The Winepress
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Title: The Winepress
Creator: Christine Beals
Release date: March 28, 2014 [eBook #45248]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45248
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINEPRESS ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: EVELYN AT THE WINDOW (page 3)]
THE WINEPRESS
BY
CHRISTINE REALS
THE BOOKERY PUBLISHING CO.
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1912,
by
CHRISTINE BEALS
TO MY LIFE-LONG FRIEND
J. S. C.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I. The Church
II. Margaret
III. Undercurrents
IV. Shadows at the Parsonage
V. Dr. Eldrige, Jr.
VI. Physician and Friend
VII. Mrs. Thorpe's Mountains
VIII. Stranded
IX. Eastertide
X. The Discernment of Truth
XI. A Summer's Vacation
XII. The Minister's Decline
XIII. The Pure in Heart
XIV. A Friend in Need
XV. Neither Do I Condemn Thee
XVI. Mrs. Thorpe's Work
XVII. Every Whit Whole
XVIII. The Heart's Desire
XIX. "Where is Your Faith?"
XX. The Revelation
XXI. The Law of Life
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
Evelyn at the Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"He took her in his arms as though she were a little child"
"Why, permit me to ask, do you not turn some of your witchcraft on him?"
"Little Brother, Little Brother, let me tell you a story as I used to"
*THE WINEPRESS*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE CHURCH*
The church was conspicuously situated on an elevation which had a
dignity of its own; there was nothing steep nor abrupt about the
incline, its long, smooth slopes extended smoothly and symmetrically.
No fitter place could be found for a house of worship, and here those
worshipfully inclined had builded this structure of architectural beauty
with many embellishments, and dedicated it to their God. Here and there
the long slopes were ornamented by neat dwellings and prosperous looking
homes, while the town of Edgerly lay on the plain below. And the
church, crowning the work of God, seemed a thing removed from the busy
mart; a sentinel with a living, throbbing heart keeping watch, with eyes
that slumbered not nor slept.
Was not this temple builded there, stone upon stone, to stand before the
children of men, a living force to represent all that is best and most
worthy, an aid to truth and purity, the earthly home of the spirit of
the lowly One? And as its tireless eyes look upon the busy throng is it
not the mission of this church of God to extend a helping hand to the
fallen, to cheer the downcast and to bind up the broken-hearted? Are
any of earth's children beyond its love and power?
The parsonage to which the pastor took his bride had about it an air of
prosperity, a touch of exclusiveness that reflected creditably on this
church on the summit. The grounds were well kept, the grass was velvet
green, the flowers and shrubs and vines thrifty and vigorous in their
springtime beauty.
The Rev. Maurice Thorpe and his wife established themselves in this
modern, well-ordered home, and looked with fearless eyes into the
future. A future that was to be devoted to their fellowmen, dedicated
to the church of God.
The first love of the man's heart was given to his church; not even the
fair and gracious woman whom he had wooed and wed came before this; and
into its treasury he poured the first vigor and strength of his earnest
manhood. There had been a time when he had inclined toward celibacy for
the ministry. Although he had never doubted the aid and comfort the
right sort of a wife could be to a pastor, there was in his heart a
lurking horror of being yoked to a woman who was not in very truth, his
second self, flesh of his flesh, soul of his soul, mind of his mind.
But no misgivings came to him as he watched the girlish figure of his
wife at her varied duties, or as she pored over some volume in his
study, or her honest eyes met his across the table at meal time. His
sense of satisfaction grew from day to day, as he realized that his wife
that he had won was not only good to look upon, and a comfort in his
home, but that she was capable of becoming an aid and assistant to him
in his work.
Mrs. Thorpe found much to occupy her time and thoughts during these
first days in her new home. The house was in perfect order, and a
middle-aged woman was established in the kitchen; but her ideal of a
home was one where the mistress has every detail of the work well in
hand, and to this end she gave every branch of the work her personal
supervision. There was the arranging of the rooms to suit her taste,
and the placing of the articles that she had brought with her to her new
home; all the vivifying touches that convert a house into a home, and
mark it with the personality of its keeper.
On the side of the house facing the church a room had been fitted up for
Mrs. Thorpe's special use. Here in a curtained alcove she hung her
bookshelves and placed her books. There was a small library table, some
easy chairs, and a desk where she would write her letters. From the
window there was an excellent view of the church; there was the smooth
incline that led up to the stately edifice, and the wooded hills and
blue sky in the distance.
Mrs. Thorpe stood at her window at the close of one fair day, and drank
in the beauty of earth and sky. The sun was sinking behind the distant
hilltops, and it bathed the church in a mellow glow, and caused the
narrow taper windows to radiate halos of golden light. Mrs. Thorpe's
eyes lingered upon the scene until the light faded into shadow, then she
slipped into a chair near the window. Her mind had a trick of eluding
her vigilance at times, of slipping its leash when she least expected
it, and carrying her into strange, disquieting realms of thought.
Mysteries hung about her, and enveloped her as a mist-hung world
envelopes a wanderer who has lost his way. The mystery of life--her
life--what does it mean? For what purpose is it given? Happiness--what
is it? Contentment and peace with God--to whom are these vouchsafed?
Or by what virtues do mortals attain them? Is it not through service
that these things are attained? Active, honest, energetic service, this
was to be her magic wand, her Aaron's rod, by means of which she was to
feed her soul, keep alive the fountains of her love, and consecrate and
glorify her mortal life. And yet the vague, elusive mystery of it
all--the motives that actuated her--the ceaseless longing. She drew her
hand across her brow as though to change her mental vision, for well she
knew the futility of this line of thought.
The evening wind swayed the curtain at the window and wafted the perfume
from the garden to her. A bird trilled in a treetop near by, and a
blush-rose nodded just outside the window. She leaned back in her
cushioned chair and yielded to the quieting influences about her.
As a child she had been diffident and retiring, questioning much, but
silently. All things that came into her small world were carefully
weighed and analyzed. Her surroundings and the conditions of her
existence were sifted and searched in a manner that would have
astonished her elders had they known of it; and the conclusions that she
arrived at were final with her. She worked out problems of the gravest
importance, accepted her own solutions, and lived according to her own
convictions; which living was a sort of dream life. A favorite pastime
was a conceit of her childish brain to look upon the life that she was
living as a dream, an unreality, from which she eventually would awaken.
She reasoned in her small way with herself--always with herself alone,
she never mentioned her conceits and fancies to others--that when
troubled dreams came to her at night she could not know that she was
dreaming. How, then, she questioned, was she to know at any time
whether she was dreaming or awake?
Especially did she indulge in these fancies when things in her small
world were not to her liking.
"Never mind," she would comfort herself, "this is only a dream; bye and
bye I shall awaken, and then--ah, then!"
The gladness and ecstasy that awaited her were never clearly defined in
her mind, but that it would be satisfying and all-sufficient her child
mind never doubted.
Once when she was a small girl she was allowed to look upon the face of
a playmate who had died. It was the first time that the question of
death had confronted her; but she had been told that when good children
die they go to live with God in Heaven. She looked at the face of the
dead child, then, gently, without the least dread or fear, she laid her
warm little hand on the cold hand of her late playmate. She said no
word, and showed no agitation. The act was to ascertain whether the
child was truly robbed of life and action. This point settled, she
turned and walked away, and the firm conviction in her little heart was:
"If I had been God, I would not have done it."
She spoke no word in regard to the dead child to anyone, but while the
other children romped and played, and forgot the absent one, she was
quiet and silent, and she pondered the question for many days. Every
phase of it that her childish mind could grasp was weighed and
considered, and finally the verdict came. A God who loves little
children would not have taken her playmate away. There must be two
Gods, a good one and a bad one. Then her imagination lived for days in
a conflict between these two Gods. The conflict always ended in the
restoration of the dead child to his mother and playmates.
As she grew toward womanhood there was the usual joyousness and vivacity
of girlhood, but she was thoughtful and reticent, a dreamer still. When
she was wooed and won by the pastor, Maurice Thorpe, she was an educated
woman, gentle and thoughtful, but her real nature, and the traits in her
character that were to shape her life, were as the unturned pages of a
book.
Mr. Thorpe entered the room unnoticed and stood by his wife's side. He
thought she appeared very frail and girlish in her attitude of
abandonment.
"What does the future hold for her and for me?" he questioned. Would
the hidden fountains of her life unite with his and flow in an even
stream until Eternity should engulf them in her countless ages? He felt
no fear, no premonition of evil to come, yet his heart was strangely
stirred.
"My dear one," he whispered, "may truth, purity and peace be yours."
Yet in the years that came, this petition was granted in so different a
manner from any in which he had desired it to be, that had it been in
his power, he would not have hesitated to recall it.
Mrs. Thorpe, aroused by the intuition of her husband's presence, sat
upright in her chair, and, catching a glimpse of her face in a mirror on
the wall, she brushed the fluffy brown hair from her temples.
"I sank down here in this delightful easy chair," she said, "and its
seductive restfulness, together with the twitter of the birds, the
breath of the flowers, and the hum of insects conspired, I do believe,
to beguile me into the land of dreams."
"I am glad to see you resting," he said. "You have been finding a great
deal to keep you busy. I hope you are not overtaxing your strength."
"I am not tired," she said, but her face grew grave and the shadow of
her troubled thoughts lay in her eyes. "I am anxious to get household
affairs running smoothly, so that I may have leisure for other work."
And as though in answer to her restless questioning, rather than to her
spoken thought, he replied: "We shall find our happiness in our work and
our love." He laid his hand caressingly against her hair. "What a
wonderful thing it is," he said, "this service in the Vineyard, and what
a beautiful thing, Evelyn, that we two can live and love and work
together."
The twilight deepened as they sat together, silent mostly, yet conscious
of that understanding and sympathy that is dearer than words. The sweet
summer night closed in about them and enfolded them as a perfume-laden
garment; and the sea of life stretched before them, without a ripple
visible on its tranquil surface.
Later in the evening, as Mrs. Thorpe made her customary round of the
house before retiring, she found her serving woman still busy in the
kitchen.
"Not through with your work yet, Mary?" she said.
The woman was bustling about with flushed face and somewhat unsettled
manner.
"The work being new to me, comes a little awkward at first," she said.
"But I think I shall get it in hand before long."
Mrs. Thorpe suspected that the woman had been out during the afternoon,
or for some reason had neglected her work, else she would not be thus
belated. Before leaving the kitchen she said:
"I have been making some plans about the work, Mary; we will talk them
over in the morning."
Mary signified her willingness, but her face took on an even deeper
flush, and when her mistress had gone she sat down and covered her face
with her hands.
But it was only for a few moments, then she arose and resolutely
finished her work and went her way, carrying her own peculiar burdens.
Mrs. Thorpe, as she prepared for her night's repose, looked again toward
the church, now dimly outlined in the night, and the thought came to her
that something of the sacredness and power that pervaded it might
perhaps in some way reflect upon her life and sanctify it, and lead her
into green pastures, and beside still waters. She saw the church spire,
tall and spectral in the moonlight.
"It is like a guardian angel," she thought, "watching through the day
and through the night."
*CHAPTER II*
*MARGARET*
Mary McGowan, the serving woman, was a woman whose life was nearing its
meridian. Her form, somewhat stooped, spoke of a life of labor; her
hair, combed smoothly back from her face, was well sprinkled with gray.
When Mrs. Thorpe met her in the dining-room the next morning, there was
something in the woman's face that for a moment appealed to her. A
careworn face it was, not beautiful, but stamped unmistakably with an
expression of refinement. For a moment the mistress hesitated; should
she meet her cordially, gain her confidence and make a friend of her?
The girlish impulse lasted but a second, and Mrs. Thorpe had herself
well in hand again, and she covered what she believed to be her weakness
with a somewhat severer dignity than she had assumed before, and came at
once to business.
After arriving at a satisfactory understanding in regard to the work,
they came to the question of hours.
"You are to have one afternoon each week, and the service hour on
Sunday; the rest of your time I shall expect you to spend here," Mrs.
Thorpe announced.
A sudden flush spread over Mrs. McGowan's face. She did not reply, but
bowed her head in assent, and Mrs. Thorpe, satisfied with the interview,
went at once to other duties.
In the kitchen a grim-faced woman went steadily about her work; but
there was something in her countenance that made one believe the world
not always kind to the children of men.
"Yet, after all," she thought, "what does it matter, if only Margaret
gets through the school." And at the thought of her girl, her bonny
Margaret, her heart grew warm within her.
The days passed by, and Mrs. Thorpe adhered with rigid precision to the
rules and regulations she had established in her home, and devoted her
leisure time in a systematic manner to the various societies and
organizations conducted by the church.
Returning home one afternoon earlier than she had expected, she went to
the kitchen on some small errand and found that Mary was not in. She
waited for her return, and confronted her with unruffled mien.
"What excuse have you to offer for your absence this afternoon?" she
asked.
"I have no excuse to offer."
"And is this the manner in which you keep your agreement?"
"Mrs. Thorpe, it is necessary for me to be away from the house at times,
but I shall not fail in my duties here."
"You say that it is necessary for you to be away, yet you understood my
terms and accepted them. Mary, this must not happen again."
"Then I must leave your employ, Mrs. Thorpe."
"Very well," replied the mistress, a red spot burning on either cheek;
"I shall find someone else as soon as possible."
After supper Mrs. McGowan again left the parsonage and hurried along the
street until she came to a small house a few blocks away.
"Why, mother mine, home so soon?" said a tall, dark-faced girl, as the
mother entered the room. "What is it, mother? You look tired and worn.
Is the work too hard for you?" The girl drew a stool to her mother's
side and took a worn hand in hers. "I feel so badly to have you working
so hard for me, mother, but when I finish school, oh, you shall be a
lady then, mother! I shall take care of you and Jamie then."
The mother laid her tired head back against the chair and waited long
before she replied. She felt faint and sick at heart. She had seen
much in life that was hard to bear; widowhood and poverty had been hers
for many years. Her only boy was a helpless cripple. Her one joy in
life was Margaret, her blithesome girl. Her one great aim had been to
keep her in school until she should obtain sufficient education to place
her independently among the world's workers.
When she took her place at the parsonage, it was with the expectation
that Mr. Thorpe, who knew her circumstances and seemed interested in her
family, would be willing for her to spend what time she could spare from
her duties in her own home. But now she saw that this could not be, and
there was nothing left but for Margaret to go into the factory. It was
a bitter blow, but deeper and keener than her own pain, she felt what it
would mean to the girl. Margaret, with her willful, passionate nature,
had not learned to be patient, nor to bow to the inevitable, as she, the
mother, had learned to do.
"What is it, mother?" persisted the girl. "What troubles you?"
"Lassie, I cannot work for Mrs. Thorpe any longer."
Margaret sprang to her feet and stood like a young deer, with head erect
and dilated nostrils.
"Mother, what has happened? Tell me what has happened."
"It is nothing, lass, nothing at all, only Mrs. Thorpe must have someone
who can spend all her time at the parsonage. She does not know how
often I have been away, nor that I have spent the nights here with you
and Jamie. She was displeased to-day when she found me gone."
Disappointment keen and sharp, anger wild and unreasoning, met in the
girl's heart. Passionate, turbulent Margaret!
"Come, lassie, don't take it so hard; we can find some other way after a
time, perhaps."
"Yes, mother, you can go to the pastor again with your trouble. You
believed him to be so good a man. _Good!_--how I hate, _hate_ and detest
good people! They talk of helping the poor and needy--we have been
poor, mother, poor and in need ever since I can remember--many times we
have been hungry, and Jamie has never had the help that he should have
had--else he might now be strong as other boys; and what have these good
people of the church done for us? This man, your pious pastor, came
here and offered you this place, and now his wife, the detestable
hypocrite, has turned you off. Good people! Oh, I wish some great wave
would sweep them from the face of the earth!"
"Margaret, Margaret, girl, this is terrible; you must not, Margaret!"
"Yes, mother, it is terrible; terrible for me to say what I think, but
you know it is true. Those people have been good to your face; they
have talked and sympathized, but what has anyone of them done for us?
Not one of them would lift a finger or go one step out of his way to
help us."
The girl's face was transformed with passion, and there was a glitter in
her eyes that even the mother had never seen before.
"There is Amy Mayhew, the deacon's daughter," the girl continued, "who
spends more for ribbons and rings and bracelets than my whole wardrobe
costs. To-day at school she was showing a new ring; it cost only ten
dollars, and while she was saying it her eyes were on my ragged
shoes--oh, mother!" With a flood of tears the girl buried her face in
her mother's lap. Poor Margaret, she had not yet learned to look with
unthinking, unheeding vision on the wrongs of humanity, her own
included. Little more than a child, she had looked at life with a
child's vision, and wrong, to her, had been wrong, and right was right.
The distribution of property that gives one person more than enough and
another less than sufficient, can never seem just to a mind unbiased by
worldly wisdom. And when once the exact balance between right and wrong
is disturbed, the equilibrium lost, a sort of moral chaos is likely to
disturb all questions of righteousness and honor.
The mother laid her hand on the girl's crown of dark hair. She could
not know--mercifully could not know--of the transformation taking place
in the heart of her child. She well knew that many temptations lay in
the girl's pathway; and Margaret had not always been tractable and
easily controlled. Exuberant of spirit and naturally willful, a sort of
restlessness seemed to possess her. But the mother believed that a few
years more would tide her child over this trying time, and her one great
desire was to get her away from the town, and engaged in some active,
responsible work. And while the failure of her plans had bitterly
disappointed the daughter, it had all but broken the mother's heart.
Had no thoughts come to Margaret other than those of the disappointment
and uncongenial toil, she might still have retained her crown of
womanhood unsullied--but alas, and alas! Beside the factory and the
honest toil that her willful heart rebelled against, there arose in her
mind forms and phantoms of many shapes and colors, tempting, taunting,
alluring; and when her untutored mind endeavored to grasp their
significance, they evaded her, and with seductive wiles eluded her.
Poor girl! tempted by the sparkle of the foam on the cup. And while her
heart was sore she sipped the first draught of the poison wine; and
later she found, as all who taste must find, that the dregs were more
bitter than anything that unsullied girlhood can conceive.
The next morning Mrs. McGowan was not able to leave her bed. A
sleepless night, and the care and perplexities that multiplied ahead of
her, left her nervous and exhausted. At her earnest request Margaret
went to the parsonage and prepared the morning meal.
"Good morning, Margaret, I am glad to see you," said Mr. Thorpe,
pleasantly. "I am sorry your mother is ill."
Mrs. Thorpe thought the girl's dark face very sullen and unattractive,
and she wondered how even her husband could be kind and patient with
people who seemed to care so little for his interest in them.
After Margaret had served the meal, and had left the room, Mr. Thorpe
asked his wife what she knew about Mary's illness.
"Mary gave me warning yesterday that she must leave my service, but made
no mention of feeling indisposed," Mrs. Thorpe replied. "She gave me to
understand that she could not give me all her time. I was not aware that
she has a family."
"Then you do not know about the little cripple boy?"
"No; Mary has never mentioned any member of her family to me."
"I feel a special interest in this woman and her children, and I
believed that after you learned her circumstances you could arrange to
give her certain hours away from the house."
"But you never mentioned her circumstances to me, Maurice."
"No; I have thought several times of inquiring about her, but I have
been very busy. I hope we may be able to find someone to take Mary's
place soon, and perhaps after a time she will be able to come back."
"Perhaps the girl will remain. If I find her satisfactory, it will save
me further trouble."
"Margaret is in the high school and ought not to miss a single day. You
had better try to find someone else, and in the meantime it will be well
to look in and see if there is anything the family needs."
"I will do so. I regret that I did not know about the family. And this
girl is in the high school here?"
"Yes; one year after this one takes her through. Mrs. McGowan has great
hopes for the future. A relative some place in the country has promised
to secure Margaret a position as a teacher when she finishes the school
here. For years Mary supported herself and her family by taking in
sewing, but her eyesight began to fail, and she decided to try a change
of work; so I offered her the position here. And Jamie, the cripple,
consented to stay alone while Margaret was at school. I wish there was
someone to take Margaret's place to-day."
An impulse came to Mrs. Thorpe to do the work herself that day and let
Margaret go, but she remembered that she was a member of a church
committee that was to meet that afternoon to transact some business for
the church, and she felt that it would be hardly right for her to fail
to meet with them.
So during the day Margaret swept and dusted and cooked and served, and
no one knew of the disastrous thoughts that surged through her heart and
brain.
Mrs. Thorpe called at the little house where Mary lived, but she found
her reticent and little inclined to talk of family affairs.
"Margaret will go into the factory," she said. "There is no other way at
present."
When Mrs. Thorpe told her husband of this he was surprised at the
mother's decision; she had seemed so anxious about the school. But he
thought that after all Margaret might have given up the school of her
own accord. Perhaps he had overestimated the girl; some way she had not
seemed so bright and winsome that day as he had believed her to be.
It happened a few days later that Mr. Thorpe was called to see a poor
parishioner who lived on the outskirts of the town. In order to reach
this house he was obliged to pass through a neighborhood commonly known
as the Flat. This was a disreputable district on the other side of the
hill from Edgerly. When the town was in its infancy this Flat district
was bought by a man named Bolton, who tried to throw the balance of
power and interest on this side of the hill. To this end he erected a
number of houses for tenants, built a saloon and hired the right sort of
a man to run it. He also built a theatre. The Bolton stamp never left
the Flat, and in time it came to be peopled by the lowest of the poor
class. The saloon still did a flourishing business, and the theatre,
known as the Flat theatre, answered for such plays and entertainments as
more cultured and Christian Edgerly would not tolerate.
As Mr. Thorpe was returning from his call he saw a man and woman
standing in the shadow of the theatre. The moon was full, and by its
light he recognized the woman as Margaret. The man's face was turned
from him, and he could not so readily make out his identity. But he
knew it boded no good to Margaret to be there at that hour. He stopped,
hesitated a moment, and caught the sound of voices. The girl spoke
rapidly, and he thought she seemed in an ill-conditioned mood. The
man's voice was more even and conciliatory. He drew the girl's arm
through his and together they entered the theatre. The light from a
lamp at the door fell upon them as they entered, and Mr. Thorpe
recognized the man.
"Max! Max Morrison!" he exclaimed under his breath. He went on his
way, thoughtful and troubled.
It must be true that he had overestimated Margaret, but he would speak
to his wife, and see if her woman's tact could not devise some way to
save the girl from the evil that threatened her.
*CHAPTER III*
*UNDERCURRENTS*
The seasons passed as seasons have a way of passing. The spring gave
place to effulgent, luxurious summer; the summer slipped into autumn,
and winter followed on, with bluster and storm. It was spring again at
the parsonage. There was the song of birds, the hum of insects, and the
rare perfume wafted from the garden.
One sweet spring evening Mrs. Thorpe stood again at her open window. A
hush seemed to have fallen over the earth, and the silent moon and stars
looked benignly down. A rush of emotion, restful, worshipful, swept
over her. If only she might escape the stress and turmoil of life, and
become a part of the quiet and calm that belong to nature!
The year had been one of honest effort, faithful, loyal service. Twice
every Sabbath, morning and evening, Mr. Thorpe had stood in the pulpit
and expounded the truths of the Gospel as they had been revealed to him.
Mrs. Thorpe, capable and willing, had been drawn into church, charitable
and benevolent work, until her hands were full of work, and her life
full of care; and her thoughts were vastly more troubled than they had
ever been before. She realized that where once her thoughts had been
vague, half-formed, that now, full-fledged and forceful, they were
overmastering her. The mysteries that had once hung about her, dim and
misty, now arose like walls of blackness, forbidding and awe-inspiring;
and the things that she had once gazed upon with curious eyes now
shocked and terrified her.
When she started in her life's work, her ideas of religion and the
truths of life were but dream-like, shadowy conceptions; reflections, as
it were, from the theories and dogmas of her elders and so-called
spiritual leaders. There are many people who never get beyond these
reflections, these traditions of religion, these second-hand
conceptions. To some natures they are satisfying; they ease the mind,
point a way to safety for the future, and afford a solace in time of
trouble.
Mrs. Thorpe, however, was one who was destined to abide but a very short
time in the consolation afforded by this kind of religion. Yet, when
she attempted to step out from the creeds that cramped and dwarfed her
soul, to thrust from her theories and premises that depressed and
antagonized her, she found no other ground on which to place her feet,
and felt herself naked and alone, without a garment of righteousness
with which to clothe herself, and without compass or guiding star. She
doubted, and in agony condemned herself for her doubts; later she
rebelled, yet with her own hand she would have torn her rebellious heart
from her bosom, had it been in her power to do so, and cast it from her
as an unclean thing, an enemy to her peace, a treachery to her soul. She
believed it treason to allow her mind to wander into fields of religious
research other than those that had been carefully explored and marked as
safe; and to her consciousness she pleaded guilty of the charge.
Before her, life stretched barren and desolate, and not even in her
dreams could she find a light to guide her feet. She longed for peace,
and believed the fault all hers that she had not found it; she lacked
wisdom, and believed the power to attain it had been denied her.
And as she stood alone in the sweet spring night, her thoughts and
emotions became complex, conflicting and tumultuous. Strange, alien
thoughts flashed before her vision, and, like things alive, seemed to
glow and quiver in the darkness. She covered her face with her hands.
"God has hidden His face from me," she whispered, "I have never known
Him."
Now before her in a fleeting vision she saw her Savior, but it was not
the man Jesus as she had thought of him, with his crown of thorns and
his nail-pierced hands beckoning to her, asking for her adoration and
worship; but in this vision he came as a friend and teacher, one who has
solved and proven all of life's problems, and stood ready to help her
with all that troubled and perplexed her. He offered her not redemption
through his death, but life through the understanding of God's love.
But so foreign was this vision of a Christ, to her orthodox conception
of Him, that for a moment she was overwhelmed by it; then instantly she
felt her strange thoughts to be intruders, vagaries of her brain, and
her first impulse was to refuse them audience, to resist and destroy
them. She had no intention of countenancing for a moment a thought that
cast any shade of disapprobation on the work in which she and her
husband were united, or which differed in any manner from the way in
which they were working.
She turned and walked back and forth through the room. "This unrest
always attacks me when I am tired and undone," she thought. "These
troublesome thoughts will leave me when I am rested and myself again."
She went back to the window and breathed deep of the sweet night air.
Something deeper than her consciousness, more potent than her faith,
greater than her understanding, was striving for recognition within her.
The heart of all things, the force and strength of the universe, the
science of Life itself was unfolding before her; but she steeled her
heart against it. Her mind had not yet burst its chrysalis; she was
still a child of earth.
When Mrs. Thorpe found herself beset by the strife and unrest of her
inner life, she turned instinctively to a strong, true friend that she
had found. This was a Mrs. Mayhew, the wife of one of the deacons of
the church. She was a woman older than Mrs. Thorpe and possessed of
rare tact, and the sympathy that soothes and comforts without conscious
effort.
This woman's life was a busy one; heart and hands were full. She had
wealth at her disposal, and social duties made their demands upon her;
church work appealed to her, and her family of children knew her as
their counselor and best friend. If there were past chapters in this
woman's life that caused her to be especially tender and sympathetic
toward the young wife of her pastor, and yet gave her the wisdom to know
that the trouble lay too deep for mortal hand to touch, she made no sign
and spoke no word, but in the silence her heart spoke to the troubled
heart of her friend. And Mrs. Thorpe never named her trouble, or by the
slightest word disclosed the doubts that came to her. Whatever help she
received she imbibed from her friend's personality and gleaned from her
quiet, well-balanced life.
Unable to rid herself of her troubled thoughts, the next day Mrs. Thorpe
dropped in upon this friend. And during the call she discussed the
church choir with Mrs. Mayhew's niece, Geraldine, who was the church
organist.
"I think we should have some new music," Mrs. Thorpe said. "Since Max
Morrison has consented to sing in the choir, with his strong tenor voice
we can undertake some things which we could not before. I am glad that
Max has promised to help us. So much depends on the choir. People will
go where they can hear good music."
Geraldine made some suggestions regarding the new music, and Mrs. Mayhew
readily agreed with Mrs. Thorpe that the choir has much to do with the
success of the modern church.
At the service the next Sunday morning Mr. Thorpe gave a strong,
scholarly address. But it was not the sermon, neither was it the strong
tenor, nor the new music that caught Mrs. Thorpe's attention. She was
coming to regard the service hour on Sunday as the hardest time of the
week. For strive, struggle and pray as she would, she could not always
bring herself into a proper frame of mind; could not keep the spirit of
worship.
Sometimes a thought from her husband's sermon would flash out before
her, confront her and torment her. At this stage of her life the
thought, "I do not believe," never confronted her boldly and openly; but
always there was the subtle insinuation, "Do you believe?" Sometimes
her soul's agony was caused by the attitude of the people, lavishly
dressed, ostentatiously worshipful. Then instead of worship in her own
heart she would be possessed by scathing scorn. But this morning it was
the songs that caused her undoing. Her husband took his place in the
pulpit and the choir sang the opening hymn; and a line, a thought from
the song attacked Mrs. Thorpe:
"Lord Jesus, look down from thy throne in the skies,
And help me to make a complete sacrifice."
Mrs. Thorpe felt herself without rudder or sail, her bark at the mercy
of a stormy sea. Her mind was chaotic:
"The Lord Jesus Christ then was sitting comfortably, contentedly upon
His throne in the skies! What wonder that His people are straying in
many forbidden paths? What wonder that they are wandering, scattered
and lost? Are they not as sheep without a shepherd? If He is the
Savior of men, why is He not among His people--oh, his people who so
sorely need Him?"
The thought brought the tears to her eyes; but the next thought choked
them abruptly:
"If He had taken Himself to His shining throne in Heaven, what right had
she or this concourse of people to conjure Him to come down?"
Instead of the submissive attitude of one desiring to make a "complete
sacrifice," a wild, unreasoning rebellion arose within her; but a
stoical calm covered every emotion. But she was not yet to be let off
the rack; the worst was to follow. The sermon was devoted to the work
and needs of missions, and the pastor made a strong appeal for funds
with which to carry on the Master's work. After the sermon the first
lines of song rang out with a pleasing melody:
"I have read of a beautiful City,
Far away in the Kingdom of God:
I have read how its walls are of jasper,
How its streets are all golden and broad."
Mrs. Thorpe's sense of humor, which sometimes leaped suddenly into life
and overmastered all her troubled thoughts and melancholy broodings, now
came near finishing the tragedy of the service hour. Those "Streets all
golden and broad--" If it was gold the world needed--and her husband
had told them so emphatically that it was--why just a section of the
street up there--only think what could be accomplished with a
block--"all golden!"
But perhaps her humor was not of a healthy sort this morning; for her
heart was cold as ice, and she feared that she might shriek aloud in
fiendish glee.
During the weeks that followed she found her work difficult to perform;
all her tasks were irksome. But with a desperate courage, and a
resolution born of her will, she held herself to the minutest details of
every task that came to her. As the weeks slipped by a peculiar
strained look grew upon her face. Her husband noticed that the bloom
was fading from her cheeks and an unattractive pallor taking its place,
and the thought came to him that perhaps his wife was burdened with too
many cares.
"Are you not so well as usual, Evelyn?" he asked her one day.
A nervous flush covered, for the time, the tired look on her face.
"Not so well, perhaps, just of late," she replied. She raised her eyes
to his, and he noticed a strange expression in their depths.
But with a sort of supreme despair she clung to her work, and devoted
herself to her various duties. Yet she found herself little by little
obliged to give up much that she had undertaken, for there were days
when pain and physical weakness overcame her.
One evening after his usual hour of study, Mr. Thorpe laid aside his
books and went in search of his wife. She was indisposed and had kept
her room during the day. He found her noiselessly walking back and
forth through the room, with her hands pressed close against her
temples. She wore a loose gown, which fell in long folds about her, and
revealed her tall and ghost-like in the dim light. Mr. Thorpe stood for
a moment and regarded her in silence. Her face was haggard, and her
eyes were set in dark circles. Her movements were slow and mechanical,
as though her body was a thing apart from the spirit which impelled it.
Her whole attitude and appearance suggested the embodiment of an
overmastering pain.
Mr. Thorpe stepped to her side. "Evelyn, my dear," he said, "you are in
great pain. Why did you not call me? You should have help; direct me
and I will bring you some remedy."
"I have tried many remedies," she said. "I do not believe anything will
relieve me. A headache has to have its own time."
She assured her husband that there was nothing that he could do to
relieve her, and begged him to retire and leave her alone.
In the small hours of the night she crept to her bed, pale and worn,
like some wounded thing that has been engaged in deadly combat with a
foe. The pain had burned itself out, and the sleep of exhaustion came
to her.
The severity of his wife's attacks alarmed Mr. Thorpe, and he begged her
to lay down still more of the burden of her work. But she was not ready
to do this, and continued her self-appointed tasks with all the strength
at her command. Yet there was something in look and manner, something
indescribable, unlike her real self, that caused Mr. Thorpe a vague
feeling of apprehension for the future.
It was at this time that Mr. Thorpe's cousin, Pauline, came to make her
home at the parsonage. She was a middle-aged woman, strong and vigorous
and possessed of a goodly share of common sense and plain practicality.
Having missed making a home for herself, she very sensibly made herself
at home wherever she was.
"I love the Lord with all my heart," she was wont to say, "and I can
work for him quite as well in one place as in another."
There was something in her strong and wholesome personality that caused
one to trust her instinctively. And gradually, as Mrs. Thorpe was
obliged to lay them down, she assumed the household cares; and
cheerfully from day to day she took upon herself the burden of the work,
and managed the girl in the kitchen with more tact and discretion than
Mrs. Thorpe had ever been able to command.
"I do not believe that life holds any problems for Pauline," was Mrs.
Thorpe's mental comment, "or that she has any doubts or fears with which
to contend."
Now Mr. Thorpe pleaded with his wife and tried to induce her to lay
aside all her cares in order that she might regain her health. But she
insisted that she was not ill, and that she should not fail in her work;
and she devoted herself with renewed zeal to her outside duties. Yet
the days came closer together when she was obliged to keep her room, and
not infrequently her bed for the day.
At such times Mr. Thorpe had fallen into the way of summoning the family
physician, Dr. Eldrige.
The old doctor would shake his head and declare it to be a case of
"nerves." And one day when Mrs. Thorpe's suffering was unusually
severe, he said to Mr. Thorpe in his characteristically blunt, brusque
manner:
"If you wish to keep that wife of yours out of the grave or the lunatic
asylum, you will have to put a stop to this eternal gad and go she
persists in."
Mr. Thorpe's face paled.
"I have tried to induce my wife to give up her work," he said, "but she
clings to it persistently."
"Well, she will not cling to anything in this world much longer unless
she changes her course," was his gruff rejoinder. He saw the pain in
Mr. Thorpe's face, and noted the look of fear that leaped into his eyes;
but it did not affect him. Other people's troubles never caused him a
moment's concern. He often assured himself that a man who ministered to
the ills of the human family needed a level head and a good hard heart
to go with it.
Pauline, who overheard the conversation, made no mention of it to Mrs.
Thorpe, but said:
"I cannot understand how Dr. Eldrige holds his popularity. He seems a
rough, unfeeling man."
"He has the reputation of being the best physician in town," Mrs. Thorpe
replied. "I always feel that I dare not be ill any longer after I have
faced him. I have heard, too, that he treats his patients most
skillfully when he is partially under the influence of liquor."
"I do not see how you and Maurice dare trust him, Evelyn. The human
organism at the mercy of a half-drunken man! This, to me, seems like a
terrible thing."
"You lose sight of the main facts, Pauline, and cavil at minor things.
We of the human family must have a physician; with our sensitive bodies,
our nerves so finely adjusted to feel the slightest discord, and to
sting and quiver with pain, we must have a physician. Providence sends
our ills, and it takes a skillful physician to correct them, and so if
only he be skillful, there is nothing else that counts."
This was not the first time that Pauline had detected a strain of covert
bitterness in Mrs. Thorpe's speech, and the tone in which she spoke more
than the words alone troubled her now. In her philosophy all that which
she could not understand was "Providence," and to yield to the iron Hand
of it was the whole duty of a Christian. Yet there was a tone of
pleading, rather than anything dictatorial, in her voice as she replied:
"We can trust the hand of Providence, Evelyn, whatever of pain and
sickness comes to us."
There was a slight uneasiness in Mrs. Thorpe's manner and her breath
fluttered in her throat:
"It is hard to be quiet under the rod, sometimes, Pauline."
"God knows what is best for us, dear. You do not believe that one
moment's pain or suffering comes to you without His knowledge and
consent."
At just this time Mrs. Thorpe's mental condition was such that every
word of Pauline's was to her soul as red hot steel to the quivering
flesh. Her breath fluttered and caught; there was a haze before her
eyes. She felt herself possessed of two distinct personalities. She
heard her answer to Pauline:
"Yes, I try to trust Him." But the second personality, forceful,
insistent--what wildness, what frenzy was this?
"There is no God! There is no power in Heaven above, nor in Hell below,
nor on this earth, that has a right to create a man and then by slow
degrees to torture him to death! To rot the flesh from living bones, to
crush and pollute and deform! It is not true! If this is God--cursed
be God! If this is the Christ--"
With a strong effort, a quick, nervous movement, she recovered herself.
She felt a wild impulse to fly from the room, from the house, but most
of all from herself.
Pauline was by her side, with her cool hand on her forehead.
"What is it, Evelyn?" she asked. "Are you ill?"
"Only a spell of giddiness, I think, and my head feels badly. I will go
to my room and lie down for a time."
*CHAPTER IV*
*SHADOWS AT THE PARSONAGE*
Mr. Thorpe was called to his old home by the death of his brother. This
brother had gone to California the year before for his health, had died
there and was brought home for burial.
During their school days and college life, spent together, the boys had
been very near to each other. There was a bond between them other than
the bond of blood. A similarity of tastes and ambitions had brought
about a congeniality and comradeship such as many times fails to develop
between the offspring of the same parents. Both men had studied for the
ministry and entered into the work at about the same time. But when
George, the elder, was in the prime of his manhood a fatal malady had
fixed itself upon him; a malady inherited, it was said, from his mother,
who had laid down her burdens in the prime of her womanhood.
It was now nearly two years since Maurice Thorpe with his bride had left
the home of his youth. It was a sad return. Among familiar scenes, old
memories, well remembered faces, he bowed his head in grief and sorrow,
and saw the clods close in upon the narrow earth-bed of this loved one,
this gentle man of God, whose life had been dedicated to humanity.
Something valued, something prized and loved was gone from life.
Whatever the years might hold hereafter, this dear one was gone; his God
had taken him. But there were no doubts or sacrilegious questionings in
Mr. Thorpe's mind. His God was his sovereign, supreme of will,
infallible in justice. Nor did the thought ever penetrate the well-kept
fabric of his belief that there could be aught of ignorance in his
conception of God; or that the Infinite in its length and breadth and
depths was not wholly within the compass of his vision.
When he returned home, the marks of his grief were upon him, and Pauline
believed that she detected a change in his health. His somewhat slender
figure seemed more spare, his shoulders a trifle more stooped, and his
chest contracted. Alarming symptoms, these. She had seen the first
approach of the malady in his brother's case, and she could not mistake
its advances. She took it upon herself to see that Maurice took proper
care of himself. He was not allowed to sit in a draught, nor to go out
unless properly protected from damp and cold. At the slightest alarm, a
cough or failing appetite, she was ready with remedies and decoctions
calculated to guard against and ward off all forms of the dread disease
that was always pictured in her mind.
And now a great fear that had long lain dormant in Mrs. Thorpe's heart
sprang into life. What reason had she to believe that her husband would
be spared this fatality, this mysterious thing that had transmitted
itself from one generation to another, and was free to lay its hand on
its victims as it chose; sparing where its fickle fancy dictated, or
clutching its death fingers into the heart, and refusing to relax its
hold until the lifeless body lay before it, if so its ghoulish will
desired? And no man could say it nay! Brooking no restraint, gaunt,
mocking, stalking abroad at noonday, in the land which the Lord God had
created!
The hot restlessness of heart which never wholly left her now flamed up
and burned, and caused her to writhe as one in mortal pain. Questions
of the gravest importance fraught with meanings she could not measure
nor weigh confronted her wherever she turned. And the depth of her
ignorance--humanity's ignorance--concerning the most vital things of
life, seemed to her deplorable and reprehensible.
From sheer necessity she dropped the greater burden of her work. And
always fond of reading, she now read incessantly and without
discrimination whatever work she could find bearing on that one great
problem, Life, and that other all-absorbing question, Religion. And over
and over, and again and again, she pondered the meaning of it all. What
does it mean--this life of man, with all of its pleasures and pain, its
stress and strife, its joy and sorrow, its good and evil--for what is it
given? She had been taught to believe that it is a preparatory state, a
test or trial to ascertain how many are deserving of eternal bliss
hereafter. And although she struggled against it and refused to look
upon it, a picture persisted in painting itself upon her mental vision.
This was the picture of a father who placed his children, the weak and
the strong together, in an open field, and compelled them to till the
soil and to dig and delve in the ground. And at times he sent
punishment upon them, torment and torture and physical pain; while they,
the children, toiled on in blind and stupid ignorance, never knowing
what it was that had caused the father's wrath to descend upon them.
And the father sat calmly at a safe distance and stoically observed
their conduct. At the end of a certain period he intended to reward
those who had been very good and patient, and very submissive to his
will, with a beautiful home, while the others, those who had rebelled or
complained, or fallen by the wayside, he would drive into another field
and inflict punishment yet more dire upon them.
She never fully consented to look upon this picture, and she tried
always to blot it from her vision, to erase and destroy it, and yet as
often as she tried to do this she was horrified to find that by some
strange machination of her mind she was condemning, repudiating the
whole of creation, the scheme of the universe.
Her purpose in life was too honest, too sincere, her desires too pure to
admit of her taking any halfway ground on these questions that confused
and perplexed her. Her reading and research led her into many strange
and unfrequented byways--hazardous, she thought them sometimes, black
with peril--destruction, perhaps. And yet she had come to the place
where she must know--she for herself must know the truth. And while with
a trembling hand she shattered her old beliefs--graven images of
doctrine--she found nothing to take their place. The sincerity of her
life was crowding her off her old footing--but where? Over a precipice?
She felt it to be so, and then--what then? There were days when her mind
refused to act, when her mental faculties were in a state of paralysis.
Sometimes she fell into the old trick of her childhood, day dreaming.
At the close of one painful, troubled day she sat before her open fire,
her head against a pillow at the back of her chair. Her eyes were upon
the fire at her feet. The flames leaped fitfully from time to time, and
again fluttered among the embers. Slowly the gulf of the centuries was
bridged and she witnessed the creation of the first man--no great task
it appeared, for the dust of the earth furnished sufficient material. In
our human wisdom, finite though it is, we do not permit our children to
use edged tools--her eyes were on the red embers at her feet, and she
saw, glowing there, the thing which infinite wisdom gave to man; that
which was at once his glory and his undoing, a two-edged sword, deadly
keen--good and evil. It developed that this keen edged sword was hardly
the thing with which to prune and keep in order the luxurious garden set
apart for man on one corner of the footstool.
The unselfishness of Woman dates back to the Garden. No sooner had Eve
broken open the luscious apple and tasted its flavor than she offered to
divide it. And it was not within the nature of man to refuse so dainty a
morsel from a fair hand.
Then man began to wander over the face of the earth, footsore and
sinstained, and in due course of time came the great Sacrifice--the
spilling of blood--the Golgotha.
The smouldering fire shot into tiny tongues of flame and licked the
stones on the hearth--and yet what has the great Sacrifice accomplished?
Wherein is the efficacy? Hoping, fearing, faithless--ignorant,
suffering, despairing--this is Life. Men and women parade before us and
flaunt to the world that they are saved--saved from what? Or for what?
The shame and moral degradation, the pain and the anguish date back to
the Garden. Christ came to check it, but wherein are we better? The
poison is in our blood and the canker in our hearts; the flesh rots from
the bones and the soul reeks in iniquity; the senses long for the
fleshpots of Egypt, and with one accord we gather about the board, at
the feast of Belshazzer!
The flames died down, and the embers burned with a dull glow. Now a
hush fell over the room and the stillness of the place folded itself
about the woman motionless in her chair. The minutes slipped by and
time flowed on without a break or ripple to mark its passing. The great
calm stillness! Not only did it fill the room and lay like a garment
about the dreamer, it filled her heart and entered her soul, and as a
mother broods over her child and stills its restless wailing, it brooded
over her and stilled all her tumultuous, unholy pain, and the spell of
her turbulent, unwarrantable dream held her no longer.
Now the dull red coals turned to ashes and lay crumbling in the grate.
And into the waiting stillness, into the majesty of the silence there
breathed something divine. It radiated in the soft white light and
filled the room with its presence; and in sweet devotion before it knelt
Humility and Meekness and Loving-kindness; and all power was in its
hands of shining light, and all wisdom was in its star-pierced crown,
and all truth in the stillness of its utterance. Into the soft white
stillness, into the holy of holies, breathed this rarest gift of
God--Love. The mystic glory of it hung about the dreamer, and quivered
in the air, and throbbed and pulsed through the universe, and all things
fell into place and became part of the endless plan of the Creator.
Every unholy thought and every vagary of false belief fell away. The
iniquity of the ages, and all the crime and passion and suffering of men
became a cloud of vapor, like the misty foam on the ocean waves; but
beneath the foam-flecked waves lies the mighty volume of the sea, and
above them the limitless reach of the heavens. Now the mortal dream of
the Dust man and his short-lived Eden and subsequent suffering receded
into a shadowy delusion, and the reality of Life, and the substance of
eternal things unfolded and encompassed all creation.
Mrs. Thorpe stirred in her chair and felt the yielding of its cushioned
depths and the pressure of the pillow at her head. She heard the door
open and Pauline come into the room. She sat erect in her chair and
drew her hand across her forehead.
"Have you been asleep, dear?" Pauline asked.
"Perhaps, asleep and dreaming--it was a dream--yes, a dream, it was all
a dream." She brushed the hair from her temples, and again: "Was it all
a dream?"
*CHAPTER V*
*DR. ELDRIGE JR.*
Dr. Eldrige Jr. was a very different man from Dr. Eldrige his father.
What the elder man lacked in courtesy and kindness was abundantly
present in the son. He had studied under his father, practiced and
consulted with him; yet in the finer issues of life, its amenities and
its culture, their lives might be likened to the branches of a stream:
one followed a gorge of clay between banks of rocks and barren soil; the
other flowed quietly between green banks, over white sand and shining
pebbles.
The elder man had been known to remark that the rub and wear of life,
actual life as he had seen it, would change the color of his son's
views. If any man could practice medicine as many years as he had
practiced it, and not pronounce the whole human race a disgusting sham
and a blasted humbug, he pitied that man, for there must be considerable
of the fool in his make-up.
The son, however, was well content to go his way, seeing life as it
appeared to him, and doing what lay in his power to make rough places
smooth and ease the sufferings of humanity. He never undertook to
modify his father's views, and on all occasions when it was possible for
him to do so, he evaded crossing swords with him.
It was late one night when Dr. Eldrige Jr. left a poor home where he had
been attending a patient. A wretched, ill-kept home it was, whose
inmates seemed a thing apart from the divine creation. He stepped out
into the night, bared his head and breathed deep of the fresh, sweet
air. Above him was the tent of night, jeweled with stars, and at his
feet the dew-wet grass, the dwelling place of tiny dumb creatures that
cling to the earth's damp mold, and before him, like a blemish on
Nature's canvas, the home built and fashioned and kept by man.
He was a reverent man, with no inclination to shift the responsibility
of humanity's ignominious burden back upon the Maker. He had no
solution to offer for the problem of human sin and woe, and he did not
undertake to place the iniquity of existing conditions. His mission was
to minister to those who needed his service, and this he did whether he
found his patient in a palace or in a hovel.
Leaving the poor home where the sufferer lay, he came to the one
pretentious street of the Flat. There had been some sort of a
performance at the theatre, and the people were pouring out of the door.
He was hurrying by, anxious to avoid the crowd, when his attention was
attracted to a man and woman standing under the light of a lamp. The
man was talking in a low, rapid manner, and the woman seemed but half
inclined to agree to what he was saying. The doctor passed them
directly under the lamplight; but neither of them noticed him or looked
his way, he thought it very likely that they did not care to be seen by
him. But as he went on his way a very tempest of rage burned within him.
"And that," he ejaculated to himself, "is Max Morrison, the man who is
welcomed in the best homes in Edgerly! And Margaret, little Margaret,
whom the children used to call 'Lassie'!" His mind went back to his
boyhood days, when his father lived in a small village, and he and
Margaret went to the same school. That was before Margaret's father
died; he was the village blacksmith then, a hearty, whole-souled
Scotchman. And what a laughing, rosy child the little Lassie was then.
He remembered her temper, too, as did all who knew her at that time. He
was a well-grown boy then and Margaret but a bit of a girl, but he had
never forgotten her bright and winsome ways. Could this girl with the
hard lines on her dark face ever have been the child that he recalled?
He walked rapidly, his anger and indignation burning within him. He
climbed the long hill that led from the Flat up to the church, and
descended on the other side; past the parsonage with its sleeping
inmates, and on to his own home. Here he again bared his head and stood
quietly beneath the stars. The events of the evening oppressed him.
That Margaret had been beguiled from her home was, he knew, an open
secret in Edgerly. His face set in grim, hard lines.
"No one who cared to know," he was sure, "could be ignorant of the
character of the man who had led her to her downfall."
The next morning the doctor visited his poor patient again, and found
his condition improved. The light of reason was again in his eyes, and
it was evident that he clung to life with as much desire as the most
favored prince of earth clings to it.
On his return he passed the Mayhew home. A party of young people, with
Mrs. Mayhew as chaperon, were starting for a day's outing among the
hills. A carriage stood at the curb; he bowed to Max Morrison, who was
holding the spirited horses. Geraldine Vane, who was ready to enter the
carriage, greeted him pleasantly. He lifted his hat to her, and she
looked into his face.
"Is not this a beautiful morning for a drive?" she said.
"It is indeed a beautiful morning," he replied, but there was a coldness
in his voice and his brows were contracted. Yet, as he went on his way
he was sure that Geraldine's pure white face was the fairest that God's
sun ever shone upon. He watched the carriage as it turned a corner into
a street that led to a country road; and all the heart within him cried
out against the vision of those two, Max and Geraldine, drinking in the
beauty of fields and byways, earth and sky--those two together!
When he reached his office he found his father in a fit of ill-temper.
This, however, was quite a chronic condition with the old doctor.
"You've been practicing among the Flat scrubs again," he said to his
son. "Strange you cannot let the miserable curs die and the earth be
rid of them."
The son paid little heed to his father's coarse bluster.
"They may be scrubs," he replied in his smooth, even tones, "and they
may be curs, in fact, I think you are right, father, they are scrubs and
curs over on the Flat, and perhaps the earth would be better off without
them; nevertheless they are men, and my work lies among men." And this
quiet argument silenced the old doctor, if it did not stay his wrath.
During the long, hot summer there was much sickness on the Flat, and Dr.
Eldrige Jr. spent much of his time among the sufferers. The heat was
intense, and the heavens withheld the rain, the earth became dry and
parched, and the dust lay thick on the meagre foliage. The name of Dr.
Eldrige Jr. became a magic word in that suffering district. Hard faces
grew tender and harsh words died upon the lips when his name was spoken.
And day by day he went quietly about his work, relieving pain and caring
tenderly for neglected old age, hardened criminals and suffering
children. And hardened men and careworn women felt the stirring of new
emotions within them and knew that the world is not all bad, nor life
altogether bitter.
The summer days slipped by and the frost of autumn, Nature's tonic, came
to aid the doctor in his efforts; and life, wretched at best, assumed
its usual aspect on the Flat.
On his return from his round of visits one day the young doctor was met
by his father, who was in a towering rage.
"Spending your time in the Flat filth," he growled. "Haven't you brains
enough to keep out of the cursed mire? Here you are, able to minister
to the puppets in high places, who, for want of better employment, spend
their time nursing their aches and pains, and are proud of the size of
their doctors' bills. You can dope them and dupe them quite as well as
I can. Now here's a message from the Reverend Maurice Thorpe. It came
an hour ago. Mrs. Thorpe has another attack of headache. Whatever that
woman does to bring on those cursed spells is more than I know. If it
were not for the holy fool her husband is, I should think she quarreled
with him. But whatever the trouble is, all the reverends and the chosen
of the Lord could go into fits and the earth be rid of them while you
are to your ears in Flat mire. Now make yourself presentable and go and
give Mrs. Thorpe a dose of morphine."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. hastened to do his father's bidding; not because of the
old man's wrath and ire, but because he knew something of the severity
of Mrs. Thorpe's attacks, and felt a very sincere sympathy for her. He
found her walking to and fro in her room. She wore a crimson dressing
gown, which fell loosely about her form. Her hair hung in disorder over
her shoulders and rippled down her back; but she was all unconscious of
her appearance. Her hands were clasped against her temples, and there
was a frenzied look in her eyes, and dark blue marks lay beneath them.
A white line, indicating intense pain, was drawn about her mouth.
She recognized Dr. Eldrige Jr. when he entered the room, but the fact
that it was his father instead whom she had expected to see, caused her
to suffer a nervous shock. She faltered in her walking and swayed
uncertainly. Pauline, who was with her, sprang to her assistance.
Dr. Eldrige Jr. laid his hand on her shoulder and requested her to be
seated. But she paid not the slightest attention to his request, and
with eyes fixed on the floor, began again her restless walking.
"Perhaps she does not even hear you," said Pauline, "Sometimes when the
pain is so intense we think she neither sees nor hears."
The doctor laid his hand on her arm and pushed the loose sleeve up to
her shoulder, and in a voice that she obeyed without conscious volition,
he commanded her to be quiet; then dexterously injected a dose of
morphine into the flesh of her upper arm.
It was not long before her head drooped forward and her limbs seemed to
grow weary, and then it was not difficult to place her comfortably upon
a couch, where she soon fell into a troubled sleep. The doctor remained
beside her for some time; then he prepared a powder to be given when she
awoke, and took his departure.
When he returned to his office he said to his father: "I see nothing
unusual about the nature of Mrs. Thorpe's headache; the pain seemed more
intense than ordinary, yet it appears very like a common megrim."
"Megrim be blasted!" growled the doctor. "There's something more the
matter with that woman than you or I know anything about. She's a
brainy wench, and I have thought that perhaps she may be trying to find
out the why and wherefore of some of the common-place things in this old
world of ours. I tell you, my boy, when the Lord put Adam out of the
Garden for fear he might take on too much knowledge, and set him working
for his living, it showed mighty plain that there are a lot of things in
this old world of ours that he never intended for man to find out. Mrs.
Thorpe's mind is at the bottom of this trouble; she has let it get the
upper hand of her. And I don't know but an over-dose of morphine would
be the best thing for her now. It wouldn't sound bad to say that Mrs.
Thorpe, wife of the Reverend Maurice Thorpe, died of heart failure
during one of her nervous attacks."
*CHAPTER VI*
*PHYSICIAN AND FRIEND*
The next day a message came for Dr. Eldrige Jr. which took him past the
parsonage. On his return he called on Mrs. Thorpe.
Pauline answered his ring. "Mrs. Thorpe will be pleased to see you,"
she said. "She is feeling better to-day."
Mrs. Thorpe received him cordially. "It is kind of you to call," she
said. "I am quite myself again to-day. My headaches are usually of
short duration. You doctors relieve me for the time; but I live in
continual dread of the next attack. If only I could know what it is
that causes this trouble there is nothing I would not do to eradicate
it; for I believe if this could be overcome I should have my health
again."
Dr. Eldrige recalled what his father had said about the mental condition
of this woman. Could he probe her inner life and ferret out the cause
of her trouble? Under the circumstances would it be right for him to do
so, if he could? With these questions in mind he engaged her in easy
conventional conversation, and without a suspicion of the fact on her
part, he studied her face and watched her movements with quiet
intensity. He desired to do all that he could for his patient's
physical welfare; and the heart and mind have so great an influence over
the body, that just how far a physician has a right to seek and search
becomes a finely balanced question. He resolved to give her an
opportunity to be frank with him if she cared to do so, but if there was
anything she desired to conceal he would not intrude upon her secrecy.
"The cause of your trouble, Mrs. Thorpe, may be beyond the reach of
doctors' skill. There are many ills that a physician is able to
alleviate, but there may be inducing causes that no physician is able to
discover."
She waited some moments before she spoke, and the doctor's eyes were
upon her expectantly.
"The fate of the whole human race lies with you physicians," she said.
"There is scarcely one on this earth who is every whit whole. And those
for whom you cannot prescribe--?" She stopped short, and her eyes
flashed abruptly into his.
The doctor saw that she had missed the import of his words, and he
believed that she attributed to them a meaning that could not fail to
distress her, and he hastened to correct his mistake.
"I did not mean to intimate that your trouble is beyond a physician's
reach, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. "Yours is what my father calls a 'case of
nerves.'"
She put out her hands as though to entreat him to desist. Always in her
intercourse with the old doctor she had felt a reticence that made it
impossible for her to talk with him, except on strictly professional
topics; but there was something in this man's face, a plain, clear-cut
face it was, and in his manner, kind and sympathetic, that inspired her
confidence.
"I know," she said, "that mine is a nervous trouble, but must we admit
that there is pain in this world for which there is no remedy? Maladies
for which there is no physician? Must we admit the situation to be
true, and stand helpless before it, that certain forms of suffering,
deadly in their nature, have been laid upon humanity, for which no
antidote has been given? It cannot be--this cannot be true, else what is
the inference?"
"You have misunderstood my meaning, Mrs. Thorpe. You should have heard
me out. I beg of you not to believe that I consider your trouble one
for which there is no remedy. I meant only to call your attention to
the fact that a great variety of causes may be responsible for nervous
troubles. We look, naturally, for a physical cause, for a physical
ailment; yet it is a mistake to believe that this must always be the
case. It sometimes happens that the mind is largely responsible for the
physical condition."
She waited again before she spoke. Her hands lay idly in her lap, but
the doctor noticed that she was not in a state of relaxation, but that
there was a restrained energy in attitude and manner.
"I think that you in your turn have misunderstood me, Dr. Eldrige," she
said. "I deplore my own condition, certainly, but a menace to human
happiness lies in the fact that the whole race is heir to the sufferings
of the individual. Mine is not an isolated case. I am but one of the
great world-wide family that is bound on the altar of human suffering."
Now the doctor saw that Mrs. Thorpe was discussing a subject broader
than her own personal disability, and the first inkling of the truth
came to him; and with it there came also an illumination of the woman's
character. He saw her love for humanity and her compassion for its
woes; and with keen perception he was able to understand something of
her futile efforts toward an adjustment of existing conditions that
might, to her own mind, seem fair and just. And great as was his
concern for her physical condition, he now felt this to be of small
importance compared to his desire to help her out of her mental dilemma.
But the difficulty was as real to him as it was to her, yet there was
this difference: it was a difficulty that he admitted, accepted, and
dismissed from his thoughts, while with her he saw that it was rending
the very fibre of her life and distorting her mental vision. But keenly
as he realized the situation, he found no word of help to offer her, and
so he said:
"I fear we shall find our task an arduous one, and unprofitable as well,
if we undertake to account for humanity's burden."
"Whether we can account for it or not," she replied, "we, the children
of a common Father, are sordidly indifferent to it. We go about our
affairs during our waking hours with a sort of a pitiful gratitude
toward the monster Disease, if by good fortune we have escaped him; we
go to our rest at night, and if we are free from the fell hand, we
sleep, while thousands and thousands of creatures, divinely made, are
wrestling with mortal pain."
The doctor's eyes were upon her; not a movement, nor an expression of
her face escaped him. He saw that the pupils of her eyes were dilated,
and that a peculiar light burned within them; and he noticed that it was
necessary for her to make a greater effort in order to control the
nervous energy that possessed her. There was a ring of reckless protest
in her voice as she continued:
"Is this a haphazard world, Dr. Eldrige, where men escape by chance, or
are overwhelmed by circumstance? Is there no overruling power, no fixed
law to which men may conform, and by which they may be governed and
protected, even to the extent that our man-made laws govern and protect
those who conform to them? I have been over this ground so many times;
I have questioned and reasoned and studied, and yet I have
learned--nothing at all."
Her hands fell to her sides with a nervous movement, but her face was
averted now, as though she would not have him see its expression.
The doctor thought of what his father had said about the limitations the
Lord has placed on human knowledge. He did not for a moment admit that
there was a grain of truth in the theory, in fact he believed it to be
one of his father's queer jests; yet the thought came to him that the
woman before him seemed an actual demonstration of such a theory. But
his answer was far from the thought and was intended to turn her mind to
a more practical consideration of the subject.
"There are many laws of Nature that are intended to protect mankind.
Our safety lies in obeying them; if we disobey, a penalty must be paid,
and though the penalty may seem severe, or even, to us, unjust, this
should but teach us to be the more obedient and circumspect."
"Do you believe that physical disability is always the result of a
broken law of Nature?" The question was direct, incisive, and her eyes
were upon him, demanding the truth.
He answered her truthfully, yet because of his own lack of knowledge,
evasively:
"Not a direct result always, perhaps; some maladies are constitutional,
inherited from some ancestor, it may be."
"Yes, it may be," she replied. She seemed quieter now, but there was an
unmistakable accent of scorn in her voice.
"It may be. I have observed that where it comes to a question that
concerns humanity high and low, the world over, it is very likely to be
all guesswork with us."
There was a moment's silence, and her ever-varying mood changed again,
and when she spoke her words came rapidly and there was a gleaming fire
in her eyes.
"And if we do inherit our diseases, to whom are we indebted for this
heritage? We may say to some ancestor, and if there is any uncertainty
about it we make him as remote as possible. But where did he get it,
where did he get this thing that has been fought and battled through all
the years of its existence, yet has proven itself invulnerable? Give me
the origin of disease. Who conceived it? Who created it? What is its
mission--? this thing that is stronger than man--stronger than his
Maker--" Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper. "If there are two
powers in this world, and this cruel, monstrous thing we call disease is
the stronger of the two, what folly for man to struggle or resist. Oh,
to know--to _know_--if only one could _know_!" Her voice fell and broke
in a gasping sob, and she covered her face with her hands.
Dr. Eldrige did not betray by word or look that Mrs. Thorpe had
disclosed to him the trouble that was preying on her mind, and he did
not forget his professional duties. He had gained the knowledge that he
desired to possess, yet the fact that this woman had allowed her mind to
dwell on subjects of a religious nature until her health suffered and
her reason was threatened was of no particular importance to him unless
he could use his knowledge for her benefit; and now the question
confronted him: had he the wisdom and tact to do this?
"Mrs. Thorpe," he said, "you have allowed your mind to dwell too long on
this subject. As your physician I advise you to put this thing wholly
from you."
But he saw her face grow white and her eyes dilate, and he thought best
to change his tactics. He dropped his professional manner, or rather it
seemed to slip from him. Before such need as this he felt that a mere
physician must stand helpless and disarmed; but the man within him was
ready to give in friendship's name all that could be given. Yet, the
realization of his own lack of knowledge again arose before him and
seemed almost to jeer and jest at his ignorance. But with scarcely a
moment's hesitation, although fighting for the mastery of his own
discordant thoughts, he decided to try once more to give this woman
before him something practical and tangible for her mind to dwell upon.
"There are some things in this world that we cannot know," he said.
"Perhaps it was intended that we should not know them. This we do know,
that a pursuit of knowledge concerning them cannot benefit us, cannot
fail to do us harm. And there is consolation, or at least exculpation,
for us in the fact that this is God's world. He created it, he is
responsible--we are not. We have only to take life as we find it, and
make the best we can of it; we have no right to burden ourselves
further."
In thus making it appear as though it is the Infinite One, and not
finite man, who is responsible for the world's discords, Dr. Eldrige Jr.
did not express a sincere conviction, but he felt that it would be a
great indiscretion to enter into any argument or discussion with Mrs.
Thorpe at this time, and he sincerely hoped that she might catch some
suggestion from his words that would tend to quiet her troubled mind.
Yet, despite his good intentions, he was conscious of a haunting thought
that for a deadly malady he was giving a medicine whose only virtue lay
in its being smooth to the taste.
Mrs. Thorpe saw the flaw in his logic, and to her distorted vision it
seemed like a fault in the Infinite plan; but she said no more. She was
already sick at heart over what she considered her indiscretion. And
she felt guilty of a sort of infidelity to her husband for having given
voice to heresies that she knew would displease and offend him, and a
thousand troubled thoughts surged through her brain. The glow had left
her face and it now appeared pale and cold, and her eyes that had burned
with so bright a light seemed dull as though covered with mist. Her
voice, too, had lost its life and ring.
"You have been very kind to me, Dr. Eldrige," she said, "and I thank
you."
The doctor arose to take his departure. "I have advised you both as a
physician and a friend," he said, "to rid your mind of this unhappy
train of thought, and I will add, find something to take up your time
and attention; let it be amusing, entertaining, frivolous if you like,
but give it your entire attention."
Mrs. Thorpe had arisen and stood confronting him. She now extended her
hand to him, and her unfathomable eyes looked into his.
"You are my friend, Dr. Eldrige," she said. There was the conviction of
a statement in the words, yet a catch in her voice and the intonation
made it seem almost a question.
The doctor was quick of perception; instantly he understood her unworded
request. He took her hand in his.
"I am your friend," he said, in a voice of utmost respect and sincerest
sympathy. "And before God I will help you in any way that I can."
After the doctor left her, Mrs. Thorpe stood at her window and looked
out at the somber autumn day. A gray mist hung in the air and red and
yellow leaves lay in heaps in the corners of the yard. With her old
habit still strong upon her, Mrs. Thorpe fell into reverie.
"Nature nursed the tiny leaves into life," she mused; "gave them form
and color and permitted them to sport in happy freedom through all the
days of summer, and now at the approach of winter she has bedecked them
in gorgeous array."
And then the very subject that the doctor had so painstakingly warned
her against presented itself to her in every form and shape that it was
possible for it to assume.
"There is no pain nor suffering in this changing process," she thought;
"even when disintegration sets in there is no reason to believe that a
leaf or plant or flower feels the downward process to which it is
subjected. This heritage of suffering, the realization of corruption
and pollution, has been reserved for man--man, who of all the creatures
of God's creation has been made the most susceptible to pain and woe.
The vine flings its blood-colored leaves to the breeze, oblivious of
time or change. The great trees reach their arms to the sky and stand
secure in their native strength. How complete is the harmony between
all growing things and Nature's laws that govern them."
When thinking deeply Mrs. Thorpe often experienced the strange
phenomenon of having her thoughts suddenly, and without her conscious
will, revert to some irrelevant circumstance or event apparently
forgotten. Vividly before her now there flashed the vision of a little
girl, who in her childish mind firmly believed that there were two Gods,
a good one and a bad one. She gave a low shriek and covered her face
with her hands.
"I have been worshiping the bad God!" she whispered.
Pauline, who was busy in an adjoining room, thought she heard a peculiar
sound, and came into the room. She found Mrs. Thorpe reclining in an
easy chair near the window.
"Are you feeling well, Evelyn?" she asked.
"As well as usual, I think," Mrs. Thorpe replied. Then she leaned back
in her chair and closed her eyes. It was another bitter drop in her cup,
the bitterest one of all, perhaps, that she could not prevent wild
impulses and strange fancies from flitting through her brain. She might
be obliged to yield her body to this unknown power that no man could
explain or trace to its origin, but with all the force of her nature she
fought against yielding her brain and will as well.
There was with her a continual sense of discord and irritation; small,
trivial things upset her mental balance and rendered her trying and
exacting with those about her. Secretly, she resented the close
companionship of Pauline; she chaffed over the way many small tasks were
performed, and often felt hurt and miserable, and all sorts of unhappy
fancies dwelt in her mind.
Those were dark days at the parsonage. Daily the pastor knelt in prayer
and implored the gracious Father to restore health and strength to the
dear one suffering under His hand.
Mrs. Thorpe grew more frail and her health continued to decline during
the winter. She would sometimes sit for hours thinking or dreaming, her
hands folded idly in her lap, her eyes on the glowing fire. But no hint
of the trend of her thoughts ever escaped her. Whatever problems
presented themselves to her, she found their solution alone or not at
all; from whatever premise she reasoned, she reasoned alone, without a
hint or help to guide her, and her conclusions were always the
deductions of her own brain, but flavored and colored, no doubt, by the
writers, ancient and modern, sacred and secular, whose convictions and
beliefs she had read, measured and weighed.
There were two reasons for her rigid silence. One of these was the
natural proclivity from the days of her childhood to keep within her own
heart the things that troubled and puzzled her. The other reason was
much more complex, and added materially to the burden that she carried.
Her husband, scholarly, thoughtful, gentle and reverent, was, she knew,
flint and steel where the doctrines and dogmas of his church were
concerned, and would, she believed, yield up his life as readily as any
martyr of old had ever done, rather than yield one principle of his
faith or compromise one conviction.
Her domestic relations had been particularly happy; her husband's faith
and confidence in her were complete. And dear to her as the breath to
her nostrils was his love and approbation. And the more surely she felt
the structure of her life, her aims and purposes, her hopes and
aspirations falling in ruins about her, the more passionately she clung
to this, the one thing that was left her, beautiful and unimpaired. What
was all that she had suffered, or all that she could suffer while her
husband's faith in her remained, compared to what must follow should he
learn that she had withdrawn from him spiritually, forsaken the
principles that were strong within him as the fibres of his life,
repudiated the sacred tenets of his church? A sort of prayer had worded
itself in her brain that she be not spared in bodily pain nor mental
suffering, that no portion of the burden she bore be removed, if
thereby, in life or death, her husband must know that she had proven
faithless to the principles of his faith.
*CHAPTER VII*
*MRS. THORPE'S MOUNTAINS*
The ice king reigned. Ice bound, snow covered, the world lay white and
still in the embrace of winter. Nature had closed her laboratory and
turned the key; all the wonderful things in her store-rooms were waiting
and resting. The tiny rootlets were deaf to the moaning wind; the stern
and sturdy trees tossed their branches to the sky and defied the storms
in their rage to tear from them the life force which they guarded; the
ice-locked lakes and rivers joined in the great white stillness.
It was the time of year when the Star appeared in the East and wise men
journeyed far to visit the Child; the time when the shepherds were
aroused by the heavenly visitants, and angels proclaimed that the
world's Redeemer was born and that the good tidings were for all men.
Nevertheless, at this anniversary of the Redeemer's birth there were
hearts in Edgerly in which rankled bitterness and envy, and where burned
hatred and despair. Children, poorly clad, pale and thin, shivered
along the streets of the city, and men and women faced the biting blast
and dreamed of the return of the season that should warm and comfort
them.
But these things were not in Maurice Thorpe's mind when he prepared his
Christmas sermon. His purpose was to give to his people at this most
blessed season something that would comfort them and bring peace, even
the peace that had been proclaimed to their hearts.
The sweet hush of the Sabbath brooded over the church and lay like a
benediction over the parsonage. The winter sunshine, warm and mellow,
sifted through the windows and added to the warmth and glow of Mrs.
Thorpe's apartment. In her clinging crimson gown, which brought into
strong relief her white drawn face and luminous dark eyes, she appeared
almost as though she might be a being from some other world.
"The morning is fine," said Mr. Thorpe, "and the air will do you good.
It has been a long time since you attended church, Evelyn. Make
yourself ready and go with me to-day."
Mrs. Thorpe avoided her husband's eyes. Could she trust herself to go?
Dare she trust herself to refuse? Mr. Thorpe overruled her excuse of
illness and insisted that going out would do her good.
Without further protest she yielded to his wishes and accompanied him.
It was the Sunday before Christmas. The air was crisp and keen and
brought a freshness and a bit of color to their faces as they climbed
the incline to the church.
The solemn strains of the organ began in a hushed minor key and
increased in volume and tone until they rang and vibrated through the
farthest corner of the room. The melody was now pleading and plaintive,
like a voice filled with passionate longing, and again solemn and grand
as the longing glided into fulfillment, and at last triumphant,
victorious--
"All is well with the world."
Geraldine Vane, a little lower than the angels, her blue eyes like stars
and her yellow hair like a halo of light, put her own heart-pulse into
the music. In the anthem that followed, Max Morrison's strong, clear
voice rang out the joyful message:
"Peace on earth, good-will, good-will to men."
The congregation joined in singing a song and the words burned
themselves into Mrs. Thorpe's brain and caused her heart to quiver and
her soul to writhe--
"Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace, nor wash away the stain.
But Christ the heavenly lamb takes all our sins away.
A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.
My soul looks back to see the burden Thou didst bear
While hanging on the cursed tree, and knows his guilt was
there."
The Reverend Maurice Thorpe then stepped forward and gave the waiting
audience his text:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoso believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The pastor's voice was musical and cultured and the words of the text as
he uttered them met with a magnetic response from the audience. This
silent applause, this outpouring of the commendation of his hearers was
as manifest to Mr. Thorpe as though it had been demonstrated by visible
signs or audible words; as manifest and more satisfactory, for the sense
of exultation which it gave him was perceived by no one save himself.
Sensitive and responsive, he always knew in what spirit his people
received his text. He read their faces as an open book, and took his
keynote from them. It was this intangible method of getting at the
hearts of his people that made it possible for him to comfort and
satisfy them, while preaching the most orthodox doctrine and restricted
creed.
Mrs. Thorpe's battle began with the text. She kept her eyes withdrawn
from the pastor's face and she endeavored to keep her mind from dwelling
wholly on what he was saying. She thought of the long line of
snow-capped homes that led up to the church; and about her heart there
clutched a hardness cold and unyielding as the frost king's embrace of
the earth. Each building and frost-hung shrub and white-branched tree
reared itself into a mountain of ice and snow. And Mrs. Thorpe felt
that just such a range of ice-bound mountains, relentless, forbidding,
impassable, lay between her and the love of God.
The pastor, with nice discernment, was able to give his voice just the
proper pitch and volume to cause it to fill the room; every word was
carefully articulated, clear and distinct:
"From the beginning, man, the crowning work of God's hand, manifested a
disposition to disobey, and this disobedience plunged the world into a
chaos of sin and disorder. From the earliest record we see man
demonstrating his evil nature, his tendency to sin and all
unrighteousness.... The priests of old endeavored to cleanse and purify
from sin. Moses was chosen the deliverer of the Lord's ancient people;
David in his day was called to rule over them; Solomon was given wisdom
with which to direct them; Jeremiah threatened them with destruction;
and Habakkuk exhorted them to a renewal of righteousness and prayed the
Lord to be merciful to them. But the downward tendency was inherent
within them and the record of man is one long record of sin and
unfaithfulness....
"From time to time, owing to the wickedness of the people, it became
necessary to visit punishment and destruction upon them. And many
sacrifices were offered to God for the sins of the people. Lambs were
slain and offered upon consecrated altars; goats and bullocks were
sacrificed and altars ran red with the blood that was shed to wash away
the still more crimson stain of men's sins. But there came a time when
a long-suffering God could not thus be appeased; there came a time my
friends, my brothers, _there came a time_ when the blood of goats and
bullocks was not sufficient to wash away the sins of man; was not
sufficient to appease the wrath of Almighty God. When this time came,
the only begotten Son was given into the hands of men to be
crucified....
"A child, a little, helpless child, was cradled in a manger and
ministered to by His Virgin mother. No man has trod nor can ever tread
the pathway of pain and suffering that lay before this child, given to
die for the sins of men. No man can drink the cup that He drank, or
suffer the anguish that He suffered. He must die upon a cross, scorned
and reviled by the world He came to save.... In the blood of His own
beloved Son God wiped out the sins of the world, and so great is the
corruption in which the children of men are steeped, that had one drop
in the bitter cup, one sigh of anguish in the Garden, one nail that
pierced the defenseless hand of the Christ been spared, the God of
righteousness and justice would not have been appeased. This, then,
this sacrifice sealed in blood, is the price of your salvation and mine,
and there is no other way under heaven whereby men may be saved. Our
pardon has been bought with the innocent blood of a crucified Savior."
Mrs. Thorpe felt her breath coming in short, quick gasps. Her cheeks
were a scarlet flame and a white line was drawn about her mouth. How
could men live and praise and exult under this carnage of blood! Where
should she fly--how escape? Was there no way out of this--_this_--THIS!
Was it inevitable, irrevocable, that she must reap the benefit of this
awful carnage, this slaughter of a world's Redeemer? Who had at her
birth, yea, before she was born, laid upon her sins for which another
was called to suffer--who had dared to do this? If a blood sacrifice
was required for her conscious sins, then her blood it should be--not
another's--not innocent blood for culpable sin!
But the acme of her suffering lay in the thought that the God of the
world had decreed this thing, in His own heart He had conceived it, from
the beginning He had foreseen it--premeditated it. What wonder that
chaos reigns in His world? What wonder that the children of His
creation have from the beginning gone astray? What wonder that envy and
hatred, strife, bitterness and despair live and flourish? Can man rise
above his conception of his Creator? Can he consistently worship a God
who had planned and caused to be done a thing from which the
compassionate human heart must shrink and human hand must stay? Is not
the whole story of the Creation, the Fall, the Sacrifice, the
Redemption, as we have heard it in all its harrowing details, absurd,
deplorable, culpable? Can we in sincerity acknowledge ourselves guilty
of a sin for which we are not responsible, and grateful to a Creator
who, possessing absolute power, fashioned men free in will and action,
and then forced upon them the blood of His own innocent Son to save them
from the consequences of their freedom?
Yet, bewildered and entangled as Mrs. Thorpe felt herself to be, in this
labyrinth of doubt and rebellion, she was aware that other thoughts than
these were tapping at the door of her consciousness; tapping and
pleading for admission. Deep in her heart soil a grain of truth was
throwing out its penetrating rootlets and struggling toward the light.
But so completely would these thoughts, if admitted and accepted, uproot
every preconceived idea, so entirely would they cast out and destroy
that which all her life she had been taught to believe, that their
pleading for admittance but increased the confusion of her thoughts and
rendered her mental state more chaotic.
When the service was over Mrs. Thorpe became aware that many eyes,
curious and sympathetic, were upon her; yet few of her friends spoke to
her, for there was an unwritten law that no one should go out of the way
to speak to another and that little demonstration should be made inside
the church. All was orderly and dignified and befitting the house of
the Lord. Strangers came and went; newcomers felt the chill of
propriety that pervaded the atmosphere, and the old members felt it,
too, and gloried in it.
In her fertile brain Mrs. Thorpe beheld them all, the old members and
the new, and the strangers among them, as in a vision, and all were
trying to climb the mountains of ice, trying to reach Heaven over a
pathway of cold indifference and fixed and rigid form.
Mr. Thorpe joined his wife near the church door and he put his arm
protectingly about her as she descended the church steps. He felt that
the Lord had been specially kind to give her strength to be present at
this service.
Pauline preceded them and was already in the kitchen overseeing the
dinner when they arrived. Mrs. Thorpe went directly to her room and,
removing her wraps, sank down in her easy chair. Her eyes were dry and
bright, but she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders
quivered as if beneath a load.
"Never again," she moaned, "never again can I trust myself to hear his
voice from the pulpit."
The admission wrung her heart and hurt her as hearts are wrung and hurt
when some dear one passes from view of mortal sight.
Pauline tapped at the door and announced dinner. Mrs. Thorpe arose and
stood for a moment before her fire.
"If there were a God," she whispered, "if there were a God, loving and
strong and powerful--oh, a God who cares for His own, how passionately
would I beseech Him to be with me now, to help and uphold me!" She
walked over and opened her door. "There really should be such a
God--Friend--Father," she continued in an undertone, "for we need Him
so!"
Mr. Thorpe and Pauline were awaiting her in the dining-room. Mr.
Thorpe, who was never lacking in the small courtesies of the home,
seated her at the table and took his place opposite.
"I am glad to see that the exertion of the morning has not overtried
your strength, my dear," he said. "Your face in the congregation is an
inspiration to me. I hope you will be able to attend regularly
hereafter."
Pauline, whose insight was keener than the pastor's, divined that all
was not well with Mrs. Thorpe, and broached another subject.
"The church was well filled this morning," she remarked.
"Yes," said Mr. Thorpe. "There seems to be something about the
Christmas season that touches all hearts. And I think the Savior's
birth means more to the world every year."
"Is this because men's hearts are changing," asked Mrs. Thorpe, "or do
we understand Christ's mission better?"
"I think the religious world realizes as it never has before the
greatness of the sacrifice that has been made for humanity," replied Mr.
Thorpe. "We may call it Christ's mission if we like, but I prefer the
term sacrifice in connection with Him who was born to die that we might
live."
The flow of talk continued, but as it often happened, Pauline and Mr.
Thorpe kept up the conversation. Mrs. Thorpe did not venture another
remark, and after the meal went directly to her room. Her husband
followed her and seated himself before her open fire. Neither spoke for
a few moments, and the pastor reached for a book that lay on a stand
nearby. Mrs. Thorpe saw the movement and moved as though to intercept
him; but the book was in his hand. It was a small volume bound in white
and gold.
Mrs. Thorpe lay back in her chair and her face framed with her dark hair
seemed drawn and white as it lay against the scarlet cushion.
"What have you here, my dear? What are you reading nowadays?" asked Mr.
Thorpe in a full, smooth voice. And something in the tone caused Mrs.
Thorpe's heart to vibrate as to a well-loved melody. How she loved this
man; bowed to him, reverenced him. She did not answer him now, she did
not stir nor turn her head.
Mr. Thorpe opened the little book at random and his eyes fell upon the
following: "God is a spirit and they who worship Him must worship him in
spirit and in truth.
"It is difficult to understand how the idea of God as a personal being
of power and wrath has taken so strong a hold upon men's minds. Not
until this idea is eliminated, totally overcome and cast out, can we
know our God as He is, and understand the divine mission that Christ
came to perform....
"The Son of God became incarnate on the earth--not to die for men's
sins--albeit a cruel and misguided people crucified Him--but by His life
to teach the Truth of Life. Not to die the death of a martyr, not to
offer a human sacrifice to a God of love, but to teach the children of
God's creation to live."
Mr. Thorpe closed the book with his forefinger at the place. Mrs.
Thorpe felt, rather than saw, his eyes upon her and she turned and
looked into his face.
"Evelyn," he said, "what have you here? Where did you get this--this
absurd book?"
Mrs. Thorpe did not answer him; instead she sank back into her chair and
closed her eyes.
Mr. Thorpe regarded her for a moment, then he opened the book again and
ran his eyes down the page. He halted at this paragraph:
"It may be true that the reluctance with which men change their
conception of God, their propensity to cling to the creed and doctrines
which have been handed down to them, serves to keep their hearts
reverent and worshipful; nevertheless that which is false, all that is
erroneous and misleading must die. The world to-day is demanding the
truth about the deep hidden things of God.
"No matter how sacred a teaching or belief may have been to our
forefathers, nor how efficacious it seemed to meet their needs, we must
know that while the immortal Truth changes not, the ideas of men
concerning it have changed with the process of the ages. Does anyone
believe that while we are progressing in every line of industry, art and
science, that to be Christian we must continue to stand in our religious
convictions where our forefathers stood?"
Mr. Thorpe glanced at his wife. She had not changed her position, but
he noticed a twitching of her eyelids and that the color had rushed into
her face, burning her cheeks to a scarlet flame. He did not speak, but
continued the next paragraph.
"Let us, then, with all reverence yet unafraid, seek the saving truth of
God, strip it of creed and form, remove the tattered garment of
prejudice and bigotry, lay low the orthodox beliefs which, while
claiming to house and shelter this divine Truth, have hedged it about
and endeavored to limit it to that which mortal hands have bound upon
church altars."
Mr. Thorpe closed the book sharply, then opened it again and looked for
the writer's name. It was a new name to him. He laid the book back on
the stand and stepped to his wife's side. He laid his hand gently on
her hair.
"Evelyn," he said, "how came you by that book?"
She looked full into his face and answered directly: "I found it in a
book-store, down town."
"And you bought it, Evelyn?"
"Yes."
Mr. Thorpe went back to the table, and he saw there another book, one
that he had not noticed before. This one was bound in black leather and
stamped in gilt. On the cover there was stamped a circle of gilt, and
around the circle were these words: "Heal the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." Inside the circle was a cross and
a crown. Mr. Thorpe recognized this book, he knew it by sight. He did
not touch it now, however, but pointing to it he addressed his wife:
"And this book, is this one yours, too, Evelyn?"
"No," she replied, "that is one Mrs. Vane let me take."
Mr. Thorpe resumed his seat by the fire.
"If I believed it necessary to warn you against this sort of reading,"
he said, "or to caution you against these distortions of the Scripture,
I hope I should not hesitate in doing my duty; but I feel that any such
warning or caution would imply a lack of faith in your honor, and in
your fidelity to your church vows. I have confidence in your judgment,
Evelyn, and faith in your sincerity, but I request you to return Mrs.
Vane's book at your earliest convenience."
"I had intended to do so," she said, "and shall attend to it to-morrow."
Her voice was not quite steady.
She took the offending volumes and laid them on a shelf in the curtained
alcove. She felt a sickening sensation creep over her, a sense of
dishonor and of disloyalty to her husband.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*STRANDED*
Mrs. Thorpe sat in her room one morning, a piece of needlework in her
hands. It was a beautiful piece of work and she held it from her and
looked at it critically.
"You are my sedative," she said. "When a heart cries for God and cannot
find Him; when a sacrilegious questioner tries to solve some of the
problems of this life, or to learn the cause of this great world's
woe--when one is so lacking in judgment as to try to do this, serious
trouble is likely to follow and then one must have something, really
must have something to distract the mind for a time." She gave an odd
little laugh and drew her work to her.
A phantasm of her imagination had caused her to discard her books.
Whenever she opened a book and prepared to read, a phantom form, sable
and somber, peered over her shoulder and read with her.
Then she resolved to read no more books and to think as little as
possible about those she had read; and to this end she had taken up
needlework. She knew what her condition was physically, and realized
that it was only by the exertion of her will power that her mind, too,
was not a wreck. She had a curious habit of looking at her mind and
brain as something apart from herself, and as another personality she
studied their condition.
[Illustration: "HE TOOK HER IN HIS ARMS AS THOUGH SHE WERE A LITTLE
CHILD" (page 97)]
When she discarded her books, the phantom disappeared for a time, and
she believed that she had exorcised it. But after a time she saw that
she was mistaken in this, for it returned at intervals, more grim and
determined than before. It never made a sudden impression on her, and
it never startled her; but always when she became aware of its presence
she felt that it had been with her all the time--always, only she had
not recognized it. Then silently it would jeer at her blindness and
dullness of perception, and triumphantly assert that no one on whom it
fixed its choice ever eluded it.
Mrs. Thorpe had begun sorting her silks for her work when her attention
was attracted by a song that Pauline was singing:
"Is not this the land of Beulah,
Blessed, blessed land of light
Where the flowers bloom forever
And the sun is always bright?"
The words of the song caused her unrest to burn within her.
"The land of Beulah--blessed land of light," Pauline could sing of this;
while she--why had she failed? Had she not worked and watched and
prayed--yet the blackness of darkness was about her.
"I am dwelling on the mountains
Where the golden sunlight gleams,
O'er a land whose wondrous beauty
Far exceeds my fondest dreams."
The low, sweet strain continued. Pauline often sang at her work, and
the song bubbled forth as though the full heart could not contain it.
"I am drinking at the fountain
Where I ever would abide,
For I've tasted life's pure river
And my soul is satisfied."
Mrs. Thorpe dropped her work and clasped her hands over her mouth, for
she felt that she must shriek aloud.
"_Satisfied_! My soul is satisfied! Was it possible that this was
vouchsafed to some, while every hope of hers was gone, every longing
unfulfilled?"
When she took up her work again she placed stitch after stitch with
careful deliberation.
"I must adhere to my resolutions," she thought. "I have no quarrel with
the world. I am not responsible for its woes. I cannot fight its
wrongs. I will live simply and contentedly, live for my husband and my
home." But she refrained from looking over her shoulder, for the black
wings of her phantom hovered there.
A few moments later Pauline came into the room. "Mrs. Mayhew is in the
parlor and wishes to see you," she said.
Mrs. Thorpe greeted her friend cordially. "I am so glad to see you,"
she said; "I was feeling a bit down-hearted this morning and longing for
a congenial friend."
"Then my plan is opportune," said Mrs. Mayhew. "I came in the carriage
to take you home with me for the day. Mr. Thorpe will come to tea and
spend the evening, I hope. My brother, Professor Vane, is spending a
few days with us, and he and Mr. Thorpe are congenial spirits, you
know."
"I am sure that Mr. Thorpe will be pleased to meet your brother again.
I had a letter from Mrs. Vane a few days ago. She mentioned that the
Professor meant to visit you before long."
"I am glad to know that your friendship with Mrs. Vane ripened into a
correspondence."
"We do not correspond regularly. I had a book of hers, one which she
let me take last summer. I returned it not long ago and received a
letter from her saying that it had arrived safely."
Mrs. Thorpe accepted her friend's invitation for the day and as they
drove through the bracing atmosphere her unhappy fancies seemed to fall
away from her. There was something in Mrs. Mayhew's personality,
wholesome and practical, yet winsome as well, that had a tendency to
arouse Mrs. Thorpe out of her troubled dreams and dispel the visions of
her morbid imagination.
Yet when they were seated in Mrs. Mayhew's parlor, each with her bit of
work, the first topic of conversation plunged her troubled mind again
into a sea of doubt and despair.
Mrs. Mayhew drew her chair a little nearer to the grate, rested
comfortably in its cushioned depths and let her work lay idle in her
hands.
"They tell me," she said, "that there is a great deal of suffering among
the poor people on the Flat this winter. The Ladies' Benevolent Society
is doing what it can to help them, but cannot reach them all. Geraldine
went over to the Flat with some of the ladies yesterday. She tells me
that the condition of some of the homes they visited is dreadful to
behold."
It is needless to say that Mrs. Mayhew did not know the effect that her
words would have upon her friend. She knew that Mrs. Thorpe was often
inclined to take other people's burdens sadly to heart, but she was far
from knowing the state of mind that her words had wrought in her now.
She, too, was often troubled about the state of affairs on the Flat, but
her outlook was very different from Mrs. Thorpe's. She saw in these
miserable homes and destitute, unfortunate people, isolated cases of
suffering, and their condition she looked upon as something that only
the effort of the individual concerned could remedy. By his own effort
and endeavor he must extricate himself from this class and advance to
one higher. This always left those who remained the same privilege as
that of the one who had escaped. Mrs. Mayhew believed this to be the way
of the world, and she had learned never to analyze nor to question the
world's ways.
Mrs. Thorpe did not interrogate the individual nor consider the class;
her mind overreached these and went directly to the overruling Law--that
which has created, and which does, or should, control. What greater
folly than for man to endeavor to undo what the Lord has done? An
overruling, unalterable, unrelenting Law lay over and made helpless and
absolutely powerless the puny efforts of man.
She would share her porridge with a hungry neighbor, yes, go hungry
herself to relieve a needy one; she would divide her garments to the
last shred with those who had none. But while doing so, while trying to
defeat the decree of the Ruler, would she prostrate herself before him,
bow down and worship him?
"It is not only on Bolton Flat that people are suffering and miserable
and destitute and without a God," she said. "The world is circled with
woe; the cry of suffering echoes wherever the feet of men have trod. In
the still watches of the night when all was quiet and peaceful about me
I have heard the moaning of children. And on the street when all was
bustle and confusion I have heard the agonized cry of lost souls; and I
knew that those about me heard it, yet they paid not the slightest
attention, and I, too, went unheeding on my way. Yet men and women
everywhere are talking of a Christ--proclaiming a message! Their voices
are musical, even as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; their
phraseology--long prayers in the market place; the border of their
garments and the broadness of their phylacteries proclaim their
devotion!"
Her words ceased, but her thoughts, which she had long held in
subjection, were now beyond her control. The fire of her spirit, that
had leaped within her earlier in the day, now flamed up and consumed
her. Throughout the length and breadth of the land God's men and women
were going to a death more horrible than even her wildest hallucinations
could picture--wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth! Children were
born into an environment that handicapped them at birth; women and young
girls were obliged to sell their souls in order to keep the pitiful life
in their bodies; men made a legal, licensed business of crazing their
fellow men with drink. And those who professed to follow the world's
Redeemer, comfortably housed, with rich garments and sumptuous fare,
wrapped themselves in their righteousness and sang songs of praise in
costly churches and gave thanks that they were not as other men.
The enormity of the thing was to her a blow straight from a powerful
shoulder, a blow that staggered her and left her white with passion.
And she felt that in all this world there was nothing so heartrending as
the injustice of God. More to herself than to her friend, she said:
"If God is all powerful He is responsible for the conditions resulting
from His creation; if He is not all powerful He is not God."
Her limitations were such that she could not know that these things
which were so grievous to her were but a foul and tattered garment with
which human kind has covered the great heart of God. Pride, vain-glory,
uncharitableness, ostentation--from these she shrank in righteous
revolt; and without the slightest realization that she had allowed them
to become as a bandage about her eyes, blinding her to the overruling
Love of the Creator and to the priceless thing in the hearts of her
fellow men.
Something of this Mrs. Mayhew was able to understand. She felt that her
friend's heresy was not so much a thing of the heart as a distortion of
her too finely wrought sensibilities; and she wondered that a hand so
exquisitely refined and sensitive should reach out into this bleeding
world and touch and handle its ghastly sin-stained burdens.
"My dear friend," she said; "you say that if God is God He is
responsible for these things, yet He may be working in a way that you
and I know nothing about. It has always been a comforting thought to me
that there may be a wideness and a mercy in His plans that our finite
minds are not able to grasp. But be this as it may, you have thrown the
responsibility back upon Him, then why do you not let it rest there? Why
do you fret and worry yourself about it? My dear, I am afraid you are
allowing these things to weigh upon you and make you unhappy."
"Unhappy! Mrs. Mayhew I am wretched, tormented, ill, I fear I shall
be--mad!"
"Mrs. Thorpe, what has happened to your life? What has brought about all
this questioning and unrest?"
"Oh, my friend, if you knew the weary way that I have
gone--alone--alone--I have no God!"
"But why have you cut yourself off from these things which the world has
accepted? I cannot understand what has caused you to renounce your
faith in God. Are you not afraid to stand thus alone?"
"There was a time when I was afraid, when I believed that I must believe
that which I could not believe. It was a gruesome part of the way; yet
there was no other part that I was so reluctant to leave. While living
in fear I believed, most surely, that the first step out of it would be
over a precipice; but this conception of what will follow is all that
fear really is. Freed from this, my burden became lighter, but the
darkness is none the less black."
"But why do you feel that you must go this troubled way alone? The
world has accepted a religion. Why do you reject it?"
"The world has accepted a cleverly devised plan whereby men expect to be
saved from their sins; they have woven into it the story of the Cross,
the tale of the Christ. From the most beautiful life and tragic death
that the world has ever known men have gleaned the harrowing, sordid
details and fashioned them into form and creed and call it Religion.
This thing I do reject. Could a completer foil be devised for mankind
than that the nailing of a Christ to the Cross is to save them from the
consequences of their iniquitous and selfish living?"
"I believe, have always believed, and my torment is that I must continue
to believe that there is a God of justice some place--some how, some
where--_He lives_! I have lain in my bed at night and heard the voice
of the wind and it has whispered to me: 'There is a God;' I have seen
the tender grass come forth in the spring and every tiny blade
proclaimed Him; I have seen the rush of the storm, black, ominous,
fearful, and behind it I have seen His face; and all the stars at night
have broken into a song of praise to Him. And after this can I bow down
to a conception, a mere idea of God? Can I worship simply because
others have worshiped? Our Bible and our Christ tell us of a wonderful
life; a great Heart touched with the feeling of our infirmities; One in
whom the great, throbbing heart of the universe, the secret of all
things, is embodied. Where is this great Master-Spirit, drawing all men
to Him, healing their infirmities and cleansing them from sin? Have you
seen Him in the hearts of those who attend our church, living in comfort
and luxury--while over on the Flat--Mrs. Mayhew--over on the Flat--can
you bear to think of it? Have you seen aught of His healing power? How
many can you count among the members of our church who are suffering
from some infirmity? How many are every whit whole?
"I have longed for the touch, the presence, the realization of the _God
that lives_ as I have never longed for earthly possessions. I have
prayed in my heart that I might be deprived of every earthly joy, every
pleasure, every comfort, that I might be an outcast on the face of the
earth, that I might know the anguish in the Garden, that I might feel
the nails in my hands, if by this means I might have in my life and soul
a realization of the Infinite, might feel and know the Divine presence."
Mrs. Thorpe's face was white and drawn and a red light was in her eyes.
Mrs. Mayhew was by her side, her cool hand on her brow.
"Geraldine," she said as her niece passed the door, "bring me a glass of
water, please, Mrs. Thorpe has become faint."
With the first return of consciousness Mrs. Thorpe thought of her
husband. Had she not compromised his honor? Put to hazard his
position, perhaps? She looked into Mrs. Mayhew's face:
"I have betrayed my weakness," she said; "I have shown you my
unworthiness. It was not my intention to do this; over and over I have
promised myself that no word that might cast dishonor on my husband's
calling or cause him pain should ever pass my lips."
Mrs. Mayhew with quick intuition, understood all that her friend did not
say, quite as well as that which she uttered. She read the story of
repression and self-subjugation, and the heroism that hid her trouble
and despair rather than cause another pain. And she also had a glimpse
of the love this woman bore her husband, and of the fineness of her
nature that even for the sake of this love, could not tamper with her
soul's conception of truth. Her face was warm with sympathy:
"Dear troubled soul," she said, "I am your friend, not to distress and
embarrass you, but if I can, to aid and comfort you."
During the remainder of the day Mrs. Mayhew endeavored to keep the
conversation free from all topics that might distress her guest, and to
limit the flow of talk to a circle of light and pleasant thought.
Mr. Thorpe came in time for dinner. Between him and Professor Vane
there was much of common interest. Professor Vane was a teacher in a
theological seminary; and the two men discussed the world of theology,
the Church and its mission, the seminary and its work.
"I cannot account for the diversity of opinion I find among theological
students," Professor Vane said. "There are scarcely two of them who see
the questions of creed and doctrines in the same light. What the
outcome of all of these new lines of thought will be it is difficult to
predict."
There was a spirit of resentment, righteous he believed it to be, in Mr.
Thorpe's mind toward these new lines of religious thought. He believed
that the Leviathan of doubt, and the subtle Serpent of false belief had
threatened the sanctity of his own home. And he was strong in the
belief that it was time for men of integrity and conviction to strike
these monsters, to crush and destroy them.
"It is my opinion that these digressions and irregularities must prove
disastrous," he said. "We must have a creed and a doctrine, and I do
not hesitate to say, that men who cannot conform to them have no call to
preach the Gospel."
Professor Vane did not answer at once, and Mrs. Thorpe who had listened
in silence, waited anxiously for his reply.
Mrs. Mayhew believed she knew what was in her brother's mind. She
recalled a frail little woman tortured with pain, whom her brother used
to carry in his arms, and lift from one position to another. This woman,
his wife had been restored to health and strength, and the joy of
living, by a digression from accepted creeds and doctrines. A system of
Christian healing had restored her.
"How far we have a right to judge another's conception of God is a
mooted question," Professor Vane said thoughtfully. "If I err I hope it
may be on the side of charity."
"On the side of charity, yes," said Mr. Thorpe; "but I can see little
love or justice in allowing doubts and fallacies to intrench themselves
in the consciousness of another." He could not quibble over this
question, nor fail to express himself fearlessly, even though he should
strike a blow nearer Professor Vane's heart then the students under his
care. He was strong in the belief of his own just purpose.
Mrs. Mayhew with quick perception read his design. She knew that he had
never reconciled Mrs. Vane's recovery with any grain of spiritual truth.
But she saw the blood surge into Mrs. Thorpe's face, and she knew that
his well aimed blow had struck where he had not meant that it should.
She laid her hand on Mrs. Thorpe's shoulder, "Let us leave the gentlemen
to their theology," she said, "Come with me and watch the children go to
bed; it will do you good to see them."
One by one the little garments came off and little white slips went on.
Shoes were untied, and stockings removed, and little pink toes peeped
out.
A visitor in the nursery at bedtime was an unusual occurrence, and
unusually good order prevailed; yet Charley insisted on getting into his
gown feet first, as he considered it unmanly to have it put over his
head, and Mabel refused to be comforted because nurse unbuttoned
Mattie's pinafore first. The three-year-old baby insisted on disrobing
without assistance from anyone, and cried lustily because he could not
untie his little red shoes.
But finally all troubles were overcome, the little hearts were comforted
and all was quiet. Then by each little white bed a white-robed figure
knelt with clasped hands and lisped a childish prayer.
Mrs. Thorpe kissed each child a happy good-night, and wished them sweet
and pleasant dreams. But Mrs. Mayhew noticed that there was a strange
expression on her face, and that the troubled look had not left her eyes
since their talk in the morning.
When they returned to the parlor they found that Mr. Thorpe had taken
his departure.
"A messenger came for him a few minutes after you left us," explained
Professor Vane. "He was called to the bedside of a dying woman. He
told me that he had been expecting the summons for many days."
"Mrs. Ritchie, I presume," said Mrs. Mayhew. "Poor soul! we cannot
regret that the end has come for her at last. She has suffered a great
deal."
Mrs. Mayhew sent Mrs. Thorpe home in the carriage, as Mr. Thorpe was not
expected until late; he might be away all night.
Mrs. Thorpe explained his absence to Pauline, whom she found awaiting
her.
"You are looking very tired, Evelyn; are you ill?" Pauline asked.
"No, Pauline, not ill; only very, very tired. I will go to my room at
once."
"Very well; I will hear Maurice when he comes and let him in."
As Mrs. Thorpe arose to go to her room Pauline noticed that she
shuddered as though a cold draught had struck her.
"What is it, Evelyn, are you cold?"
"I'm so tired, Pauline," she said, and sank down in her chair again.
"And Maurice's being called away was something of a shock, you know."
Pauline went over to her. "Yes, I know," she said. "And I know you are
tired; you look all worn out. Shall I go to your room with you?"
"Oh, no, thank you; that is not necessary. I shall be all right when I
am rested again. Good-night, Pauline." And she started again for her
room.
"Good-night, Evelyn. There is a light in your room. I hope you sleep
well."
As Mrs. Thorpe entered her dimly lighted room a cold, dizzy sensation
again came over her. She sank into her easy chair and the events of the
day passed before her. Suddenly she sat upright and gazed with horror
at the sight which greeted her. She tried to shriek, but her tongue was
silent; she tried to fly, but her feet were motionless. She closed her
eyes, but it was not with her natural vision that she saw the outline of
phantom forms and ghoulish faces that filled the room.
"She is ours at last! She will never resist us again." It was not a
voice that she heard; there was not a sound in the room; the silence was
oppressive. Over and over, around and about, circling, advancing,
retreating, the forms filled every foot of space, and yet she was sure
that the room was empty save the furnishings; the chairs, the bed, the
table, these stood out clearly and distinctly. She felt the rush of
bodies, the bustle and strife among the myriad forms as they jostled
each other in their struggle to be near her; yet there was not a breath
of air stirring in the room; all was motionless and quiet. Then a space
above her cleared, the air seemed to open and the somber form and sable
wings that she had seen so often descended upon her. She was conscious
of wondering how it could be that she had met this phantom so many times
and denounced and driven it from her. She felt so stupid now, so numb
and powerless; yet the horror had never been one half so great. She
felt the claw-like fingers clutch her shoulder and the blood gushed
forth in a crimson stream, yet there was no sensation of pain, only the
grim and awful horror of it. She felt herself borne away, the multitude
of forms and faces following in her wake. What a ghastly burden she
was! Blood oozed from every pore and left a crimson trail behind. Her
phantom carrier went tirelessly on and on, through space and over
distances until it reached an abyss, wide, deep and black. Over this,
with fluttering wings, it paused. And could it be--broiling, seething,
writhing below--oh, could it be--was it true? She must be wild--her
vision blasted--her senses gone. She had heard the wail and moan of
suffering children, the call of lost souls; she had seen the world
circled with the maimed, the bruised and the broken hearted, but
this--oh, this which she now saw and heard! How could it be that the
abyss contained that which greeted her vision! The carrier, with poised
wings, now let go its grasp upon her shoulder and slowly, yet with
deadly certainty, she slid down into the abyss--to become one of them!
It was past midnight when Mr. Thorpe left the stricken home where he had
been called. He had performed the last sacred rites for the dying
woman; he had knelt at her bedside and committed her soul to the keeping
of Him who gave it. It had been a painful scene and he was tired and
depressed when he reached home. He entered his wife's room and found
her in her easy chair in a dead faint. He hastily summoned Pauline and
sent a message for Dr. Eldrige. Mrs. Thorpe was ill, very ill. Dr.
Eldrige, fussing and fuming, declared that her nervous system was a
complete wreck. There was little that he could do for her. Proper
nourishment, careful nursing, and, above all, perfect quiet. These were
the only remedies in a case of this kind.
To his son he said: "The thing I predicted has happened; the woman's
mind is gone. She is mad as a March hare, and it is my opinion that
much learning or effort toward learning has made her so."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. recalled his last interview with Mrs. Thorpe. Evidently
she had not followed his advice. He was not surprised at this, for he
had not really expected that she would. He felt, too, that the advice
that he had given her at that time was very much like giving to a
patient in the full flush of fever remedies intended to prevent fevers
generally in their incipient stages. He resolved, however, to satisfy
himself whether there was anything that could be done for her now. The
manner in which he obtained his father's consent to call upon her was
typical of the method by which he managed to have his own way when he
especially desired it, and yet get along smoothly with his irascible
parent.
"If this woman has brought about her own destruction, as you believe,"
he said, "while doing what we can for her professionally, we can also
study her condition for the benefit of science. I wouldn't mind calling
on her myself."
"You are a likely limb, my boy. If you could get some of the
foolishness out of your head you might make your mark in the world yet.
To-morrow you can go and tell those pious people at the parsonage that
your old dad is indisposed and sends you in his place."
When Dr. Eldrige entered the sick room the next day Mrs. Thorpe fixed
her eyes intently upon him. Never in his experience had he felt the
compassion, the depth of sympathy for a fellow being that her appearance
kindled within him. Every expression of her face, every movement, every
muscle was blended in physical pain and mental horror.
Love and compassion, as well as other emotions strong and deep, are not
limited to the mind in which they have their inception; neither are they
bound nor fettered, and they cannot fail to effect in some degree the
being that has called them forth. Dr. Eldrige Jr. advanced to the
bedside and quietly regarded the sufferer.
Mrs. Thorpe, who seemed to have taken no notice of anyone before, now
raised herself to a sitting posture and, as a child reaches out its
hands to a parent, she extended her hands to him.
"Take me out of this," she said, and there was fear and pleading,
piteous and frenzied in her voice. Her eyes, in which no light of reason
glimmered, wandered apprehensively about the room and back to the
doctor's face. "Oh, do help me!" she gasped. "Take me out of this!"
The doctor's mind was working rapidly; with quick perception he detected
that all reason was not gone, for it was evident that Mrs. Thorpe
recognized him; yet he could not doubt that her mind was unbalanced to
the extent that she believed herself in some place or condition the
horror of which was unspeakable. If a condition, he must find some way
to work upon what remained of her intellect, until, in her mind this
condition was changed; but if it were a place or surroundings, his task
might be less difficult, but it must be performed quickly. Without more
than a moment's hesitation he extended his hands to her in return.
"Certainly," he said in a brisk, cheerful voice, "certainly I will take
you out. That is exactly what I came for." He bent over her and took
her in his arms as though she were a little child. Then to the nurse he
said:
"Show me the nearest bed outside this room."
The nurse opened the door, crossed the hall and swung open the door of
the room opposite. It was Pauline's room, and as usual it was in
perfect order and spotless. The doctor said no word to his patient, but
laid her quietly upon the bed. She rested her head on the pillow with
her hand under her cheek and her eyes wandered curiously about the room.
Then her eyelids fluttered drowsily, fluttered and closed. The doctor
held up his finger commanding quiet and the nurse remained motionless
where she stood. A little clock on the mantel ticked off the minutes;
there was no other sound in the room and the sufferer fell quietly
asleep. It was the first sleep that had come to her since her illness,
and her condition, which the older doctor had pronounced hopeless, at
least so far as her reason was concerned, dated its improvement from
this time.
*CHAPTER IX*
*EASTERTIDE*
The Reverend Maurice Thorpe had not been so successful in his work as he
had hoped to be; not so successful as the beginning of his pastorate had
promised. Of late he felt that his work was falling below par. The
fine touch, the artistic setting, the convincing logic that had once
been his were slipping from him. He could not feel that his ardor had
cooled nor his interest waned, but his faculties seemed to have lost
their keenness and his tongue its cunning. His health was not up to the
desired standard and his wife's illness had been a severe strain upon
him. There had been a time when he felt that there was nothing left in
this world for him unless his wife regained her physical and mental
powers. Now he felt that perhaps he had not been properly reconciled to
the will of Providence, and he prayed for greater grace and threw
himself heart and soul into his work and resolved to regain, if
possible, that which he had lost.
At his request special preparations were made for an elaborate Easter
service. He wished this to be a service that would arouse the people,
something that would interest them and induce them to come again. The
music has so much to do with the success of the modern church that the
pastor planned always to keep in touch with his choir. The song service
must be fitted to the sermon, either to emphasize the beauty of the
text, or else to soften and subdue the undressed truth which must
sometimes be spoken.
Geraldine Vane was a capable and willing worker in the choir. The plans
for the Easter service were arranged, the parts assigned and the
practicing began.
In this work Geraldine and Max Morrison were thrown much together.
There were some disreputable stories afloat about the man's character,
but no one seemed to regard them very seriously; and his voice was so
great an attraction that the choir was glad of his help.
When on his way to choir practice Max had fallen into the way of calling
for Geraldine, and he often spent an evening in the Mayhew home. And as
time passed he began to feel more than a casual interest in this girl
with the shell-tinted face and golden hair. The Mayhew children, too,
amused and interested him. He liked to talk to them, to ask them
questions, and hear their naive answers and innocent speeches.
During the winter his acquaintance with Geraldine had ripened into a
more intimate friendship. Their love for music and their proficiency in
the art formed a bond between them. Geraldine, a veritable St. Cecelia,
her figure swaying with the rhythm of the music as her fingers flew over
the ivory keys, and Max with his bow calling forth the sweet, weird
melody of the violin, would feel their pulses quicken as the blended
melodies throbbed and sighed and quivered.
It was at this time that Dr. Eldrige Jr. condemned the woman he had
loved from her girlhood and stepped aside and gave his rival possession
of the field. Fine and true to the heart's core himself, he would not
seek nor desire the love of a woman who demanded less than this in
manhood. Nor was it in his nature to wage a warfare for a woman's love.
This priceless, this sacred thing, must come, if at all, freely and
naturally as the beauty and fragrance of nature comes to waiting earth.
During the preparation for the Easter service Max and Geraldine were
thrown together even more man usual. And it was at this time that Mrs.
Mayhew felt an indefinite fear, a vague alarm concerning their
friendship. She went to her husband with her half-formed conjecture.
Mr. Mayhew was a practical man of affairs, shrewd and sagacious.
"I see no cause for alarm," he said. "We have known Max from his
boyhood, and although his career has not been entirely exemplary nor his
character spotless, for a young man of wealth to-day he is not a bad
sort. And as to his fancying Geraldine, I see no reason to object if he
should. There's many a girl gets a worse husband than Max will make.
With a girl like Geraldine for a wife Max might settle down and make a
model husband."
Mrs. Mayhew rarely opposed her husband. She believed that, owing to his
position, his contact with men and his conflict with the world, his
judgment must be better than hers. She realized in a way that her
judgment was a thing of the heart and lacking in that worldly wisdom
that her husband possessed. She remembered many times when she had
taken his advice against her own convictions and afterwards found that
she had not been the loser thereby. Yet, being a fair-minded woman, she
sometimes came to a place where another's judgment could not answer for
her; where her impulse and desires prompted her to act from the dictates
of her own heart.
Geraldine's father had died before the girl was born and her mother had
yielded up her life at the birth of her child. Mrs. Mayhew had taken
the little one and reared her as her own and loved her as her own. But
aside from this love and watchful care there was a feeling of
responsibility different from that which a mother feels for her own
children; their welfare and happiness she is responsible for as for her
own flesh and blood. She was responsible for Geraldine as a child of
another birth and branch.
The girl had been loving and affectionate, willful and passionate at
times, yet always ready to confess her faults. Mrs. Mayhew had seen her
through the unsettled period of adolescence and knew that at the present
time she was a true-hearted woman, looking into the future, trusting and
unafraid. Had there ever been a time since she held her in her arms, an
infant of a day, when she had needed a guiding hand and love and care
more than at this present time?
Mrs. Mayhew resolved that, let the consequences be what they might,
Geraldine should have some enlightenment as to Max Morrison's real
character.
It was a few days before Easter. Outside there raged a storm of rain
and sleet such as the Middle West often sees in the early spring. The
snow had disappeared, except here and there a dark-hued bank by the
roadside or in some well-filled corner. Out in the country the fields
and meadows lay bare and brown, awaiting the magic touch of
spring--Nature's resurrection.
But within the Mayhew home a warm radiance covered all. The interview
took place in Geraldine's room. The room was typical of the girl. An
air of purity and daintiness was lent by soft, white draperies; yet
everywhere there was a suggestion of ease and restfulness. Conspicuous,
but not prominent, a pair of cherubs were enfolded in a shimmering gauze
of drapery. A picture of the Virgin with the Christ Child in her arms
hung above the mantel and on the wall opposite, the tender, loving face
of the Savior. And beneath the Christ face hung the picture of a sweet,
calm-eyed woman and a manly, dark-browed man--the parents that the girl
had never known.
Mrs. Mayhew was perfectly familiar with the room, but with her mission
in mind she was aware that it impressed her in a different manner from
its wont. A mind less pure than Geraldine's could not have planned and
fashioned it. This quality of mind and heart was apparent in all that
the girl did. Suppose she were robbed of this chastity of thought and
the evil things in the lives of others thrust upon her vision. Could she
ever be just the same girl again? Mrs. Mayhew had eased her mind with
like sophistry before, but now she felt that the hand of necessity was
upon her.
Geraldine sat before her fire, a piece of needlework in her hands. Mrs.
Mayhew drew her chair to the grate and produced her own bit of work.
She cast about in her mind for some way to lead up to the subject upon
which she wished to speak, but finding none, she broached it abruptly.
"Geraldine, do you know you are very unsophisticated for a girl of your
age? That you know very little of the evil there is in the world?"
"Do you think I would be better if I knew more, Aunt Agnes?"
"It is not a question of your being better, Geraldine; I think the
trouble is that you are too good already. Do you believe your friends
to be as good as you are?"
"Why, Aunt Agnes! Am I any better than you are, or Mrs. Thorpe, or my
girl friends? Why do you say such things to me?"
"Because I must say them, my dear; you must know more about your
friends. You are not more virtuous, perhaps, than the ones whom you
have mentioned; but you are as a creature of another world compared to
Max Morrison, for instance."
The seashell color in Geraldine's face deepened to flame, but ignoring
the display of feeling she had been too unguarded to suppress, she met
her aunt's eyes full and true.
"Is there anything objectionable about Max that I should know?" she
asked.
Mrs. Mayhew knew that there was no turning back now. She wished to be
honest with the girl and at the same time as charitable as possible
toward others. She must show Geraldine that, desirable and praise-worthy
as purity and chastity are, and obligatory as they are in a woman, she
should not expect to find these qualities in this man, nor hardly in the
degree that a pure-hearted girl possesses them, in any man, and that it
would not be wise nor just, perhaps, to condemn Max for a lack of them.
She recalled her husband's attitude on the subject, and although it did
not break her resolution to be frank with the girl, it tempered it
appreciably; and a queer blending of her conscientiousness and her
husband's practicality were the result. A distorted vision pictured
itself impishly before her. Being a woman, she should cleave virtuously
to the good, but be willing to fall on her knees at the marriage altar
and accept the bad! She felt that the magnitude of the question was
crushing her, and that its complexity would be her undoing. The longer
she hesitated for the words in which to express her meaning, the more
helplessly lost she became, and Geraldine was waiting for the answer to
a direct question.
"To allow you to believe that Max is virtuous as you understand virtue
would not be justice to you, Geraldine," she said.
"Please be quite frank, Aunt Agnes. What is it you wish me to know?"
"None of us are perfect, my dear, and very few of us are good. It is a
hard world to live in. Not many young men go through the trying period
of early manhood unscathed, and it comes to us women sooner or later to
know these things."
Geraldine did not speak, and silence fell between them. Mrs. Mayhew
noticed the steady, even stroke of the girl's needle and her quiet
composure.
Had her words failed to make an impression, or was Geraldine too strong
and firm to show her feelings, or was it that she did not care?
But she found no answer to her questions and the silence continued.
Mrs. Mayhew was relieved when the children came and tapped at the door.
Geraldine bade them enter and they flocked in, frolicking and laughing,
and filled the room with their chatter.
When they were all gone and Geraldine was alone she stood, a white
figure among her white draperies, and looked out at the storm and
listened to the sleet and rain against her window-pane. The color
burned into her cheeks again and a shadow lay in her eyes. She was
beginning to believe the world a rather difficult place in which to
live, and life not so bright and joyous as she had thought it to be.
Easter morning dawned gray and cold, but the sun, seeming to repent its
sullen mood, broke through the clouds and shed a warm radiance over the
cold, soaked earth.
The great church with its arched ceiling and taper windows seemed
impressed with its own solemnity and its silence was intense and
worshipful. The banks of lilies, emblems of peace and purity, seemed to
harmonize with the spirit of the place; for their fragrance and beauty
were far removed from all that is plain and common and their golden
hearts were untouched by humanity's woes. Above the bank of lilies and
ferns hung a picture of the Christ with a halo about His head. The
painter's art showed in pose and expression, in every line and detail.
The eyes were pathetic and beseeching, as they must have been when those
most heart-rending words the world has ever known--the prayer in the
garden--were uttered. The brow was calm with the peace of Heaven and
the mouth, so fine and true, was yet sensitive and pleading. If this
Friend of man could speak, what would be His message to the worshipers
gathered there? If those eyes could see the nodding plumage of the
forests' songsters adorning the heads bowed in worship; if those ears
could hear the rustle of costly garments--Easter outfits--while over on
the Flat little children shivered, bare-footed and garbed in rags; if
those finely penciled nostrils could breathe the incense from the
lilies' golden hearts, while from meagre, unkept homes vile odors
arose--what, in truth, would be the message from the Christ this Easter
day? If those hands were alive, those hands that carried healing,
health and blessing in their touch, what would their mission be? Would
not the crippled boy stand erect and walk? the tortured shoulders of the
rheumatic straighten? the blind eyes of a parishioner's daughter open?
and the deaf ears of the white-haired sexton hear, as they had not heard
for twenty years, the Resurrection message?
But the eyes saw not, the ears heard not, the lips spoke no word and the
hands bestowed neither health nor blessing. Was it then only a painted
Christ that dwelt in the costly church? Only a painted Christ that
confronted the Easter worshipers? Was there in their midst no heart
touched by the feeling of their infirmities?
The song service was all that those that had planned and executed it had
hoped for. The house was crowded; pews that had been dusted and cared
for for months without occupancy were filled. The seats in the back of
the church were filled also. Many of the poor came to feast their eyes
on the lilies--conclusive evidence that, buried in their hearts, hidden
from sight, perhaps, and struggling for existence, other lilies bloomed.
The song service was artistic, exquisite; not a flaw or discord marked
the time or tone as the perfect blending of trained voices rose and fell
with the pulse and throb of the music.
The pastor delivered his carefully prepared sermon with its rhetorical
wording and euphonious flow, with more dignity and enthusiasm than had
characterized him for many months past.
During the service Geraldine Vane, on her raised seat in the choir,
turned and looked into the steel-gray eyes of Dr. Eldrige, Jr., who
occupied a pew in front. It was but a flash, a passing glance, but the
color deepened in her cheeks regardless of her endeavor to keep her
attention on the pastor's words, and there came to her again something
of the great difficulty of life's problems.
After the service Max Morrison joined her near the door and she stood
beside him, bewitching in her Easter gown, and about her the sweet
incense of the lilies she carried.
Then she became aware of another presence and looked again into the eyes
of young Dr. Eldrige. But she read no friendly greeting there; the
recognition was cold and formal and he passed on out of the church.
The warning that Mrs. Mayhew's words contained had assumed dimensions
gigantic in Geraldine's mind, while their palliative qualities robbed
her of all sense of proportion. A half-suspicion possessed her, a
harrowing doubt assailed her; many questions besieged her and she found
herself in a state far from conducive to a peaceful state of mind or a
tranquil spirit. But she walked down the street beside the tall figure
of Max Morrison and she held her head proudly and endeavored to still
the contending voices within her.
Mr. Thorpe felt a keen sense of satisfaction as he descended the church
steps and took his way homeward. The service had been all that he could
desire. No doubt there would be mention made of it in the papers during
the week and it would give his church an enviable reputation. But this
elation, gratifying as it was for the time, was doomed to be
short-lived; before the day was done there was a reaction. The spirit
of worship had waned and left a sense of chill and despondency. Mrs.
Thorpe noticed the droop of her husband's shoulders, the worn look on
his face, and her heart cried out against whatever it might be that gave
him pain.
The Easter sun sank behind the tree-tops and its last rays lay warm and
tender over the church and parsonage and over the meanest hovel on the
Flat. Great Illuminator which seeks not the place of its shining and
respects not one person above another--typical of the love of God.
*CHAPTER X*
*THE DISCERNMENT OF TRUTH*
Mrs. Thorpe was sitting one day in the familiar seat by the window, and
her thoughts were centered on the conditions about her. Outside the
vine was putting forth new buds and tender leaves; a bird on a swinging
bough was singing his mating song; the grass was growing green on the
incline that led up to the church. The winter had not destroyed the
heart and life of that which it had blasted outwardly, and Nature was
emerging into newness of life.
A world of growing things, abundant, forceful, alive, are springing from
the brown, fructuous earth; spring is pregnant, alive with a power
beyond human conception. Boundless, limitless, infinite Power!
Now questions that at first seemed to come to her timid, elusive,
quivered before Mrs. Thorpe's mental vision and insinuated themselves
into her consciousness. Was this material evidence before her eyes the
substance and reality of that which she saw, or was there something
hidden from her mortal vision, something in this scene before her which
her senses could not recognize? Here before her was the seed-bed, the
seed and the form of the fruitage; but were these the reality, or were
they but the fleeting forms of matter, and the divine Idea the only
reality? Which is real, the plant and the flower, or the life of the
plant and the flower? These questions that had come to her haltingly,
falteringly, gradually assumed larger proportions until they included
herself, the universe, and all that the universe contains. Time, place,
conditions, and all material relations shifted and changed, and she saw
God's world, and God's power controlling it; a just and majestic God
asking only conformity to the perfect conditions he has created.
Now all of Mrs. Thorpe's preconceived knowledge vanished and melted
away. Every structure that she had built had been founded on shifting,
undulating sand, upon her belief of life in matter. The ideas and
conceits of her childhood, the ardor and energy of her young womanhood,
and all the strain of recent years all passed before her, and all were
empty, vain, human and finite. She saw mortals bowed and broken, guided
by finite wisdom and helped by finite power, trying to do God's work;
struggling and agonizing, trying to aid Infinite strength, and to
supplement Infinite wisdom.
She saw man--upright, holy, divine--yet dominated by his false beliefs
and his conceptions of evil, believing himself the sinful, unclean thing
that his distorted vision pictures him to be; ignorant, misguided,
toiling in pain and sorrow. Christ, ah, Christ! Who would not be a
Christ, a Savior of men; who would not sacrifice this stage of life,
yea, die a thousand deaths, if by pain and sacrifice he might show this
bruised and broken people the perfection of life, and the harmony of the
condition in which Infinite love has placed them?
Every cord that held her to the moorings of her old belief gave way, and
Mrs. Thorpe found herself alone on a shoreless, fathomless sea; no sail
was in sight, no hand reached out to her. Adrift--alone--there was no
measuring of time or space. But she was not afraid, for the science of
Being had been revealed to her. Alone--yet he whose voice stilled the
sea, he whose voice stills human passion, fear, pain and suffering was
with her, and she walked upon the water with this Man of Galilee.
In their blindness and error men have produced that which is not
beautiful, and which is not good, but there are no blemishes in God's
world, and there are no iniquities. The God of love has put beauty, and
grace, and joy, and gladness into everything that He has created.
Now Mrs. Thorpe saw before her all that has been, all that is, and all
that is to be; and her eyes were not holden to the emblems and symbols
through which the solution of God's world was hers. "Neither death nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,"
shall be able now to separate her from the love of God.
The peace that passeth understanding is like a calm on mighty waters,
like the strength of rugged forests, like the blending of many melodies.
Mrs. Thorpe fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands. But
this attitude was not taken to humble herself before the God that she
had found; this Deity that was revealed to her was the great and perfect
Whole, and herself she recognized as the spiritual image and likeness of
God.
"There is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him
understanding." "The inspiration of the Almighty;" there is no other
source of supply, no other way to understand than to let the Spirit
speak to the "Spirit in man." Mrs. Thorpe's mind was emptied of worldly
wisdom; the tablets of her heart were renewed clean as an unwritten
page. Freed from the thought of her material selfhood, and her
intellectual beliefs, she was receptive, ready and waiting in the hands
of the Master of men.
The preparation of the clay that is to be molded into a work of art is
of first importance; and when this preparation is completed the artist
begins his work of bringing beauty and grace out of a pliable, yielding
mass ready to his hand. When a piece of ground is to bring forth a
harvest of golden grain or succulent fruit the ground must first be
prepared. There must be an upheaval; the weeds and tares must be
uprooted; the plow-share and the harrow must do their work; the soil
must be torn and broken and turned up to the mellowing sun, and then the
seed is sown.
Upon her knees Mrs. Thorpe was not denied the knowledge that her years
of suffering were years of preparation; that the anguish and pain
wrought by her great desire had not been in vain. When she arose to her
feet she knew that she had found the Kingdom of Heaven; it was within
her.
A flood of sunshine lay over the room; each familiar object was in its
place, yet all was changed. She stepped to the window and looked out,
and the transfigured earth, and air, and sky greeted her; yet even in
this first newness of her joy she knew that this change which glorified
all things was in her own heart. And that which tongue has never named
and pen has never described descended upon her and enfolded her like a
garment; and henceforth and forever she was secure from harm; she had
come into her own. She felt her heart overflowing and exulting; the
vigor of the spring was in her veins, the unseen growth of the vine was
expanding her soul, and the birds' song filled her with joy.
Then like a flash, like the cut of a knife, the sting of a lash, a
black, evil thought darted into the radiance. The phantoms--where were
they? The dark visage, the black wings, the hissing, shrieking
voice--where were these? She looked fearfully about her with dilated
eyes; but all was quiet, and there was neither form nor shape visible.
The room lay bathed in sunshine, and there was a soft balminess in the
air. Yet for one awful moment she felt that she was losing this
wonderful thing that she had found, she was afraid--led into the
wilderness and tempted. Then with a supreme courage she put it to the
test; she stood upright and looked over her shoulder. The space behind
her was empty! Trembling, agonized, yet in ecstasy, she looked
again--the space was empty! Not even in dimmest outline, half-hidden,
elusive as her enemy sometimes appeared, did he now show his face; not
the faintest flutter of wings was discernible; no whisper came to her.
She turned and walked across the room and back again to the window. She
could not yet be satisfied that she was free; the sickening horror, the
awful dread had not left her, and she turned and looked again over her
right shoulder, where her phantom most often appeared, then over her
left shoulder, where it sometimes surprised her by lurking. The space
was empty! Now she felt that if she longer held her peace the very
furnishings of the room must cry out. "Father, Spirit, God of Truth,"
she cried, "Love has liberated me!"
Had a miracle been wrought for her deliverance? Mrs. Thorpe had always
known that it was her imagination, her own distorted fancy against which
she battled and fought. A phantom is not a reality, however real it may
appear. The truth is always true, however distorted our view of it may
be. When Mrs. Thorpe fixed her mind on the central Truth of creation,
and spiritually discerned it, she realized that all the doubts and fears
that had held her were but distortions of her material sense. All of
her questionings and perplexities, vain fancies and evil imaginings were
obliterated; her mental conception was changed, the hallucination
dispelled, and she was free.
Free! Men have been freed from the dungeon and from chains; reprieves
have come at a moment when prisoners were to meet at the hands of their
fellow men a violent death; floods and flames have been faced and
deliverance miraculously given. These are physical horrors, relieved by
physical causes. Mrs. Thorpe's deliverance was from a mental foe, one
who would destroy not only her physical frame, but who would twist and
warp and dethrone her reason as well; her deliverer was the royal Truth
of life. Now indeed she had burst her chrysalis, she was no longer a
worm of earth, but clothed with the spirit of immortality, she saw God's
creation, not as human weakness has interpreted it, but as a loving
Father designed it.
Pauline, ever watchful and alert, was the first to notice a change in
Mrs. Thorpe. She noted the returning vigor and observed the unusual
buoyancy of spirit. There was also a consideration and thoughtful
kindness in her manner that Pauline had never noticed before. A great
deal of charity must be manifested toward one who is ill and in pain,
unpleasant manners and disagreeable ways must be overlooked. Pauline
had had the tact and patience to do this; she was not one to judge a
sick woman unkindly. But now there was a winsomeness about this woman
whom she had long looked upon as her charge, an optimism that she found
it difficult to adjust to Mrs. Thorpe's former attitude.
*CHAPTER XI*
*A SUMMER'S VACATION*
Mr. Thorpe noticed the change in his wife and rejoiced in her recovery.
Her quiet manner and uniform cheerfulness brought to his mind the early
days of their wedded life, and he felt that perhaps the many prayers
that he had offered for her recovery had reached the throne of mercy.
But the pastor's own cares were pressing him sorely. All that he had
gained by the Easter service he had lost, and more. His congregation
grew smaller each succeeding Sabbath, and with bitterness and despair he
admitted that he was not obliged to look outside of himself for the
cause. He felt his strength slipping from him, and in some way that he
could not analyze nor comprehend, and his mental capacity seemed dwarfed
and contracted. Thoughts of beauty and grandeur flitted through his
brain, but when he tried to fix them there, to put them into words or on
paper they eluded him, mocked and evaded him.
When spring merged into summer a council of his church convened and
voted him a vacation for the summer months. This was gratefully
accepted; for he felt that a season's rest, a long vacation in which to
recuperate and regain his lost powers would put him in condition again
for his work in the autumn.
Mrs. Thorpe was to accompany him, and they planned to spend the summer
with an uncle who lived in a small village in an adjoining state. This
uncle was a retired minister, who for forty years had preached the
Gospel. Now with his wife still beside him, he was spending what was
left of his life in well-earned peace and quiet. He sent an earnest
invitation to his nephew to come to him and spend his vacation in this
quiet, restful village.
After the vacation was arranged, and the invitation accepted, Mr. Thorpe
threw himself with all of his remaining strength and energy into the
preparation of a farewell sermon. He desired this to be of high
excellence, and especially adapted to the occasion; he wished to say
something that would appeal to the hearts of his people, and cause them
to remember him, and to be ready to welcome him back in the autumn. For
days he worked on this sermon, comparing words and phrases, seeking just
the shade of meaning he desired, harmonizing sentences, and striving for
an agreeable rise and flow of language.
Mrs. Thorpe, who had attended church for several Sundays, accompanied
her husband on this last Sunday morning. She walked beside him now with
easy grace, and mingled with her friends and seemed not to notice their
wondering looks and incredulous glances; she met them without
self-consciousness, neither shrinking nor boasting.
When the pastor entered the pulpit, and the deep, sweet tones of the
organ sounded, her soul glad and worshipful, left every care and
material thought. Then she heard her husband's voice in prayer, praying
for his people, and for the great world of humanity. But she did not
follow the prayer closely; her new conception of God's creation enabled
her to know that the Lord's blessing was already upon these people, that
they needed only to realize and accept it. She saw toiling millions
begging for a blessing that has been theirs forever, and that can never
in any manner possibly cease to be theirs.
For his text the pastor had taken, "To him that overcometh," and he
dwelt largely on the reward ready for those who are able to endure to
the end.
As the sermon progressed, Mrs. Thorpe was reminded of her old troubled
conception of the Father and His children in the field. She did not
wonder that this idea had once possessed her; for was not this the very
interpretation of life that her husband was presenting? But now before
her vision she saw a kind and compassionate Father, and man in His
spiritual likeness.
She had found that the propensity of mortal man to worship images of
belief that he himself has created, rather than to hold as his own that
which God has created for him, and has bestowed without limit or stint
upon him, is the cause of man's woe, the cause of all his grief and
pain. God has given man only good; He could give nothing else, for He
has created or fashioned nothing else. She heard the sermon through,
however, without inward questioning or discord. Since the deep, sweet
Truth of life had become the bread and wine of her existence she was not
troubled by another's conception of truth. All truth, however small,
however great, is a part of the Truth, just as every drop of the ocean,
or rippling wave, or mighty billow is a part of the sea.
Mrs. Thorpe knew something of the hard toil and effort this sermon had
cost her husband; she knew that he had builded it word upon word,
sentence upon sentence, and she understood the intensity of his purpose,
the sincerity of his belief; but the thought came to her forcibly at
this time that the laws of God are not influenced by man's conception of
life and truth, but that, perfect and harmonious, they go undeviatingly
on, regardless of what man believes or teaches.
After the service Mrs. Thorpe noticed that there was no change in the
rigidity of the manner that marked the worshipers. All was orderly and
formal; those nearest to her spoke in subdued tones, and expressed a
cold pleasure at seeing her again. This concourse of people, each heart
carrying its own peculiar burden, had come to the service, listened to
the music, heard the Scripture read and the sermon delivered; now each
went again his own way without solace or comfort, his burden not one
whit the lighter.
It was a dull, gray morning; lowering clouds hung threateningly about,
and a fine, penetrating mist filled the air.
"This dampness and mist is as bad as a pouring rain," said Pauline, on
the way from church. "You had better fasten your muffler close about
your throat, Maurice, and turn up your coat collar; I fear this will
bring on your cough again."
When they reached the parsonage Pauline saw that the fires were built
and the rooms warmed and dried, although it was early summer. The dry,
hacking cough that Mr. Thorpe was subject to was something to be fought
and doctored continually. And in this instance Pauline's fears seemed
to be well grounded; soon after dinner Mr. Thorpe was seized with a
paroxysm of coughing, followed by a spell of weakness. By evening a low
fever had developed and it was thought best to send for Dr. Eldrige.
The old doctor came, examined the patient and gave minute directions for
his care; after this he came every day for a week. At the end of this
time Mr. Thorpe's condition was greatly improved, and one day when alone
with him Dr. Eldrige broached a subject that had been much in his mind
since he began calling at the parsonage.
"Thorpe," he said, in his usual blunt manner, "what has brought about
your wife's recovery? A few months ago she was a stricken invalid; now
we see her in the full flush of health. Some great physician must have
been consulted--or some occult power. It might be well for you to get
around with your explanations if you value her reputation or your own."
Had Dr. Eldrige unsheathed a dagger and stabbed his patient, the blow
could scarcely have been keener felt. For a time he repented his blunt
words, for Mr. Thorpe's distress and agitation were alarming. The
doctor mixed a stimulating draught and gave it to him, and at the same
time, in a quiet, smooth manner, introduced another topic of
conversation and soon after took his departure. He congratulated
himself on being an adept at dealing crushing blows.
"I have, I think, given our pious pastor something to think about," he
chuckled as he left the parsonage.
At the end of another week the delayed preparations for their departure
were resumed, and a few days later the family separated, Pauline to
spend the summer in the old home town with a relative and the pastor and
his wife enroute for the little village among the mountains.
The old couple gave Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe a warm greeting and a hearty
welcome to their simple, wholesome home. They acquainted them with the
resources of the place; gave them directions for reaching the mountain
peaks; showed them the mountain stream where the speckled trout
abounded; pointed out to them the woodland path that led to the lake and
the glades and dells where the wild flowers grew, and then left them to
make their own plans and find their own amusements.
To Mrs. Thorpe the place seemed like a fairy bower, a land of
enchantment--one of her old daydreams come true. Here were the beauties
of God's world, indescribable, luxurious, exquisite. Why had He made
the hills and mountains so fair? Why were the skies so azure blue, the
air so rare and sweet with the breath of flowers? Why do the waters of
the rippling lake lay smiling in the sun? And why does the sun bathe
woodland and field, mountain and lake in golden glory and flaming
splendor? One of the books that she had read, the work of a popular
scientist, told her that Nature's works are fixed and fashioned
regardless of man; that in the plan of the universe no account was taken
of his needs, and no cognizance of his desires. She recalled another
book which told her that man is the central object of the universe and
that all things are created to minister to his needs and desires. But
deep in her own heart she believed the realities of life, all beauty,
truth and harmony to be reflections of the one Life.
"It may be that mine was a case of too many books," she thought. "I
depended too much on the knowledge that can be derived from the works of
man, and considered too little the wisdom that comes from God, and can
never come in any other way than by direct revelation--the heart of God
speaking to the heart of man: 'Be still and know that I am God.'" And
in this stillness, this sanctuary and solemn grandeur, there opened
before her an unwritten book--the overreaching Law of Love, the
compelling goodness of God.
That which has been spoken and that which has been written pertains to
the material sense; but that which has been heard in the silence, and
seen in "the light that no man can approach unto," and experienced in
the grandeur of the limitless life--this is God--no tongue has told it,
no pen has portrayed it, yet in letters of glory we all may read it.
From the mountains and the hills, from the summer skies and the smiling
water, the leaves of this unwritten book unfolded before Mrs. Thorpe and
she read the deep hidden things of God.
The long golden days came and went like a radiant, glorified dream, each
with its share of pleasure, some new joy, some added gladness. There
were days when the summer rain beat upon the roof in mellow cadence;
when the gray, leaden skies emphasized the cheer and comfort of the
plain mountain home. Then, Mrs. Thorpe with some light work in hand,
would listen while her hostess, the dear old aunt, related chapters from
the past and told incidents and anecdotes from her long experience as a
pastor's wife. There were days when the damp earth, warm beneath the
sun, gave forth a blissful fragrance of growing things and the green,
swelling buds burst into showers of bloom; when the mountain brook,
swelled by the rain, babbled in wild, sweet song and dashed its
turbulent waters into the placid lake.
There were days when the pastor renewed his boyhood and spent long hours
on the shaded banks of the mountain stream with his fishing tackle,
baiting for speckled trout. Mrs. Thorpe always accompanied him and
sought to divert his mind from every care; while he fished, or perhaps
tramped through the woods and sought the homes of the feathered
songsters, she would busy herself with some piece of needlework, and
when he threw himself on the velvet grass beside her she would read to
him from some book, bright, crisp and care-destroying. Sometimes the
noonday lunch was carried in a basket and eaten at the foot of the
towering, blue-hung mountain, and then together they scaled the
mountain's height and from its summit viewed the valleys and woodlands
below; saw the lake like a silver basin and the stream like a white
thread; and all the world below seemed hushed and at rest, and their
individual cares and perplexities seemed to shrink and fall away, and
they breathed the life-giving ozone and felt that Life is so much
greater thing than its material forms can ever demonstrate. These were
days that long afterward lay in the memory like gems, rare, radiant,
exquisite.
Mr. Thorpe spent a considerable time with his venerable kinsman, the old
minister, and together they lived in the past, a past peopled with
father and mother and the sadly lamented brother cut down in his prime,
and other dear ones gone to the far, fair shore. When alone Mr.
Thorpe's thoughts tended to carry him back to a time when no shadows
clouded his life, when no fears regarding physical or spiritual strength
assailed him. With the ready assurance which is a phase of the disease
from which he was suffering, he felt that he was regaining his health,
and believed that full bodily vigor would be restored to him. But where
were the hopes and aspirations of his life, once so strong and
indomitable? Where the joy and gladness he had once felt in his work?
A dull despair filled him now. Willingly, gladly, he had put his all in
his work; and what had he received in return? He felt his heart
"Smitten and withered like grass." And the people to whom he had
ministered, to whom he had laid bare his heart and life, whom he had
sought with all the passion and pleading of his soul, was there anything
in their deeds or actions to indicate that their lives were marked with
the impress of the Master? And always amid his introspection, there
came the thought of his wife. The woman he loved had departed from the
beliefs of his life, from the tenets of his faith, she had not followed
him; her footsteps had taken a strange, new road, which must lead her
ever farther and farther from him. Yet this, that she had not followed
him, bitter as it was, was not the bitterest drop in his cup, was not
the worst aspect of the trouble that weighed upon him. He had so
cultivated the reverence in his nature for that which appealed to him in
religion, and so stimulated his devotion to that which he worshiped,
that he did not know that any soul-saving righteousness could exist
outside the orbit in which his mind revolved. Then it was not only that
she had not followed him--when he had so loved her--but it must follow
that she was a lost soul.
After long deliberation, Mr. Thorpe, feeling the burden and
responsibility of his wife's departure too great to be borne alone, he
laid the case before his venerable uncle.
The old man, thoughtful and considerate, heard him through without a
word. Then in his gentle voice, slightly tremulous, he said:
"I think you made a mistake, Maurice, when you adopted a lenient
attitude toward that which your judgment condemned. From your account,
the book you found on your wife's table was rank heresy, openly opposed
to established forms of religion. I have thought that perhaps this
false conception of the works of Christ, this spurious growth that we
know is gaining ground in the world to-day, is the very anti-Christ
against which we have been so strenuously warned. It certainly is your
duty to show your wife the falsity and error of these attacks on
established creeds and doctrines. This blasphemy about spiritual
healing is the most egregious error, the most harmful and misleading
thing, the most damned and baneful thing that the enemies of pure
religion have ever devised. I cannot understand how any honest person
can adopt a neutral attitude toward it."
Mr. Thorpe was silent for a few moments, and when he spoke the life and
spirit had gone out of his voice, and the shadow that had darkened his
life brooded over him.
"There is nothing neutral nor conciliatory in my mind toward this 'wind
of doctrine,'" he said. "In my opinion there is no greater sacrilege
than for man to claim the power of Christ." He hesitated a moment and
then continued as one who forces down the last drop of a bitter draught.
"Evelyn was a Christian woman when I married her," he said, "orthodox as
you or I; she has been very near to me in all my work, yet she has
departed from me; she has not been able to feed and live on that which I
could give. And if this woman, whom I have loved and trusted, has
failed to find spiritual food under my teaching, how shall I judge my
life's work?"
"This is a serious question, Maurice, and far-reaching; but your outlook
is morbid and unfair to yourself. Have no scruples about your life's
work; never doubt that the Lord has need of your service; let nothing
turn you from this. If there is any condemnation upon you it is because
you have allowed your heart to pervert your judgment."
There was silence again for a few moments, while a smile flickered
across the old man's wrinkled face; a smile that spoke of many things;
demons met and battles fought and every trace of human affection
subservient to the creed that rules his life. Nowhere in the history of
paganism do we find such atrocities as have been committed in the name
of Religion. The blood of the martyrs had within it the principle that
would condemn another to martyrdom and at the same time, if put to the
test, face, undaunted, an atrocious death. And the devotee to the
creeds and doctrines of our orthodox church will, for his faith, flay
alive the quivering soul of a loved one and yield his own soul to be
flayed with equal readiness. The smile, or the trace of it, lingered on
the old minister's face.
"I have a thought, Maurice," he said, "that it is the old story, old as
the Garden of Eden, of man's yielding to the witchery of woman. The
curse of Adam's weakness is in our veins, but there is no extenuation
for us in yielding to it. Were I in your place I should either root
this obnoxious thing from Evelyn's mind, or else deal with her exactly
as I should with any other heretic in the church. Go and read Mark 9,
from 43 to 49."
At the end of the summer when the first frost had touched the leaves and
dressed them in red and yellow garb; when a blue haze hung over the
landscape and the air was balmy with the summer's departing fragrance,
the pastor and his wife bade an affectionate farewell to the friends who
had been so kindly hospitable, and returned to Edgerly.
Pauline, capable, willing and always considerate, preceded them and had
the parsonage aired and renovated when Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe arrived.
Mrs. Thorpe expostulated: "You should have waited and allowed me to help
you," she said. "I can never repay you for all your kindness."
"The dust and close air would have been bad for Maurice," Pauline
replied. "And, my dear," she said, "you have been with Maurice
constantly and perhaps you cannot see as I can that the summer has not
improved his health. To me he seems thinner and more broken than when
he went away."
[Illustration: "WHY, PERMIT ME TO ASK, DO YOU NOT TURN SOME OF YOUR
WITCHCRAFT ON HIM?" (page 136)]
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE MINISTER'S DECLINE*
The family had not been home many days before Mr. Thorpe's cough again
became alarming; weakness and fever followed, and Dr. Eldrige was again
summoned. The old doctor prescribed and commanded. The patient must be
kept quiet, but nothing to indicate his condition must be manifested by
the family. He also advised that Mr. Thorpe resign his position as
pastor.
"He cannot preach this winter," he said, "and it will be the death of
him to try. Let him resign and have all care off his mind."
Mr. Thorpe objected to this and wished to obtain a substitute for a
time; Mrs. Thorpe agreed with him that this would be the better way; and
Pauline, although she said nothing, felt that his resignation would be a
tacit admission that he would never regain his health.
Dr. Eldrige fumed and stormed, as he always did when he met with
opposition. He told Mrs. Thorpe and Pauline to go on and have their
way, but to remember his words when they heard the clods upon the coffin
lid. And Mr. Thorpe's resignation was duly sent in.
As was his custom, Dr. Eldrige discussed his patient with his son. He
made a pretense of scoffing at his son's methods and manners, yet he was
always ready to lay his cases before him, and counted more upon the
young doctor's opinions and depended more upon his judgment than he
would under any circumstances admit.
"Our pious pastor is going to die," he said to his son. "Pious or
devilish, we all come to the same place at last, and we all go through
the same door and out into the same black hole."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. made no comment, but gave the consent of silence to his
father's statements; he felt that they needed no corroboration.
After a few moments the elder doctor spoke again: "Perhaps, though, a
man's better off dead than alive when he has a witch-wife," lie said.
"A witch-wife!" the young man ejaculated, and there was both incredulity
and remonstrance in his voice; but he said no more; he knew better than
to question his father outright, and he half regretted that he had
allowed the exclamation to escape him.
"Yes," the old man stormed; "a witch-wife, a distracted, wild-eyed manes
who has had seven devils--seventy for what I know--cast out of her and
now blooms forth in pristine freshness. When witches inhabit the earth
the doctors can seek another world in which to practice their vile
profession of medicine; their services will not be required in this one.
However, when our witch friend gets out among people she may find that
she has fewer friends in her health than she had in her sickness. She
may be able to ride over chimney tops on a broomstick and hobnob with
black cats in the forest for a time--but it may be a short time."
Heretofore the young doctor had given little heed to his father's
bluster about Mrs. Thorpe's recovery; but now he understood that his
words contained a covert threat. In the course of their relations
together the son had fallen into the way of arbiter between his father
and his father's patients, and many times he was able to prevent his
father's malevolent designs and to heal the wounds that he inflicted.
Now he looked up from the book that he was reading; he did not look full
into his father's face, but scanned it surreptitiously, and he admitted
to himself that his father's malady was working upon him again. The
harsh grating of his voice and his evil, malicious words had portrayed
it; and the fleeting glance at the old man's face had revealed the
purplish tinge, the swollen veins, and the murderous gleam of his eyes.
Never could he forget the day that he had discovered his father's
secret--the disease that was ravaging body and brain. He had come upon
him suddenly, unexpectedly, and had turned hastily from him, partly in
recoil at what he saw and also to shield his father from the knowledge
that he had discovered his trouble. And from that time, as he valued his
life, he had given no hint of what he knew, although there was a silent
understanding regarding it between him and his father. And this
understanding had enabled him to know his choleric parent as he had
never known him before. He felt that the anger and malignity and rancor
to which his father gave vent were but the outflow, the suppuration of
the horror which held him in its grasp; and he dared not put the
question to himself, whether it might not be that this thing of horror
was but his father's evil moods materialized in the flesh. And now he
read an expression of his father's virulence in his remarks concerning
the pastor and his wife, and had he read no more than this he would have
made no reply, but he feared that his father's words contained a menace
to the peace of those to whom he was ministering, and he believed it was
time for him to ascertain the state of affairs at the parsonage.
"If Mr. Thorpe's decline is, as you say, slow and gradual," he said, "so
long as there are no complications, you may as well let me take the
case." His manner was quiet, free from curiosity, and indicated that he
was not interested in the matter of Mrs. Thorpe's recovery. "I have
calls that will take me in that part of the town to-morrow," he
continued, "and I will see Mr. Thorpe for you if you like."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. felt that he had scored a victory that was worth while.
His father would get a new grievance bye and bye, and then, if he saw no
more of the Thorpes, he would forget this one.
He called at the parsonage the next afternoon and found Mr. Thorpe
resting comfortably. The cough was better and the other symptoms less
pronounced. After this he continued his calls at different times for
several days; then a call came that took him out of town for a few days
and the old doctor made the call on Mr. Thorpe.
After the visit he said to Mrs. Thorpe, who had accompanied him to the
hall: "The present treatment seems to be working so well that it will
not be necessary for me to call again until Mr. Thorpe is taken worse;
but be sure and let me know at the first return of the unfavorable
symptoms." He spoke of this contingency as though it were a foregone
conclusion; that it was only a matter of time.
This was the first real intimation that Mrs. Thorpe had had that her
husband's condition was serious. For the first moment she felt as if
her heart had ceased to beat, or was it that she was blind that the
daylight should be so black? Then she felt that a burden so heavy that
she could not bear it had been suddenly and rudely thrust upon her. She
felt that she staggered and was unsteady on her feet. But she faced the
doctor and spoke as bravely as she could, although her voice sounded in
her ears like a voice that she had never heard before. Yet in her
consciousness there mingled with this deadly certainty that the doctor
expressed something of her new-found faith in a higher power, and so she
said:
"If he is taken worse we will let you know at once."
Dr. Eldrige lowered his head and looked at her over his glasses; he was
in a villainous mood, and that little flame of faith that had shot out
in her words had not escaped him.
"If," he roared; "indeed, Mrs. Thorpe, there is no 'if' about it; he
will be taken worse." Then with the heart of one who knows he has
maimed, but craves to kill, he said: "Don't you know that your husband
is going to die?"
Mrs. Thorpe paled to the lips. She looked the man steadily in the face,
but no words came to her.
He saw that she did not shriek nor cry aloud; she did not faint nor
fall; and with all the malevolence in his nature he made another thrust.
"There was a time," he said, "when I believed that you would leave your
husband free in the world, but the tables have turned. Why, permit me
to ask, do you not turn some of your witchcraft on him? What is fair
for one ought to be fair for another. You saved yourself by some
devilish machination, but you are little inclined, it seems, to save
your husband by the same process."
The horror and resentment of Mrs. Thorpe's outraged soul were depicted
upon her face and gleamed from her dilated eyes. She had trained her
mind to dwell on the divine attributes in man; but alas, how human, how
very human, she felt this passion to be that possessed her now! Her
blood was like fire in her veins, a strange noise was in her ears and
hot, scathing words leaped to her lips.
"Dr. Eldrige," she said, and the words came keen and sharp; all her
anguish and passionate anger were there, but she caught her breath
sharply and stopped. Then again: "Dr. Eldrige--" Her voice wavered,
fell and broke. She turned and walked to the window. The doctor began
drawing on his gloves, his hand was on the door. Then she walked back
to him. Her face was white, her eyes fathomless. "You are my husband's
physician," she said. "I have no quarrel with you." Her voice was
even, guardedly calm.
The doctor regarded her curiously. He had read her horror and
resentment and with the utmost exactness he read her passion and her
anguish; now he as surely read her victory. His ill-will toward her did
not soften. He stood with his cane and medicine case in his hand, ready
to go, and without a word he turned and left her.
A lightning flash will sometimes cause objects and outlines to stand out
with more distinctness than does the noonday sun. The keen flash of her
bitter passion revealed to Mrs. Thorpe what the long summer days had not
disclosed.
Why had she not been free and frank with her husband and confessed to
him the change that had come into her life? Why had she shut her
blessing in her own heart and uttered no word to those about her?
The consciousness that had come to her of the power of Truth over all
evil and error never wavered nor failed. The actual demonstration of
what she had experienced was manifested in her own life.
God's truth is not a complex thing, difficult to explain and hard to
demonstrate; it is simple and natural. Health is the natural condition;
sickness is abnormal. Righteousness is the simple state of man; sin is
a distortion. But to live and demonstrate these truths in this
many-sided, complex life requires all the wisdom that Christ came to
earth to teach.
Mrs. Thorpe never doubted that could the saving power of Truth be
revealed to her husband his infirmities would fall from him; yet with
this message warm in her heart she had not broken the silence that lay
between them. In this course that she had taken she had shielded
herself behind the conviction that her husband would not accept this
message; and she had put back with a quieting touch, hushed and kept
asleep that which all the time had been to her so patent--that she was
deceiving her husband--afraid to make known to him her new conception of
the Christ-love and its transforming power.
Mr. Thorpe was in his study one morning, sorting and arranging his
books. The disease from which he was suffering has been known to play
with its victims as a cat delights to play with a mouse, and this was
one of the times when Mr. Thorpe fully believed that he was to regain
his health. He was finding great pleasure in his books this morning; he
had been away from them so long that now as he handled them they seemed
to him like dearest friends. Mrs. Thorpe tapped at the door of the
study and he bade her enter.
"It seems good to find you here, Maurice," she said; "like old times
again."
"Old times!" How the thought stirred his spirit--the time when there
was no barrier between them. The sunshine streamed through the window
and lay, a golden bar, on the floor; symbolic, he thought, of the
barrier that had insinuated itself between him and this fair, smiling
woman who stood before him; a barrier silent, far-reaching, heaven-high.
Mrs. Thorpe's eyes also were on the shaft of light.
"See how the sunshine lies like a bridge between us," she said; "a
beautiful golden bridge. I hope I may be able to build as fair a one,
Maurice, between your confidence and mine. I have been keeping
something from you. I wish to talk to you about it--about the new
belief--the light that has come to me."
Her heart was beating tumultuously. Her hand rested on a table beside
her husband and he noticed the firm, white flesh of her arm, where once
pitiful emaciation had marked it. He looked into her face and saw the
signs of health and vigor there--evidence that she had cast her lot with
some foreign power--some ungodly fetish!
"Evelyn," he said, "I have not questioned your belief nor demanded an
explanation concerning this new, strange doctrine which you have
embraced."
"No," she said, "you have not questioned nor demanded. I feel that you
have trusted me, you have been kind--"
"No, Evelyn! Not that--I have been weak, culpable, a coward--fearing to
ask lest from your own lips I get confirmation of the worst."
Mrs. Thorpe felt that her husband had thrust her suddenly outside the
pale of his sympathy. The hope in her heart grew cold and all her glad
words that she had been ready to speak deserted her; yet she answered
bravely:
"This is no evil thing that has come into my life, you need not dread or
fear it." Then, more eagerly: "Oh, Maurice, can you not see that it has
restored my health, taken away my infirmities, blessed my life and made
me whole?" The flood-gates were opened and the fullness of her soul
poured forth. "It is the Truth that has made me free; there is no real
power in the world save God's power. There is a better conception of
life than that which admits sickness and disease to be real and
powerful. Have not we to-day the same Savior who walked the Galilean
shore healing all forms of sin and sickness? God is the same yesterday,
to-day and forever. Is not our Christ just as tender, as compassionate,
as able, now as then?" She stopped at the sight of her husband's face.
The light had gone out of it; it was grim and set.
"That which I feared has come upon me," he said. "I had hoped that this
folly of yours might pass; I have prayed daily that you might be
delivered from this fallacy, and restored to the fold; but I see that
you have gone from me--gone from me, from my church and my God."
Mrs. Thorpe had felt sure that her husband would not approve of her new
belief, and in her darkest moments she had feared that by confessing to
him the change that had come into her life, the perfect trust and
confidence between them might be broken. But what was this that his
words portended? Gone from his church--his God--_from him_! Was there
anything--anything on earth or in Heaven that could compensate her for
this? Yet with the question still passionate in her soul she realized
that were it possible, for the sake of the mortal love her soul so
craved, for her to deny her conception of the Infinite, she could never
retrace her steps. With her own free hand she had torn down the old
relationship between herself and her husband. For the moment she felt
that she had plucked from its stem the fairest flower that ever
blossomed; now it must wither and die, no power on earth could prevent
it.
The glistening sunlight radiated sparks of living fire, then reeled in
darkness. Suddenly she found herself as one who departs on a strange,
new road, and finds all other paths barred and blocked. A tremor shook
her form and her breath came with a sob. Even though she find that the
night awaits her in Gethsemane and Calvary looms on before, she must go
on--but not alone--she has beside her One whose feet had passed that way
before.
Her husband sat before her with bowed head.
"Maurice," she said gently, yet with the keenness of her heart's pain in
her voice, "the sternest judge does not condemn without a hearing, much
less should you who have always been kind and just condemn me before you
have investigated the views I hold."
"I have no desire to investigate your views, Evelyn. This assertion that
you have made, that a weak and sinful human being has power to overcome
sickness and disease, is placing mortals on a level with the Son of God
and is a defamation of the very character of God Himself. I would have
given my life for you rather than that you should have embraced so
heretical and blasphemous a doctrine. Yet even though this cup prove
more bitter than I can bear; even though it blights my life and destroys
my affection, I will not ask you to spare me now. I desire to know how
far you have gone--I would like to know how far you are from me."
Mrs. Thorpe felt herself alone; her isolation closing in about her.
Never before had her husband thrust her from him, never before had he
been unsympathetic and unkind. Then the thought came to her that in all
the years of her married life she had never before arrayed herself in
open opposition to him; and she realized now, for the first time, that
although she had loved this man she had also feared him with an awful,
shrinking fear. Now she felt that he had not only thrust her from him,
but that he had aimed deliberately to pain and wound her, and with this
thought a new element sprang to life within her--a dauntless,
unflinching courage.
"Maurice," she said, "you have thrown down the gauntlet which, were I to
take up in like spirit, would result in wounding both our hearts even as
you have wounded mine. Were I to reply to you as you have spoken to me,
I think this power of Christ about which we disagree would prove
singularly lacking in both our hearts. I came here to talk to you about
the new belief that has come into my life; but can one talk of the
heart's sacred joy, the deep, hidden things of God before a stern and
unsympathetic judge? All I ask now is that you grant me the freedom of
religious thought that you demand as your inalienable right."
Now Mr. Thorpe was aware that a woman he had never known stood before
him, and he also knew that in purity of thought and in her sense of
justice, in Christ-likeness, she towered above him. Heretofore she had
bent to his will so readily that he scarcely knew how thoroughly he
dominated her. Now she stood before him asking and demanding freedom of
thought, independence in her religious belief--even that for which their
forefathers had fought. And this was Evelyn, his wife, not
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