The Puritans by Arlo Bates

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"At least," she said, "I shall be spared the pain of growing old."

"After all," the other responded, "the bitterness of growing old is to
feel that one has never completely been young."

The sick woman regarded her with burning eyes.

"But we have been young, Di," she said eagerly. "Surely we had all that
there was."

"Anna," Mrs. Staggchase murmured, leaning toward her, "we know each
other too well not to say things that most women are afraid to say. We
both married well, and we have cared for our husbands and been happy.
But we both know that there was deep down a memory"--

"No, no, Di," her friend interrupted excitedly, "you shall not make me
think of that! I have forgotten all that; and I am dying comfortably.
You shall not make me think of him! Only, dear Di, I want you to help
Bee to marry the man she loves with her whole heart; that she loves as
we might have loved if"--

Mrs. Staggchase kissed her solemnly.

"I promise, Anna."

Then she rose, her whole manner changing.

"Do you know, my dear," she observed, in a tone gayly satirical, "that
I believe that Elsie Wilson is going to be beaten in her bishop
steeplechase?"

"Do you mean that Father Frontford won't be elected?"

"I mean just that. However, things are still uncertain. It will be
amusing to see what Elsie will do if she is defeated. She is capable of
setting up a church of her own."

"There are two or three men with whom I have some influence that will
go over to Mr. Strathmore if I am not here to look after them. I must
write to them to-morrow and get them to promise to hold by our side."

But that night Mrs. Frostwinch died quietly in her sleep, and the
letters were not written.

XXXI

HOW CHANCES MOCK
2 Henry IV., iii. 1.

Maurice had seen Berenice only once since his encounter at the ball. He
had hoped and dreaded to meet her, but for more than a week after his
leaving the Clergy House he had failed. One morning he saw her walking
before him on Beacon Street; and while he instantly said to himself
that he trusted that she would not discover him, he hurried forward to
overtake her. His feet carried him forward even while he told himself
that he did not wish to go. He was beside her in a moment, and as he
spoke she raised those rich, dark eyes with a glance which made him
thrill.

"Good-morning," he said with his heart beating as absurdly as if the
encounter were of the highest consequence.

"Good-morning, Mr. Wynne," she responded, with a manner entirely
abstract.

She had started and blushed, he was sure, on perceiving him; but if so
she had instantly recovered her self-possession. He was disconcerted by
the coldness of her manner, and began to wish in complete earnest that
he had not overtaken her.

"I beg your pardon for intruding," he said, his voice hardening, "but"--

"The public street is free to anybody, I suppose," she returned, with
an air of studied politeness. "I don't claim any exclusive right to
it."

"I didn't apologize for being on the street, but for speaking to you."

"Oh, that," answered Berenice carelessly, although he thought that he
detected a spark of mischief in her eye, "is a thing of so little
consequence that it isn't worth mentioning."

"I venture to speak to you," he said, ignoring the thrust, "because I
have wanted to beg your pardon for my rudeness when I saw you last."

She turned upon him quickly, her cheeks aflame.

"Your rudeness?" she exclaimed. "Your brutality, I think you mean!"

It was his turn to grow red.

"My brutality, if you choose. I beg your pardon for whatever offended."

"It was unpardonable! It was a thing no woman could ever forgive!"

Maurice turned pale. He stopped where he stood.

"In that case," he said, bowing with formality, "I have no business to
be speaking to you now."

He turned and was gone before she could add a word.

This interview probably made neither of the young persons happy; and
Maurice it left entirely miserable. He was not without a proper pride,
however, and in his present frame of mind was ready to call it to his
aid. He bore a brave outward front. He resolved not to think of his
love; yet he was not without the hardly confessed hope that if he could
find the lost will he might be taking a step in the direction of the
realization of his desires. He tried to forget Berenice in the very
means he was taking to bring himself nearer to her.

He set out for Montfield one bright February day, amused at himself
for the difference in his attitude toward the world from the mere fact
that he had discarded the ecclesiastical garb. It gave him a fresh and
delightful sensation to be traveling on business in clothing like that
of other men. He had no longer any wish to be separated by his dress,
and thought with contemptuous amusement of the lurking self-
consciousness which had always attached itself in his mind to the fact
that he was in a costume apart. He realized now that he had from this
derived a certain satisfaction, half simple vanity and half the
gratification of his histrionic instinct. He felt as if he had been
like a child pleased to attract attention by a feather stuck in his
cap, or a toy sword girt at his side. Now that the whole experience was
past he could smile at it, but he had small patience with those who
still retained the clerical garb. Men have usually little tolerance for
the fault which they have but newly outgrown; and Maurice thought with
a sort of amazement of his late fellows at the Clergy House, and of
their manifest satisfaction in the dress they wore. It was almost with
a sensation of self-righteousness that he enjoyed the habiliments of
ordinary civilized man.

As the train sped on, and the scenery became more familiar as he
approached nearer to Montfield, Maurice naturally fell to thinking, in
an irregular, detached fashion, of his youth. Both Wynne's parents had
died in his childhood, and there had been little to keep firm the bonds
of family. Alice Singleton he had known, however, both as a girl and as
the wife of his half brother, but he had known only to dislike and
avoid her. He began now to wonder how she would receive him, and
whether she would allude to the scene at Mrs. Rangely's when he had
broken up her spiritualistic deception.

The train of thought into which reminiscence had plunged him carried
him over his whole life. He realized for the first time that his
religious experiences had been little more than a reflection of those
of Philip. It was Ashe who had interested him in spiritual things, who
had led him into the church, who had practically determined for him
that he should become a priest. For the first time, and with profound
amazement, Maurice realized how completely his theological life had
been the growth of the mind of Ashe rather than of his own. The thought
brought with it a sense of weakness and self-contempt.

"Haven't I any strength of character?" he asked himself. "In everything
practical Phil has always relied on me. It was always Phil I cared for,
not the church."

Imperfectly as he was able to phrase it, Maurice was not in the end
without some reasonably clear conception of the fact that in his life
Philip had represented the feminine element. It was by love for his
friend that he had been led on. Now that his reason was fully awake
this emotional yielding to the thought of another was no longer
possible; now that his heart was filled with a passion for Berenice his
nature no longer responded to the appeal of the feminine in Ashe.

Maurice was half aware that his was a character sure to be influenced
greatly by affection; but he felt that it would never again be possible
for him so to give up to another the guidance of his life as he now saw
that he had yielded it to his friend. He had learned his weakness, and
the lesson had been enforced too sharply ever to be forgotten.

He was coming now into the region of his old home. The forests were
beginning faintly to show the approach of spring; the treetops were
dimly warming in color, the branches thickening against the sky. Here
and there Maurice looked down on a brook black with the late rains and
with the floods from the snow-drifts still melting on the distant
hills. Now he caught a far flash of the river where he had skated in
winters almost forgotten, so fast does time move, where he had fished
and bathed in summers so long gone that they seemed to belong to the
life of some other. Yet once more and a distant hill, duskily blue
against the bluer heavens, wakened for him some memory of his boyhood,
seeming to challenge him to renew the old joys and to revel in the by-
gone fervors.

All these things softened the mood in which Maurice came back to the
old town, and as he walked up the village street, so well remembered
yet so strange, he had a sense of unreality. The very homely
familiarity of it all made it appear the more like a dream. He felt his
heart-beats quicken as he approached the Ashe place, wondering if he
should see Mrs. Ashe. He had always, with all his affection, felt for
Philip's mother a sort of awe, as if she were more than a simple human
creature. He found it difficult to understand that Mrs. Singleton
should be staying with her, so incongruous was the association in his
mind of two such women. With Mrs. Ashe, Alice must at least be at her
best.

He walked up to the house, passing under the leafless lilac bushes with
a keen remembrance of how they were laden with odors in June. He
wondered if the tansy still grew under the sitting-room window, and if
the lilies-of-the-valley flourished on the north side of the house as
of old. Then he knocked with the quaint old black knocker, and with the
sound came back the present and the thought that he had before him an
interview which might be neither pleasant nor easy.

Mrs. Singleton herself opened the door.

"I saw you coming," she greeted him, "and there is nobody at home but
me."

Maurice tried not to look disappointed.

"Then Mrs. Ashe is not at home?"

"No; she is out, and the girl is out. Will you come in? You probably
didn't come to see me."

"But I did come to see you."

She led the way into the long, low sitting-room, with its many doors
and its wide fireplace, so familiar that he might have left it
yesterday.

"I can't imagine what you want of me," Mrs. Singleton said, waving her
hand toward a chair. "The last time I saw you you didn't seem very fond
of me."

She seated herself by the side of the fire in a great old-fashioned
chair covered with chintz and spreading out wings on either side of her
head.

"You are still angry, Alice, I see," he rejoined. "Well, I can't help
that. I did what was right. How in the world could you make up your
mind to fool those people so?"

"They wanted to be fooled; why not oblige them?"

He regarded her with astonishment. He had expected her to deny that her
deception was deliberate, to claim that the manifestations were real.
Her frank and cynical speech disconcerted him. He had no reply. She
broke into a sneering laugh.

"There," she said, "you didn't come here to talk about that seance.
What did you come for?"

"I came to ask you if you still have Aunt Hannah's desk."

She regarded him keenly.

"The little traveling desk?"

"Yes."

"What if I have?"

"But have you?"

"Oh, I don't mind telling you that. I don't see that it can do you any
good to know that I have it. I always carry it round with me. It's so
convenient."

"Will you sell it to me?"

"Certainly not. If you didn't want it, I might give it to you; but if
you do you can't have it."

Maurice began to feel his anger rising. He felt helpless before this
woman, with her innocent, baby face, this woman with the guileless look
of a child and a child's freedom from moral scruples, who faced him
with a smile of pleased malice. It might be unwise to tell his real
errand, but she surely could not do any harm greater than to be
disagreeable. There must be some method, he reflected, of getting at
the thing legally; but what it was he was entirely ignorant; and now
that he had shown a desire for the desk he was confident that Mrs.
Singleton would persist until she had discovered the truth. He could
think of nothing to do but to make a clean breast of the whole matter.
He nerved himself to the task, and told her of the finding of Norah and
of what followed.

"Have you ever discovered that the desk had a false bottom?" he asked
in conclusion.

"No, brother Maurice. The spirits hadn't revealed it to me. But then I
never asked them about that."

There was an air of triumphant glee in her manner, an open and mocking
sneer, which dismayed him. He was sure that he had erred in telling her
his secret; yet he reflected that he could hardly have done otherwise,
and that she surely would not dare to refuse to give up a legal
document so important.

"Will you let me examine the desk?"

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

Maurice rose and went toward her, facing her squarely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is it the will?" he asked eagerly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXXII

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

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

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

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

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

The other smiled with that kindly benevolence which was characteristic.

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

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

Mr. Strathmore smiled more genially than ever.

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

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

The clergyman regarded him with a quizzical look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What of that?"

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

Rangely laughed again.

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

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

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

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

"What sort of a letter?"

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

"Mrs. Wilson?"

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

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

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

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