your vows, you do evade them daily; and the throwing them off can be nothing but an affair of time."

Maurice felt that he could not endure this longer without breaking out into words which he should afterward repent. He rose at once.

"Will you permit me to retire?" he said. "I shall be glad of your answer to my request for leave of absence, but I cannot go on with this conversation."

The other stretched out his hand with a gesture infinitely tender.

"My son!" he entreated. "Do not stray into the wilderness!"

Maurice looked at the outstretched hand. His eyes moistened, but he could not yield. He felt tenderness for Father Frontford, but he was more and more at war with the Father Superior. For an instant they remained thus, and then the thin hand dropped.

"You are then still resolute in asking leave?" the Father said, in his coldest voice.

"It seems to me my duty to see that if possible the last wishes of my aunt be carried out."

"Is that your only motive?"

Maurice flushed hotly, but he looked the other boldly in the face.

"I must allow you to impute to me any motive you please. The point is whether I am to have your permission."

"Under the circumstances I do not feel justified in granting it. We will speak of the matter again, when you have examined your heart more carefully."

Maurice bowed and left the room in silence, his spirit hot within him. That he should be denied had not entered his mind. He was now confused by the conflict in his thoughts. To disobey would be equivalent to nothing less than a defiance of the authority of the Father Superior. To assert his right to decide this matter could only mean a resolve to break away from the brotherhood altogether. He was hardly prepared for a step so extreme; yet he could not but ask himself whether he were willing to accept the conditions involved in remaining. He realized for the first time what the vow of obedience meant. He had received the slight sacrifices involved thus far in his novitiate as right and proper; simple things which had marked his willingness to yield to the authority which by his own choice was above him. Now he said to himself that to continue this life was to become a mere puppet; to give up independence and manhood itself.

On the other hand, he had not been bred in theological subtilties without having come to see that the act cannot be judged without the motive, and he had been more nearly touched by the words of Father Frontford than he would have been willing to confess. He knew that he had been hiding from his confessor the extent to which a longing for the world had taken possession of him; that there was in this wish to secure the will and through it the property an eagerness to be independent of control and to take his place in the world as a man among men. The thought that the money was now in the hands of the church to which he had pledged himself tormented him. There came into his mind the question what he would do with the wealth if he obtained it. He had vowed himself to poverty, at least in his intention. If he had this fortune and became a priest, he would be pledged to endow the church with all his worldly goods.

He faced his inner self with sudden defiance, as if he had thrown off a disguise cunningly but weakly worn. He confessed with frankness that he had secretly desired this money that he might be in a position to gain Berenice. He pleaded with himself that he did not mean to abandon the priesthood; that he had simply discovered that he had not a vocation for the existence he had contemplated. He tried to see some way in which he might gain the end he desired without giving up the faith he professed; and in the end he succeeded only in getting his mind into a confusion so great that it seemed impossible to think of anything clearly.

He had an errand at Mrs. Wilson's on Shrove Tuesday, and she invited him to accompany her to midnight service at the Church of the Nativity. When he repeated the request to Father Frontford, he was given permission to go.

"It is an unusual, and even an extraordinary request," the Superior said; "but Mrs. Wilson is so deeply interested in the welfare of the brotherhood that it is better to make a concession. What time are you to meet her?"

"She is to send her carriage for me at half past eleven. She was so sure that you would not object that she told me not to send any word."

"It is not well to have her treat so great a departure from rules as a matter of course," the Father answered gravely. "I will send her a note which will show her this. You have permission not to retire at the usual hour."

The carnival season was celebrated at the Clergy House with a meal better than usual, and with some gayety on the part of the young deacons. The light-hearted Southerner improved to the full the permission to talk at dinner, and chatted away with a volubility which seemed to Maurice to indicate a nature too buoyant or too shallow to be deeply stirred. Father Frontford was absent, and there was nothing to throw a shadow of restraint over the feast, the other priests being almost as boyish as the deacons.

"Here's Wynne," the Southerner said laughing, "is as glum as if he were Lent incarnate, come six hours too soon. You must have a good deal on your conscience to be so solemn."

Maurice smiled, trying to shake off his depression.

"It isn't always what is on one's conscience," he retorted, "so much as how tender the conscience is."

"Good! He has you there, Ballentyne," one of the deacons cried.

"Oh, not at all. If a conscience is tender, it must be because it is harrowed up. Now Wynne has probably vexed his so that it is habitually sore."

Maurice was out of the mood of the company, but he tried to answer with a light word. The jesting seemed to him trifling; and his companions, compared to the men he had seen during his stay with Mrs. Staggchase, appeared like boys chattering at boarding-school. He wondered where they had been for their absence; then he remembered that they had all told him, and that he had forgotten. He had had no real interest in them after all, he reflected; and at the thought he reproached himself with egotism and a lack of brotherliness. He glanced at Ashe, and was struck by the paleness of his friend. His look was perhaps followed by Ballentyne, for the latter commented on the downcast aspect of Philip.

"Ashe," the young man said, "looks ten times more doleful than Wynne. What have you fellows been doing? One would think that you had been eating the bitterest of all the apples of Sodom."

"They have been in the gay world," another rejoined.

"Then they might be set up as a warning against it," was the retort.

Laughter that one cannot share is more nauseous than sweets to the sick; and this harmless trifling was intolerable to Maurice. He got away from it as soon as it was possible, and passed the heavy hours in his chamber, waiting for the coming of the carriage. He tried at first to read and then to pray; but in the end he abandoned himself to bitter reverie.

He did not attempt to reason, he merely gave way to gloomy retrospect, without sequence or order. Seen in the light of his experiences during the past weeks, his life looked poor, and dull, and misdirected. It was little comfort to assert that he had at least been true to ideals high, no matter how mistaken.

"It is not what one does," he thought, "but the intention with which he does it. Only that does not excuse one for being stupid, and raw, and ignorant. When a man is a weakling and a fool, he always takes refuge in the excuse that he is at least fine in his intentions. Bah! No wonder she laughed at me! I have shut myself up with ideas as mouldy as a mediaeval skeleton, and when I come to daylight all that I can say is that I meant well. I suppose an idiot means well from his point of view!"

He looked about for something which should divert him from thoughts so tormenting. His eye fell upon his Bible, and he took it up half mechanically. On the title page was written the name of his aunt, to whom it had once belonged. The name brought back the interview with Father Frontford, and the refusal of his request for leave of absence.

"Nothing belongs to me," he said to himself. "I am a thing, a sort of thing like a numbered prisoner. How could she care for a chattel, a creature without even identity! I will go down to Montfield. I am not yet so completely out of the world that I can't have a word in the disposition of my own property."

He threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep, but sleep was impossible. He only thought the more hotly and wildly. The hours stretched on and on interminably before he heard the bell ring, and knew that the carriage had come. Rising hastily, he adjusted his cassock and his tumbled hair, and went down.

"Perhaps I may find peace at the mass," he sighed with a great wistfulness.

The fresh, cool air of night was grateful, and as he was driven along the quiet streets, a new hopefulness came to him. He had supposed that he was to be taken to Mrs. Wilson's, and when the carriage stopped was surprised to find himself before a large building which he did not recognize.

"But I was to meet Mrs. Wilson," he said doubtfully to the footman who opened the carriage door.

"Mrs. Wilson is here, sir," was the answer. "She said to carry you here. James is inside to tell you what to do."

A footman was indeed within, waiting for him.

"Mrs. Wilson says will you please come to her, sir," the man said, and led the way upstairs.

The sound of gay music, growing louder as he advanced, filled Wynne's ears. He began to feel disquieted, and once half halted.

"Are you sure there is no mistake?" he asked.

"Oh, no mistake at all, sir," his guide answered. "Mrs. Wilson has arranged everything. Leave your hat and cloak here, sir, if you please."

Maurice mechanically did as requested, but as he threw off his outer garment the opening of a door let in a burst of music which seemed so close at hand that he was startled. He was in what was evidently a coat-room, the attendant of which regarded him with open curiosity; and he realized suddenly that he must be near a ball-room.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

"It's the ball, sir, that they has to end the season before Lent. It's Lent to-morrow, sir, as I thought you'd know."

Maurice stared at him in amazement and anger.

"There is a mistake," he said. "Give me my cloak."

"Indeed, sir," the man said, holding back the garment he had taken, "Mrs. Wilson said, sir, that I was to say that she particular wanted you to come fetch her in the ball-room, sir; and I was to bring you without fail."

"You may send her word that I am here."

"Please, sir," the man returned, in a voice which struck Maurice as absurdly pleading, "she was very particular, and it's no hurt to go in, sir. She'll blame me, sir."

Maurice looked at him, and laughed at the solemnity of the man's homely face. A spirit of recklessness leaped up within him. He said to himself that at least Mrs. Wilson should not think that he dared not come.

"Very well," he said. "Show me the way."

"Thank you, sir," the servant said, as if he had received a great favor. "It's not easy to bear blame that don't belong to you."

He opened a door into an anteroom thronged with people laughing and chatting. The sound of the music was clear and loud, with the voices striking through its cadences. Across this he led Wynne, to the wide door of a ball-room flooded with light and full of moving figures.



XXVI

O WICKED WIT AND GIFT Hamlet, i. 5.

The brilliant glare of lights, the strident sound of dance-music, the enlivening sense of a living, vivaciously stirring company of gayly dressed merrymakers, assailed Maurice as he followed his guide across the anteroom. At the door of the ball-room he was for a moment hindered by a group of men who were lounging and chatting there. All his senses were keenly alert, and he perhaps unconsciously listened to hear if there were any comment on his appearance in such a place. He had not realized what he was coming into, and now that it was too late for him to withdraw without sacrificing his pride, he saw how incongruous his presence really was. Almost instantly he caught a name.

"By Jove!" one of the men said. "Isn't the Wilson in great form to- night! That diamond on her toe must be worth a fortune."

"She saves the price in the materials of her gowns," another responded lightly. "I never saw her with quite so little on."

"No material is allowed to go to waist there," put in a third.

"She has two straps and a rosebud," yet another voice laughed; "and nothing else above the belt but diamonds."

"Her very smile is decollete" some one commented. "This is one of her nights. When I see Mrs. Wilson with that expression, I am prepared for anything."

Maurice felt his cheeks burn at this light talk. It seemed to him ribald, and he was outraged that the name of a woman should be bandied about so carelessly. He raised his head and set his square jaw defiantly; then began to push his way through the group, keenly conscious of the stare which greeted him.

"Hallo! What the devil's that?" he heard behind him.

"The skeleton at the feast," responded one voice.

"Oh, it's some devilish trick of Mrs. Wilson's, of course," put in another.

All this Maurice heard with an outraged sense that there was no attempt to prevent him from hearing. He might have been a servant or a piece of furniture for any restraint these men put upon their speech. He was troubled with the fear of what absurdity Mrs. Wilson might intend. Now that he was here, however, he would go on. The natural obstinacy of his temper asserted itself, and if there was little pious meekness in his spirit at that moment, there was plenty of grit.

The ball-room was garlanded with wreaths of laurel stuck thickly with red roses; women in white and in bright-hued gowns, with fair shoulders and arms, were floating about in the embraces of men; the music set everything to a rhythmic pulse, and gaily quickened the blood in the veins of the young deacon as he looked. The throbbing of the violins made him quiver with an excitement joyous and bewildering. He was dazzled by the bright, moving figures, the shining colors, the sparkling of gems, the lovely faces, the alluring creamy necks and arms; a sweet intoxication began to creep over him, despite the defiance of his feelings toward the men he had passed in the doorway. Half blinded by the glare, dazed and fascinated by the sights, the sounds, the perfumes, he followed the footman down the hall.

He was obliged to skirt the room, even then hardly evading the dancers. His progress was necessarily slow. The footman so continually paused to apologize for having brushed against some lady in his anxiety to avoid a whirling pair of dancers, that it began to seem to Maurice that they should never reach Mrs. Wilson. He cast his eyes to the floor, resolved not to look at the worldly sights around him. Country bred and trained in the asceticism of the Clergy House, he could not see these women without blushing; and more than ever he wondered that he had been so blindly obedient as to allow himself to be brought to such a place.

He heard a man clap his hands. He looked up to see a flock of dancers hurrying to the upper end of the room. Among them, with a shock so violent that his heart seemed to stand still, he recognized Berenice Morison. He saw her go to a table and pick up something; then she and her companions turned and came glancing and gleaming down the hall like a flock of pigeons which fly and shine in the sun. Fair, flushed softly, more beautiful than all the rest in his eyes, Berenice came on, her hair curling about her forehead, her eyes shining with laughter and pleasure. She was dressed in white, and at one shoulder, crushed against her bare, creamy neck, was a bunch of crimson roses. Maurice trembled at the sight of her beauty; he reddened at the consciousness of her dress; over him came some inexplicable sense of fear.

Suddenly he perceived that she had caught sight of him. He could see the look of amazement rise in her face, give place to one of amusement, then change instantly into sparkling mischievousness. He moved on toward her, abashed, bewildered, feeling as if he were running a gauntlet. He could not withdraw his gaze from her, as she came quickly onward, dimpling, smiling, her face overflowing with saucy fun, her glance holding his.

"Good-evening, Mr. Wynne," she said lightly, coming up to him. "This is an unexpected pleasure."

"Good-evening," Maurice responded, hardly able to drag the words out of his parched throat.

"Of course you came for the german," Miss Morison went on, more mockingly than before. "I am so glad that I happen to have a favor for you."

She leaned forward, swaying toward him her white shoulders, dazzling him with the hint of the swell of her bosom, bewildering him with the perfume of her dark hair, the alluring feminine presence which brought the hot blood to his face. Before he guessed her intention, she had pinned to his cassock a grotesque little dangling mask which swung from a bright ribbon.

"There," she commented, drawing back as if critically to observe. "The effect is novel, but striking."

A burst of amusement, light and blinding as the spray from a whirlpool, went up from the women around. The music, the voices, the laughter, seemed to Maurice so many insults flung at him in idle contempt. He looked around him with a bitter anger which could almost have smitten these laughing women on their red mouths. Then he turned back to Berenice. He saw that she shrank before the wrath of his look; he felt with a thrill that he had at least power to make her fear him. He bent toward her full of rage made the wilder by the impulse to catch her in his arms and cover her beautiful neck with kisses.

"Shameless!" he hissed into her ear.

He saw her turn pale and then flush burning red; but he hastened on after the footman without waiting for more. Presently he reached the head of the hall, where Mrs. Wilson stood laughing and talking with several men. Her dress was of alternate stripes of crimson silk and tissue of gold, and since it had excited comment from the loungers at the door, it is small wonder that to the unsophisticated deacon, almost convent bred, it appeared no less than horribly indecent. He cast down his eyes; but his glance fell upon the foot which just then she thrust laughingly forward, evidently in answer to some remark from Stanford, who stood at her right hand. Upon the toe of her exquisite little shoe sparkled a great diamond like a fountain of flame.

"It gives light to my steps," she laughed.

"The service is worthy of it," Stanford returned with a half-mocking bow.

"Thank you," Mrs. Wilson retorted, sweeping him a satirical courtesy. "If you say such nice things to me, what must you say to Berenice!"

It seemed to Maurice that the devil was exerting all his infernal ingenuity that night to have him tormented at every turn. He came forward hastily, eager to stop the talk.

"Ah," cried Mrs. Wilson, "have you come, ghostly father?"

The men stared at him in careless surprise and open amusement. Maurice could not trust himself to speak, but only bowed in silence.

"I am called, you see," Mrs. Wilson said gayly. "Now I must go to penance and confession."

"Surely you will need so little time for confession," one of the men said, "that there's no necessity of going so early."

"You must have been more wicked this winter than I ever suspected, Elsie," put in the even voice of Mrs. Staggchase. "Or is it that you only mean to be?"

Maurice turned quickly, and found that his cousin was sitting behind the table near which he stood. In front of her were heaps of trinkets of all sorts of fantastic devices.

"Good evening, Cousin Maurice," she greeted him. "Are you dancing? What sort of a favor ought I to give you?"

"Mrs. Wilson's wickedness," Stanford answered Mrs. Staggchase, "is of the sort so original that I'm sure the recording angel must always be too surprised to put it down."

"What a premium you put on originality!" responded Mrs. Staggchase. "That is all very well for her, but how is it for her victims?"

"Oh, the honor of being her victim is compensation enough for them."

Mrs. Wilson laughed, and shook her head, twinkling with diamonds which dazzled the eyes of the young deacon.

"You are all worldly," she retorted. "Brother Martin and I are too unsophisticated to understand you."

Maurice winced at the name. He felt that he must be a picture of confusion. To stand here among these sumptuously dressed women, to endure the glances which he knew were watching him from all parts of the room, to be pricked with this monkish title by a woman who was making of him and of the whole incident a sport and a spectacle, stung him to the quick. He thought of Berenice, and he cast at Mrs. Staggchase a look of defiance, lifting his head proudly in assertion of his hurt dignity.

"I am at your service, Mrs. Wilson," he said with cold sternness.

"Well, we will go then. Unless, that is, you are dancing, Mr. Wynne. I see that you have a favor."

He glanced down at the grotesque little mask, dangling by its red ribbon. With unbroken gravity he detached and laid it upon the table in silence. He would have given much to hide it in his pocket, since it came from Berenice; but even as he put it down a bevy of girls swept up for favors, and one of them bore it away.

"He has abandoned his opportunity," Mrs. Staggchase observed. "The favor goes to Mr. Stanford."

The girl who had taken up the mask was indeed pinning it to the coat of that gentleman, with whom she quickly danced away. Maurice felt his heart grow hot, but he looked at his cousin with face hard and determined.

"It was never mine," he said, "except by the chance of a misunderstanding."

A maid now came forward with a black domino, which Mrs. Wilson slipped into gracefully, drawing up her glittering draperies. The big diamond on the toe of her slipper glowed fantastically, peeping from beneath the penitential robe.

"Hallo," Dr. Wilson exclaimed, coming up at this moment, "what's in the wind now? Is this turning into a masquerade?"

"Your wife is about to retire from the world," Mrs. Hubbard answered, laughing.

"With a man," Mrs. Staggchase added, her eyes shining on her cousin.

Wynne stabbed her with a glance of indignation.

"No, with a priest," corrected Mrs. Wilson, adjusting her domino about her face.

"Elsie, how devilishly fond you are of making a fool of yourself," Dr. Wilson observed jovially. "Well, good-night."

Mrs. Wilson swept him a profound courtesy, with her hands crossed on her bosom.

"My lord and master, good-night. Ladies, remember that it will be Lent in ten minutes."

She took Wynne's arm, and together the black-robed figures went down the length of the room. The music had for the moment stopped, and it seemed to Maurice as if his presence had brought a chill to the whole gay scene. He was inwardly raging, angry to have been used by Mrs. Wilson as an actor in her outrageous comedy, furious with Berenice for her part in the play, full of rage against the men who stood around grinning and laughing at the whole performance. Most of all, he assured himself, he was righteously indignant at the trifling with sacred things. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, but with Mrs. Wilson sweeping along by his side he strode toward the door.

"He looks as if he belonged to the church militant," he heard one of the men say as he passed out.

"Even the church militant is nothing against a woman," another replied, catching the eye of Mrs. Wilson, and laughing.

In the vestibule stood a footman bearing Maurice's cloak, and a maid with fur over-shoes and an ermine-lined wrap for Mrs. Wilson. Maurice said not a word except to reply in monosyllables to the questions of his companion, and almost in silence they drove to the Church of the Nativity.



XXVII

UPON A CHURCH BENCH Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 3.

The music of the Church of the Nativity was most elaborate, the very French millinery of sacred music. The selection of a new singer was debated with a zeal which spoke volumes for the interest in the service of the sanctuary, and the money expended in this part of the worship would have supported two or three poorer congregations. The church, moreover, was appointed with a richness beautiful to see. The vestments might have moved the envy of high Roman prelates, and the altar plate shone in gold and precious stones.

It was no wonder, then, that a midnight service at the Nativity attracted a crowd. Mrs. Wilson and Wynne had to force a path between ranks of curious sight-seers in order to make their way to the guarded pew of the former, which was well up the main aisle. It came to Maurice suddenly that in his angry mood he was pushing against these worshipers rudely, and that he was venting upon them a fury which had rather increased than diminished in his ride to the church. He was seething with anger; anger against Mrs. Wilson for having put him in a ludicrous position, at Berenice for her mockery, at Mrs. Staggchase for her satire, and at all the frivolous fools who had stood around, grinning to see him made ridiculous. His hurt vanity throbbed with an ache intolerable, and as he forced his way between the crowding spectators he felt a certain ugly joy in thrusting them aside.

He was recalled to self-control by the expression in the face of a girl whom he pressed back to give Mrs. Wilson passage. She turned to him with a look of surprise and pain, and to his excited fancy her hair in the half shadow was like that of Berenice.

"You hurt me!" she exclaimed.

"I beg your pardon," he answered with instant compunction. "I did not mean to. Come with me."

He yielded to the sudden impulse, and then reflected as they passed down the aisle that he had no right to bring a stranger into Mrs. Wilson's pew. Having invited her, however, it was impossible to retract, and he showed her into the slip after Mrs. Wilson. As the latter turned to sit down, she became aware of the stranger. She paused, and looked at her with haughty surprise.

"I beg pardon," she said, "this is a private pew."

The girl flushed, looking inquiringly at Maurice. His masculine nature resented the insolence of the glance with which Mrs. Wilson had swept the stranger, and he came instantly to the rescue.

"I invited her," he said, leaning forward, speaking with a determination at which his hostess raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, very well then," Mrs. Wilson murmured.

She sank into her seat, and inclined her head on the rail before her. As Maurice did the same there shot through his mind a wonder at the change there must be in the mental attitude of the woman who spoke with haughtiness almost insulting to the stranger, and the penitent who bent to ask pity and forgiveness from heaven. He tried to fix his thoughts on his own prayer, but the words ran on as mechanically as might water flow over a stone. The serious danger of a ritualistic religion must always be that the mere repetition of words shall come to answer for an act of worship; and to-night Maurice might have exclaimed with King Claudius:—

"My words fly up; my thoughts remain below."

The service went on with its deep, appealing prayers for pardon, for help, for uplifting, and Maurice followed it only half consciously. It was as if he were drugged, so that only now and then a phrase penetrated to his real consciousness,—words which in their instant and particular application were so poignant that he could not avoid their force.

"'From all inordinate and sinful affections,'" repeated the rich voice of Mr. Candish, thrilling the church from floor to vaulted, roof, "'and from the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil.'"

"'Good Lord, deliver us!'" swelled the response of the congregation; and on the lips of the deacon the words were almost a groan.

He lost himself then in a flood of bitter repentance and prayer, hardly realizing where he was or what was passing around him. The music swelled and eddied; there was a genuine "Kyrie," wherein a single voice, a rich contralto, wailed and implored in a passion of supplication until the whole congregation quivered with the fervor of the music. Maurice felt himself swayed and lifted upon the rising tide of emotion. He lost his anger, he swam in billows of celestial delight; a blessed peace soothed his troubled soul; he knew again some of the old-time ecstasy. Yet in all this religious fervor there was some subtle consciousness that it was unreal. He was not able so completely to give himself up to it as to fail to watch its growth, its progress, its intensity; he was vexed that he should trap himself, as it were, glorying in the susceptibility to religious influences which such excitement showed. He had even a whimsical, momentary irritation that the part of his mind which was acting the devotee could not do it so well that his other consciousness could not detect the unreality of it all. Then he struggled to forget everything in the service; to steep himself in the spiritual intoxication of the hour.

The girl whom he had introduced into the pew dropped her prayer-book. He turned, startled by the sound, and saw her sway toward him. He realized that the crowd, the heat, the excitement, the odor of incense with which the air was heavy, had overcome her, and that she was fainting. He rose instantly, and, lifting her, assisted her into the aisle. She was half in his arms as he led her down the nave, and her hair, the hair which had seemed to him like that of Berenice, brushed now and again against his shoulder. He recalled the wreck, when Berenice had been in his arms, and his religious mood vanished as if it had never been. His cheek flushed; he thrilled with anger at himself. He had been playing a part here in the church. He had never for an instant wished to be set free from his bondage to Berenice,—Berenice who had to-night mocked him and his profession in the eyes of all the world.

The way to the door seemed interminable. He was eager to get rid of this stranger and escape. Fortunately the party to which the fainting girl belonged were at hand to take charge of her; and presently Maurice had made his way out of the church. He hardly gave a thought to Mrs. Wilson. She was abundantly able to take care of herself, he reflected with angry amusement; or, if not, the very pavement would spring up with troops of men to assist her. She was the sort of woman whose mere presence creates cavaliers, even in the most unlikely places.

The cool outer air seemed to wake him from a bad dream. He walked hastily through the quiet streets toward the Clergy House, full of disordered thoughts, wondering whether the ball were yet over, or if Berenice were still dancing in the arms of other men. The blood flushed into his cheeks at the thought. He hated furiously the partner against whose shoulder her white, bare arm might be resting. He looked back with ever growing anger to the scene at the dance, tingling with shame at the humiliation, at the thought of standing before the women who had laughed when Berenice had fastened upon his breast the tawdry trinket which seemed chosen purposely to mock him. He wished that he had kept the toy, that he might now throw it down into the mire and tread on it. Yet grotesque and insulting as the thing had been, he was conscious that if the little mask were still in his possession he should not have been able to trample on it, but should have taken it to his lips instead. He remembered that now Stanford wore it. He looked up to the shining stars and felt the overwhelming presence of night like a child; his helplessness, his misery, his hopelessness swept over him in bitter waves.

Late as it was when he reached his room he did not at once undress. He sat down heavily, staring with hot eyes at the crucifix opposite. From black and unknown depths of his heart welled up rage against life and its perplexities. He threw upon his faith the blame of his suffering. What was this religion which made of all human joys, of all human instincts only devilish devices for the torture of the very soul? Why should the world be filled only with temptations, with humiliations, with desires which burned into the very heart yet which must be denied? Was any future bliss worth the struggle? He realized with a shudder that he might be arraigning the Maker of the world; then he assured himself that he was but raging against those who misunderstood and misinterpreted the purposes of life.

He flung himself down on his knees before the crucifix in a quick reaction of mood, extending his hands and trying to pray; but he found himself repeating over and over: "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory." He felt with the whole strength of his soul the force of the words. This deity to whom he knelt might in a breath change all his agony; might out of overflowing power and dominion and splendor spill but one unnoted drop, yet flood all his tortured being with richest happiness. The contrast between his weakness, his helplessness, his insignificance, and the superabundant resources of the Infinite crushed him. He was transported with aching pity for himself and for all poor mortals. He repeated, no longer in entreaty but with passionate reproach: "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory." It seemed an insult to the clemency of Heaven to call so piteously when it were a thing lighter than the puffing away of a flake of swan's down for One with all power to help and to comfort. If he were in the hands of a God to whom belonged the universe, why this agony of doubt? Then he cried out to himself that this was the temptation of the devil. He cast himself upon the ground, beating his breast and moaning wildly: "Mea culpa! Mea culpa!" With quick histrionic perception he was affected by the intensity and the effectiveness of his penitence, and redoubled his fervor.

Then in a flash came over him the sickening realization that this devotion was a sham; that it was hysteria, simple pretense. He ceased to writhe on the floor. It was like coming to consciousness in a humiliating situation. He blushed at his folly, and rose hastily from before the crucifix.

"I have been acting private theatricals," he muttered scornfully; "and for what audience?"

He threw himself again into his chair, burying his face in his hands. He plunged into a reverie so deep and so self-searching that it could have been fathomed by no plummet.

"I do not believe," he said at last aloud, raising his face as if to address the crucifix. "I have never believed. I have simply bejuggled myself. I have been a contemptible lie in the sight of men, not even knowing enough to be honest to myself."

He was silent a moment, a smile of bitter contempt curling his lip.

"I have not even been a man," he added.

Then he rose with a spring to his feet, and looked about him, stretching out his arms as if to embrace all the world.

"But now," he exclaimed with gladness bursting through every syllable, "at last I am free!"



XXVIII

BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE Love's Labor's Lost, ii. 1.

When Maurice Wynne's bitter word stung her, Berenice Morison stood for a second too overwhelmed to speak or move. She felt the blood mount to her temples, and she could see reflected in the eyes of acquaintances around a mingled curiosity and amusement. Wynne passed on, and she shrank into her seat, which fortunately was near.

"Who in the world is that, and what did he say to you when you gave him that favor?" exclaimed her neighbor. "I don't see how you dared to do it!"

A gentleman took the speaker away, so that Berenice was spared the necessity of answering. She watched Wynne advance to the group of which Mrs. Wilson was the centre, and she understood well enough that his being here was some contrivance of the latter's. She was angry with Wynne and humiliated by the insult that he had flung at her, yet she had room in her heart for rage against the woman who had brought him there. She looked at Mrs. Wilson laughing and jesting, she watched the comedy proceed as the black domino covered the white shoulders and the gown of gold and crimson, yet most of all was she conscious of how straight and strong Maurice stood among the gay group which surrounded him. The sternness of his mouth, the gravity and indignation of his look, seemed to her most manly and noble. She felt that he had by his bearing mastered the absurd circumstances in which he was placed; she smiled bitterly to think how poor and flippant had been her own thoughtless jest. When Maurice threw the favor on the table, Berenice saw Clara Carstair take it up and give it to Parker Stanford. She watched Wynne and Mrs. Wilson leave the hall, two solemn, black-robed figures passing like shadows among the dancers. When they had disappeared she sat with eyes cast down, her thoughts in a whirl of regret, anger, and confusion.

"Well, did you ever know Mrs. Wilson to get up a circus equal to that before?" queried her partner, coming back to his place beside her. "She gets more amazing every day."

"She certainly gets to be worse form every day. It's outrageous that everybody lets Mrs. Wilson do anything she chooses, no matter how bad taste it is."

"Oh, she amuses folks," Mr. Van Sandt said. "Nobody takes her seriously."

"It is time that they did," answered Berenice rather sharply. "Such a performance as this to-night makes us all seem vulgar,—as if we were her accomplices."

"Oh, you take it too seriously; besides, I thought that you helped it on a bit."

Berenice was silenced, but she was none the happier for that. She was vexed with herself for having any feeling about the incident; but the word of Wynne came afresh into her mind, and brought the blood anew to her cheek. She said to herself that she hoped that she should meet him soon again, that she might wither him with a glance of burning contempt, ever after to ignore him.

"You think I wouldn't do it," she sneered to some inner doubt; "but I would!"

She was interrupted by a partner, and went whirling down the bright hall to the tingling measures of a new waltz; yet all the while she was thinking of the moment she had stood face to face with Maurice. She scoffed at herself for giving so much weight to a thing so trifling; she made a strong effort to appear gay, only the more keenly to realize that at heart she was miserable.

Mrs. Staggchase, on her way out of the hall a little later, stopped and spoke to her.

"Come, Bee, it is time for you to go home. You don't seem to profit by the godly example of Elsie Wilson at all."

"Heaven forbid that I should take her as my exemplar!" Berenice flung back with unnecessary fervor.

"Well," Mrs. Staggchase observed good-humoredly, "there are things in which it is conceivable that you might find a better model. By the way, what did Cousin Maurice say to you when you gave him that german favor? Of course I haven't any right to ask, but you see I am interested in bringing the boy up properly."

Berenice flushed with confusion and vexation.

"It was something no gentleman would have said!"

"Ah," the other returned with perfect calmness, "that is the danger of doing an unladylike thing. It is so apt to provoke an ungentlemanly return. Men, you know, my dear, haven't the fine instincts that we have. However, I'm sorry that Maurice didn't behave better than you did. Good-night, dear."

Mrs. Staggchase had hardly gone when Parker Stanford came up with a favor.

"I am tired, Mr. Stanford," Berenice said. "Thank you, but you had better ask some one else."

"I'd rather sit it out with you," he answered.

"Nonsense; one doesn't sit out turns in the german."

"They do if they wish."

"Well, instead of sitting it out," she said, rising, "let us go and get a cup of bouillon. I feel the need of something to hold me up."

"Here is your favor," remarked Stanford, as they passed down the hall.

It was an absurd Japanese monster, with eyes goggling out of its head.

"How horrible!" cried Berenice. "It looks exactly like old Christopher Plant when he is talking about his last invention in sauces. Don't you know the way in which he sticks out his eyes, and says: 'It is the greatest misfortune in nature that the nerves of taste do not extend all the way down to the stomach!'"

Stanford laughed gleefully.

"Jove, I don't know but he's right. Think of tasting a cocktail all the way down to the stomach!"

"Or a quinine pill!" returned she with a grimace. "Thank you, no. Things are bad enough as they are."

At the door of the supper-room they encountered Dr. Wilson, with a bud on his arm.

"Well, Miss Morison," he exclaimed, with his usual jovial brusqueness, "I thought that my wife was the cheekiest woman in Boston, but you ran her hard to-night."

"Oh, even if I surpassed her," Berenice retorted in sudden anger, yet forcing herself to speak laughingly, "she is entirely safe to leave the reputation of the family in the hands of her husband."

Dr. Wilson chuckled with perfect good-nature.

"Oh, we men are not in it with the women," laughed he.

He passed on with his companion, and Berenice, with feminine perversity, avenged herself upon the girl he was escorting.

"How stout Miss Harding is," she commented. "It is such a pity for a bud."

"But she is pretty," Stanford returned.

"Oh, yes, in a way. She has the face of an overripe cherub."

He laughed and led her to a seat.

"Take your picture of Mr. Plant," said he, "and I will get you the bouillon."

"No, I can't have anything so hideous. Give me one of yours instead. I'll have that little fat monk."

"All that I have is at your service," he responded with seriousness sounding through the mock gravity, as he unpinned the little mask and put it into her hand.

"Thank you, but I don't ask your all. I hope that you didn't value this especially."

"Not that I remember. I haven't an idea who gave it to me."

"You don't seem to value a gift on account of the giver."

"That depends," returned he. "Now there are some givers whose favors I cherish most carefully."

He took from his breast-pocket a little Greek flag of silk, neatly folded. Berenice flushed, recognizing a favor which she had given him early in the evening.

"Now this," he said, "I put away next to my heart, you observe."

"The giver would be flattered," Berenice observed. "Was it Clare Tophaven?"

He looked at her, laughing; then seemed to reflect.

"I don't know that it is right to tell you," he returned; "but if you won't mention it, I'll confide to you that it must have been Miss Tophaven. Sweet girl."

"Very. Are congratulations in order?" Berenice inquired.

She was pleased that the talk had taken this bantering tone, and secretly determined to keep it away from dangerous seriousness.

"Somewhat premature, I should say," Stanford replied. "You see she has no suspicion of my devotion, and her engagement to Fred Springer is to come out next week."

The bit of gossip served Berenice well. She had heard it already, but it was easy to feign surprise, and to chat lightly about the match, as if she had not a thought beyond it in her mind. To her amazement and disconcerting Stanford cut through the light talk to demand with sudden gravity:—

"And when may our engagement be announced, Berenice?"

She regarded him with startled eyes, but she held herself well in hand, managing to use the same jesting tone in which she had been speaking.

"Certainly not before it exists," was her answer.

He leaned toward her eagerly. The room was almost deserted, and they sat in the shelter of a great palm, so that she felt herself to be alone with him.

"Don't try to put me off," he pleaded. "I am in earnest."

She rose quickly, setting her cup down in the tub of the palm.

"Come," she said, "you forget that I am dancing the german with Mr. Van Sandt. He will have no idea what has become of me."

Stanford stood before her, barring her way.

"Hang Van Sandt! You should be dancing with me, only I had to do the polite to this everlasting English girl. I wish she was in Australia. I wonder why in the world an English girl is never able to learn to dance."

"That I cannot answer. Perhaps their feet are too big; but you must go back to her all the same, whether she can dance or not."

"Not until you answer me. You know you are keeping me on hot coals, Berenice. You know I love you."

She flushed, drew back, grew pale.

"I have answered you already," she replied, hurriedly but firmly. "Why must you make me say it again? I don't love you, and that is reason enough why you shouldn't care for me."

"It isn't any reason at all. I should be fond of you anyway. Why, even if you made a guy of me before everybody as you did to-night of that clerical thing"—

"Stop!" Berenice interrupted, her color rising and her eyes shining. "I will not have you speak of Mr. Wynne in that way. What I did was bad enough."

"Berenice," demanded Stanford, regarding her keenly, "do you mean to marry him?"

"You have no right to ask me whom I mean to marry! I am not going to marry you, at least!"

"A clergyman. A man in petticoats! Well, I must say"—

She drew herself up to her full height, looking at him with anger and excitement in her heart so great that they seemed to choke her.

"Do you see this?" she asked, holding up the little mask dangling from her finger. "I fastened this to his cassock to-night. I insulted him in the sight of everybody. Does that look as if"—

"Is that the same mask?" broke in Stanford. "You begged it of me afterward!"

She could not command her voice to reply. Shame, grief, indignation, struggled in her heart; yet her strongest conscious feeling was a determination that the tears in her eyes should not fall. She slipped past him, and moved toward the ball-room. With a quick step he gained her side.

"I beg your pardon," he said contritely. "I didn't mean to hurt you. You used to be nice to me, but lately"—

She mastered herself by a strong effort. She was fully aware that there were too many curious eyes about her to make any demonstration safe.

"Let me take your arm," she answered. "Folks are watching. We need not make a spectacle of ourselves. I haven't meant to treat you badly. A girl never knows how a man is going to take things, and I only meant to be pleasant. As soon as you began to show that you were in earnest"—

She was so conscious that her words were not entirely frank that she instinctively hesitated.

"I have always been in earnest," interpolated he.

"But you will get over it," murmured she, desperately.

They had come to a group of palms, where they paused to let a bevy of dancers pass.

"Do you really mean," Stanford asked, in a hard voice, "that there is really no hope for me?"

"There is no hope that I shall ever feel differently about this."

"Then I shall certainly get over it," returned he with a touch of anger in his voice. "I don't propose to go through life wearing the willow for anybody."

She raised to his her eyes shining with shy but irresistible light.

"Ah," she half whispered, "that is the difference. I know he wouldn't get over it."

"He!"

The monosyllable brought to her an overwhelming sense of the confession which her words had carried. She pressed the arm upon which her finger- tips rested.

"I have trusted you," she whispered hurriedly. "Be generous. Ah, Mr. Van Sandt," she went on aloud, "I hope you didn't think I had deserted you. Mr. Stanford found me incapable of dancing, and had to revive me with bouillon."



XXIX

WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE Hamlet, i. 2.

Strangely enough the thought which most strongly impressed Maurice Wynne on the morning following the Mardi Gras ball was the simplicity of life. He had heard in the early dawn the bell for rising; he had started up, then upon his elbow realized that he had freed himself from its tyranny. He had slidden back into his warm place, smiling to himself, and fallen into a sleep as quiet as that of a child. About eight he was roused by a brother sent to see if he was ill, his absence from early mass having been noted. Maurice sent the messenger away with the explanation that having been out to the midnight service he had slept late; then, being left alone, he made his toilet with deliberation. He seemed to himself a new man. There appeared to be no longer any difficulty in life. He reflected that one had but to follow common sense, to live sincerely up to what commended itself to his reason, and existence became wonderfully simplified. He no longer experienced any of the confusing doubts and perplexities which had of late made him so thoroughly miserable.

He hesitated to don again the dress of a deacon, but he reflected that to do otherwise would be to expose himself to the curiosity and comment of his fellows. With a smile and a sigh he put on for the last time the cassock, recalling the contemptuous terms in which at the time of the accident Mehitabel Durgin had referred to the garment. He wondered at himself for ever finding it possible to appear before the eyes of men in such a dress, and blushed to think how incongruous the clerical livery must have looked in the ballroom.

Breakfast was already half over when he appeared, and the reading of Lamentations was accompanying the frugal meal. He sank into his seat in silence, casting his eyes down upon his plate lest they should betray the joy he felt. He knew that he could have no talk with Philip until after nones, and he was not willing to leave the house without bidding his friend good-by. While he went on with his breakfast he was busy planning what he would do when he had left the routine of the Clergy House behind him. He determined to go to Mrs. Staggchase for advice, and to ask her to direct him to some quiet boarding-place where he might reorganize his scheme of life.

In the study hour which followed breakfast Wynne went boldly to the room of Father Frontford, and knocked at the door. When he heard the voice of the Father Superior bidding him enter he was for the first time seized with an unpleasant doubt. The long habit of obedience half asserted itself, so that for an instant he was almost minded to turn back. With a smile of self-scorn he shook off the feeling, and opened the door.

The Father looked up in evident surprise at sight of the deacon who came unsummoned at such an hour. He was alone, a fact which Maurice noted with satisfaction.

"Good morning, Wynne," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"

"Yes, sir," Maurice answered, closing the door, and standing before it. "I came to tell you that I have decided to leave the Clergy House."

The abruptness of the communication evidently startled the Superior. Wynne watched him as he laid down his pen, the lines about his thin lips growing tense.

"Sit down," he said gravely.

Maurice obeyed unwillingly. He would have been glad to retreat at once, his errand being done; but he knew this to be of course impossible. He sat down facing the other, meeting with steadfast eyes the searching look fastened upon him.

"Since when," Father Frontford asked, "have you held this determination?"

"Since last night."

"Is it founded upon any especial circumstance connected with your going with Mrs. Wilson to midnight service?"

Maurice looked down for a moment in thought, then he met the eyes of the other frankly.

"Father," he said, "I don't think that I could tell you all that has led to this decision if I would; and I do not see that it would be wise for us to go into the matter in any case. It seems to me that the fact that I have decided, and decided absolutely, is enough."

The face before him grew a shade sterner.

"You seem to forget that you are speaking to your Superior."

"Perhaps," the young man returned with calmness, "it is you who forget that I have ended that relation."

Father Frontford's face darkened.

"I do not recognize that you have authority to end it."

Maurice tried to repress the irritation which he could not but feel; and forced himself to speak as civilly as before.

"Will you pardon me," he said; "I do not wish that our last talk should be bitter. I owe you much, and I shall never cease to respect the unselfishness with which you have tried to help me. That I cannot follow your path does not blind me to the fact that you have worked so untiringly to make the way plain and attractive to me."

He was not without a secret feeling that he was speaking with some magnanimity, yet he was entirely sincere. He realized with thorough respect, even at the moment of breaking away, how complete was the devotion of the Father. There was in his mind, too, some satisfaction at the tone he had unconsciously adopted. It flattered him to find that he should be almost patronizing his Superior.

Father Frontford regarded Maurice with a look in which were mingled surprise, disapprobation, and regret. As the two sat holding each other's eyes, the face of the older man changed and softened. Into it came a smile of high and spiritual beauty, of nobility and unworldliness, of tenderness most touching. All that was most winning in the character of the man was embodied in the look which he fixed upon his recreant disciple, a look pleading and wistful, yet full of dignity and strength. He leaned forward, laying the tips of his thin fingers almost caressingly on the arm of the other.

"My son," he said, "it is not what I have done that you remember; it is what I represent. The truth and sweetness of religion is what has touched you. I am only the representative; and no one knows better how unworthy I am to be so looked on. If the grace of divine love seems to you good shining through me, think what it is in itself. Oh, my son," he went on, the tears coming into his eyes, "I have loved you, and I love you more now that I see you tempted and bewildered. Turn back to the bosom of the church before it is too late."

Maurice sat silent with look downcast. His firmness was not shaken; he had no inclination to reconsider his decision, but he was deeply moved by the emotion of the other. He could not bear to meet pleading so affectionate with a cold negative.

"It is for yourself that I appeal to you," the priest went on. "It is for the good of your own soul, and for your happiness in this world and the world to come. Think of your mission. Think how men need you; of the sin and the error that cry out to Heaven, and of how few there are to do the Lord's work. You have been confused by the temptations of the world, and in all of us there is a selfish spirit that may lead us to do in a moment of madness what we shall repent with tears of blood all our lives."

Still Maurice could not answer; and the Father, bending still nearer, taking one of the young man's hands in both his own, still pleaded.

"You have said that you felt my interest in you. Do not give me the bitterness of feeling that I am a careless shepherd who has lost a lamb to the wolves. If you have gone astray it must be in part my fault; it must be my negligence. Oh, my son, don't force me to stand guilty before God to answer for your lost soul."

It seemed to Maurice that he was being swept away by the simple power of the emotion of Frontford. He felt the tears in his eyes, and almost without his volition his hand responded to the pressure of the hand that clasped it. He made a strong effort to call back his will.

"Father," he responded, "we must each stand or fall alone. It is not your fault that I can't see things as you do, or that I can't any longer remain here. I am changed. If I stayed, it would be against my convictions."

"Ah," was the eager reply, "but you could submit your convictions to the church."

Maurice drew back.

"I am a man, to think for myself. I must be honest with my reason. The church cannot take for me the place of honesty and conviction."

The Father Superior dropped the hand he held.

"Then you insist on putting your own will and your own wisdom above that of the church?"

"I must do the thing that seems to me right."

The priest's face hardened. It was as if over the surface of a pool a film of ice formed. He sank back in his chair, and when he spoke again it was in a voice so hard and cold that the young man started.

"When do you leave?" the Father Superior asked.

"I meant to wait until after nones so as to say good-by to Philip."

"I prefer that you should go at once."

"You mean that you prefer that I should not see him?" Maurice demanded quickly.

"I merely said that I prefer that you should go at once," was the cold reply.

Maurice rose briskly. His impulse was to retort sharply, but he held himself in check.

"Very well," he answered. "I shall take it as a favor if you will let Philip know that I did not willingly leave him without a word. It would hurt him to think that."

"The wounds of earth," the Father Superior said gravely, "are the joys of heaven."

Maurice stood an instant with a keen desire to reply, to break down this icy statue of religion; then he drew back.

"I will not trouble you longer," he said. "Good-by."

"Good-by, Mr. Wynne," the other responded with the manner of one addressing a stranger.

Maurice went to his chamber thoroughly aroused and excited. The restraint which he had put on himself during the talk with Father Frontford brought now its reaction. He rehearsed in his mind the telling and caustic things which he might have said, then laughed at himself for his unnecessary fervor. He packed his belongings, and, leaving them to be called for, set out for the house of his cousin. To go out from the Clergy House seemed to him like the ending of a life.

Mrs. Staggchase was fortunately at home. It seemed to Maurice that her keen eyes took in the whole story from his secular dress. He blushed as she gave him her hand.

"Well, my dear boy," she observed, "you have come to luncheon, I suppose, because the fare at the Clergy House is so poor in Lent. Sit down, and give me an account of your doings last night. I trust that you saw Mrs. Wilson safe home."

"I left her in the church."

"Ah! And what did you do then?"

"I went home and fought it out with myself. You were right in saying that things were not concluded when I became a deacon. I have given up the whole thing."

"What do you mean by the whole thing?"

"I mean," he returned earnestly, "that I found out that I was acting a part. That I didn't believe even the first principles of the religion I was getting ready to teach. I have broken down in the temptation, Cousin Diana."

She looked at him closely. The buoyancy of his morning mood was gone, and it was hard for him to endure her searching look. It came over him that he was an apostate; one who had abandoned all that he had vowed to uphold; his vanity smarted at the thought that she must think him weak and unstable as water.

"I am only what I was," he went on. "The difference is that I have discovered what you probably saw all the time, that I don't believe the things I have been taught. I am as free from the old creeds as you are. I don't even pretend to know that there is a God."

"My dear boy," she responded, shrugging her shoulders, "you run into extremes like a schoolgirl. I beg you won't talk as if I could be so vulgar as not to believe in a deity. Don't rank me with the crowd of common folk that try to increase their own importance by insisting that there's nothing above them. Really, an atheist seems to me as bad as a man who eats with his knife."

He changed countenance, but her words left him speechless. He could not hear her speak in this way without being shocked. He might be without creed, but his temper was still devout.

"If you've thrown overboard all your old dogmas," she went on with unruffled face, "you'd better go to work to get a new set. I've just heard of some sort of a society got up by women out in Cambridge, where they deduce the ethnic sources of prophetic inspiration—whatever that means!—from the 'Arabian Nights' and 'Mother Goose.' You might find something there to suit you."

He could not answer her; he could only wonder whether she disapproved of what he had done, or if she were vexed with him for coming to her.

"It's possible," she went on mercilessly, a fresh note of mockery in her voice, "that Berenice might help you. Very often a woman wins converts where a priest fails. After last night"—

He came to his feet with a spring.

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "I can't stand any more. Do you think that it's been easy for me to find out the truth about myself; to have to own that I've been a cheating fool, without honesty enough to know my own mind? As for Miss Morison"—

His voice failed him. He was unnerved; the reaction from his long vigil, from his interview with Father Frontford, overcame him. The simple mention of the name of Berenice made him choke, and he stood there speechless. His cousin rose and came to him softly. Before he knew what she was doing, she bent forward and kissed his forehead.

"You poor boy," she said in a voice half laughing, yet so gentle that he hardly recognized it, "don't take my teasing so much to heart. You are only finding out like the rest of us that it is impossible not to be human."

He could answer only by grasping her hand, ashamed of the weakness which had betrayed him, and touched deeply by her kindness.

"Come," Mrs. Staggchase said, moving to the bell, and speaking in her natural tone. "I have helped you to break your life into bits; I must try to help you to put the pieces together into something better. You must stay here for a while, and we'll consider what is to be done next. Will you tell Patrick how to get your things from the Clergy House? Take your old room. I'll see you at luncheon."

And as the servant appeared at one door she withdrew by another.



XXX

PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP Othello, ii. 1.

Berenice had abundant leisure to reflect upon her attitude toward her lovers, for Mrs. Frostwinch was soon so seriously ill that it was evident to all that the end was at hand. Berenice devoted herself to the invalid, although there was little that she could do. The sick woman did not suffer; she seemed merely to be fading out of life; to have lost her hold upon something which was slipping from her loosened grasp.

"The fact is, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said one day, "that the doctors say I'm dead. I'm beginning to believe it myself, and when I'm fully convinced, I suppose that that'll be the end."

"Oh, don't joke about it, Cousin Anna," cried Bee. "It is too dreadful."

"It won't make it any less dreadful to be solemn over it," the other answered. "However, death should be spoken of with respect; even one's own."

Berenice longed to know what had taken place between her cousin and Mrs. Crapps, but she hardly liked to ask. That there had been a disagreement of some kind, and that Mrs. Frostwinch had lost faith in the woman, she knew; but beyond this she was in the dark. One afternoon, however, her cousin explained matters.

"It is so humiliating, Bee, that I can hardly bear to think of it, the way things turned out. My conscience will be easier, though, if I tell you the whole of it. It is so vulgar that it makes me creep. We were at Jekyll's Island, and she had an ulcerated tooth."

"I thought she couldn't have such things?"

"She thought or pretended that she couldn't. I must say that she fought against it with tremendous pluck; but the face kept swelling, and the pain got to be more than she could bear. When she gave out she went to pieces completely. She literally rolled on the floor and howled. I couldn't go on believing in her after that. She'd actually made herself ridiculous."

"But," began Berenice, "I should think"—

"If it had been something dangerous, so that I had had to think of her life," went on her cousin, not heeding, "I could have borne it; but that common thing! Why, her face looked like a drunken cook's! I can't tell you the humiliation of it!"

"But if she could help you, why not herself?"

Mrs. Frostwinch smiled wanly.

"I've tried to think that out," answered she. "It was always said of the old witches, you know, that they couldn't help themselves. It is faith in somebody else that is behind the wonders they do. I've grown very wise in the last few weeks, Bee. I don't pretend that I understand all the facts, but I do know pretty well what the facts are. I believed in Mrs. Crapps, and that belief kept me up. When I couldn't believe in her, that was the end of it."

There seemed to Berenice something uncanny and monstrous in this calm acquiescence. She could not comprehend how her cousin could give up the struggle for life in this fashion, after having succeeded so long in holding death at bay.

"But surely," she protested, "you can't be willing to let everything depend upon her. You've proved the possibility"—

"I've proved the possibility of depending upon somebody else; that's all."

"Then find another woman that you can believe in."

"It is too late. I can't have the faith over again. I should always be expecting another humiliating downfall of my prophetess."

She was silent a moment, and then continued:—

"Do you know, Bee, it seems to me after all that my experience is like almost all religion. There are a few men and women who believe in themselves in that self-poised way that makes it possible for them to get on with just ethics; and there are those who can take hold of unseen things; but for the rest of us it's necessary to have some human being to lean on. I hope I don't shock you. I lie awake in the night a good deal, and my mind seems clearer than it used to be. All the religions seem to have a real, tangible human centre, a personality that human beings can appreciate and believe in. Mrs. Crapps was so real and so near at hand that I could have faith in her; now that that is gone there isn't anything left for me. I can't believe in her, and she has destroyed the Possibility of my believing in anybody else."

Berenice put out her hand in the growing dusk, caressing the thin fingers of the sick woman.

"But—but," she hesitated, "she hasn't destroyed your faith in—in everything, has she?"

"No, dear; she hasn't touched my belief in God; but it makes me ashamed to see how different a thing it is to believe in what we see and touch, from having a genuine faith in what we do not see. I have a faith in my soul still; the other was only a faith of the body. Perhaps it had only to do with the body, and it is not so bad to have lost it."

"Oh, Cousin Anna," Berenice murmured, tears choking her voice, "I can't bear to see you getting farther and farther off every day, and to feel so helpless."

"There, there, Bee," responded the other with tender cheerfulness, "you are not to agitate yourself or to excite me. I've lived half a year more now than the doctors allowed me, and I've enjoyed it too. Besides, think of the blessedness of not having any pain. Do you know, the night after Mrs. Crapps had that scene in the hotel, I was in a panic of terror lest my old agony should come back; but it didn't. Then I said to myself: 'Of course I couldn't suffer; I'm really dead!' You can't think what a comfort it was."

"Oh, don't, don't!" cried Bee. "I can't bear to have you talk like that."

"Well, then, we won't. There's something else I want to speak to you about while I am strong enough. Do you realize that when I am gone you'll be a rich woman?"

"I haven't thought about it. I've hated to think."

"Yes, dear, I understand; but when you are older you'll come to realize that half of the duty of life is to think of things which one would rather forget."

"But it could do no good to think of this."

"Perhaps not; but I want to ask you something. I know you'll forgive me. It's about Parker Stanford."

"You may ask me anything you like, of course, Cousin Anna. As for Parker Stanford, he's nothing more than the rest of the men I know, only he's been more polite. We are very good friends."

"No more?"

"No more; and we never shall be."

"But he surely wished to be?" The day had darkened until the room was lighted only by the flames of the soft coal fire which sputtered in the grate. The cousins could hardly see each other's faces; but in the dim light Berenice turned frankly toward Mrs. Frostwinch.

"That is all over now," responded she. "Of course to anybody else I shouldn't own that there ever was anything; but whatever there may have been is ended. He understands that perfectly."

For some minutes Berenice sat smoothing the invalid's hand, the firelight glancing on her face and hair.

"How pretty you are, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said at length. Then without pause she added: "Is there anybody else?"

Bee sank backward into the shadow with a quick, instinctive movement, dropping the hand she held.

"Who should there be?" she returned.

Her cousin laughed softly.

"You are as transparent as glass," she said. "Come, who is it?"

Berenice hesitated an instant, then threw herself forward, bending over the hand of her companion until her face was hidden.

"There isn't really anybody; and besides I've insulted him so that he never could help hating me. No, there isn't anybody, Cousin Anna; and there never will be. I know I should despise him if he wasn't angry; and besides," she added with the air of suddenly recollecting herself, "I hate him for what he said."

"That is evident," the other assented smilingly. "I could see at once that you hated him. But who is it?"

"Why, there isn't anybody, I tell you. Of course I thought about him after he saved my life, but"—

"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. "Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I thought"—

"He isn't a priest any more," Berenice struck in, replying to the unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. "I heard yesterday that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs. Staggchase."

"Have you seen him lately?"

"He overtook me on the street yesterday."

Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture.

"Bee," said she tenderly, "I want you to be happy. You've been like a daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you happy"—

But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.

"I can't talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me. He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"—

The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.

Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face, making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it might almost have belonged to a spirit.

"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"—

"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to you about Bee."

"About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What about her?"

"I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know anything about his relations to her?"

"The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer. He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything that could be decently called hope."

"Then he does care for her?"

"My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually examined my husband's wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and felt sleepy, so I gave that up."

Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of the sick chamber.

"But Bee said he was angry with her."

"The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That's nothing. She's been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he resents it, so much the better for him."

"But is he"—

She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.

"He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him," the visitor said, taking up the word. "He is well born, he is well bred, if a little countrified. He's been shut up with monks and other mouldy things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very fond of him."

"Then you think"—

"I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn't much money, unless he gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if he behaves himself; but of course he hasn't any idea of that."