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WHOIiESAIiB The Toronto Nkws Company, Limited. k Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by The Cabswell Co., Limited, at the Department of Agriculture Syllables govern the world. — Coke. "With rough and all unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story. — Shakespeare. 4% r/z/'/'/Yjnfi ^ T"m ; 11 1 I .' i 1 s* ^^<:i ')^'> '•aura::!:: .::•: > ^^^&3^^Bu^n ^1 I m d^^^ / mui sho wit giai pall stra stat his luxi hdV tun ■^ i./:3:^»-^^ BSSM j^BBW^ffutp^ ^ ~3H]Eniw/Qs^ ^\ vCSvbh hhA jflAWHrflCHpjwMIKIfflifWWwM lilt ^I^S^Sl&v!^!^^^ Vjffl ^m I. What may this mean..,. So horridly to shake his disposition, With thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul ? Say, why la this? Wherefore? What should he do? — Hamlet I. IV. It was nearly midnight, and Harold Harmon still sat musing in the Study. The dim and shaded light which shone from a figured newel upon the desk beside him — with a feebleness that was scarcely able to illumine the giant chair in which he sprawled — made the ascetic pallor of his features seem almost spiritual in the strange obscurity. Yet the paintings, draperies, and statuettes — in fact all the furnishings and fittings of his apartment — proclaimed his full enjoyment of every luxury of life. Even had these been absent, one might have read something of the man of letters and of cul- ture in his well-preserved physique, clear-cut, clean- shaven features, and wl\ite and delicate hands — one of which, hanging down listlessly within the narrow circle of light, held a half-consumed cigar, as one might hold a pen, between the careless fingers. The dreamer's name was rightfully Sir Harold — as at least two of his friends, here in New York, were aware. It was with one of these two friends, with Clissold Fuller — or, to be exact, with Fuller's aunt — that Harmon had resided since the recent death, in England, of his father, a baronet who had been known only within the boundaries of the motherland. The other friend and confidant of his renounced title was a young English barrister, Gerard Balfour, who had fol- lowed Harmon to America commissioned by the young man's relatives to bring him back to England and his title. For Harmon, like the poet Shelly, had quarrelled with his aged father upon differences of their religious and political belief, had left Oxford — where he had first met Fuller — and now gloried in the promise of a bright career as the outcome of his sudden, but sincere, conversion to the principles of Democracy. To-night he had been whiling away the hours with his favourites, Science and Philosophy. Odd volumes of Emerson and Plato lay upon his desk, and, open from his hand, the Journal of Marie BashkirtsefF — to his mind, the representative thinker of her sex. He was still reviewing in his memory the unhappy fate of that most gifted woman, when a familiar rap upon his door awoke him from his reverie. " Come in," he answered. ^u It was Fuller who had knocked. ' "\ ^ ' " Why, Harol«l," he exclaimed, by way of salutation. " I thouf^ht you were ill ! " " You thought rightly." " But j'ou weren't ill," said Fuller, as, with needless cai'e, he shook the rain from his fedora, and dotfed his waterproof with an amiable ease that irritated Harmon even to exasperation. " Yes, I was ... and am," he answered bitterly, as from the depths of a profound dejection. " Oh, ha ! ha ! " laughed Fuller, " the same old com- plaint, eh?" He rolled one hand in the other, and smiled — his small, bright features and his busy, nervous, manner forming a striking contrast to the lazy languidness of the man before him. " My dear boy," he continued, with native efflor- escence of gesture, " you should have left your serious thoughts in England. I was beginning to think I had imported you into that richest of all possessions — the habit of looking upon the brighter side of things. For believe me, Harold, that alone is worth ... the wealth of a millionaire." As if he had performed a benevolent act, and was agreeably conscious of it, the j^oung attorney, resplen- dent in an evening dress, seated himself in full view of his melancholy friend. " I believe it," said the latter, drily. " Then if you believe it, why not act it ? " "There you have me," Harmon answered frankly. "How many thousand times I've tried. Here, even Y ■ i I "■KT now, I've been reading of one who seems to have suc- ceeded — but she says nothing of her method. One of the choicest bits of confession — " " Confession ! " interrupted Fuller, " what insane ninny has been confessing now ? " Harmon reached for the volume. " It's from the Journal of a young and clever artist. As Gladstone I says, ' a book without a parallel.' " Fuller knew at once. " And so you're reading j|||j^ ^ Marie ? " he laughed. " Yes, reading Marie. And they say she was as handsome as wise." *' Wise ? "Why the woman never had any excuse for living. She constantly hovered between Heaven and earth, and never, that I can see, was quite sure where she was ... That cousin of mine, Viona — slie is just the same." His attempt to turn the conversation was clumsily apparent. " Too bad she's ill," said Harmon, with a polite affectation of interest. " Is she any better ? " " Oh yes ... as well as ever. Came up from Newport to-day." " Yes ? " There was a note of. surprise in the young Englishman's tone. *' Yes. She's at my house," answered Fuller, with an assumed air of indifference ..." The wife has invited you to dine with us to-morrow." " Can't you bring your cousin over here to dinner with your au.t?" suggested Harmon, who had, for Fuller's inquisitive wife, the antipathy natural to a :^ reserved and distant man. " Gerard would like to see her, no doubt. Was he in as you came up ? " Fuller affected ignorance. " Well, wait here, I'll see," said Harmon, more cheerfully. The young attorney made no attempt to dissuade his friend from going down two flights of stairs upon a quest, which he knew was vain. The truth of it was he was anxious for a moment's thought, just then, and rose at once, pacing nervously up and down the room, his hands now clasped behind his back, nov/ thrust deep into his trouser pockets. " If she had not been taken ill," he mused, " Viona would have been Lady Harmon by this time. But now here's this confounded Balfour trying to coax Harmon back to England. He's deucedly in the way. I sup- pose I shan't be able to get the one up to dinner now without the other. Didn't I even have to ask him here to visit aunt, for Harold's sake ? And aunt didn't want him — confound it ! He must not come with Harmon to-morrow. He's too almighty sharp. I've got to get this marriage fixed or — " " Not in ? " he asked, as Harmon entered. " No, but he can't be long." " Well, the truth is, Harold, my wife only asked me to invite you," he ventured, layii.g down the Emerson he had been pretending to read. " Why, how is that ? " asked the Englishman, a little I anxiously. " Well," he invented glibly, " I don't think my wife I 7 8 !ihi lii 11 cares much for him. Courteous fellow, you know, and all that — but I think he's too English for her." Harmon made no answer. " Let me telephone her," stammered the other, flushing at his mistake. " It's likely only an oversight on her part." " Yes ? " drawled Harmon. " It has just occurred to me that Gerard dines with Bishop Menen to-morrow." " With Bishop Menen ? " laughed the young Ameri- can, visibly relieved. " Balfour's young — eh ? — and pious ? " '•' Yes," smiled Harmon, in agreement, " he at least attends service." " And leaves you to read your Plato ? " " Yes, leaves me to read my Plato." " Well, to-morrow you'll come up and have your dinner off our plate-oh." Fuller laughed immoderately. " The fact is," returned Harmon, " I had planned to finish my * Phaedo ' privately to-morrow." " Ha, ha, ha," roared Fuller, " very good. ... But we'll expect you, shall we ? " " I think not. I had set my mind upon workine;; — " " What ? You won't come up ? " " No, not to-morrow, though I'm extremely obliged." Though Fuller flattered himself that he could easily persuade his irresolute friend to accept his invitation, | he felt that this dreaming could but be a menace to his plans, for Viona had her own opinions of the " serious man." - " Harold," said he, assuming his most paternal air, "I've helped you to escape from one unhappiness — 9 V, and other, irsight •red to rrow." ^meri- ? — and ,t least e your irately, [ined to But mef — " 3liged." i easily itation, to his serious •nal air, liness— ' the titled tribe'— and now for the sake of your adopted home, for the sake of the friends you have, for the sake of those you hope to win, give up these vain imagiu:;^ ings. Harmon paid no heed. " Be contented with one world at a time." {Still no answer. " Why follow this phantom you call Truth ? " " Clissold," he returned, calmly, " the next best thing to its possession, must ever be — the search," " Yes, and so they've all said ! And one by one they perished by the wayside. They thought th? world was wrong, themselves the ones to right it. But they found their task the endless labour of a Sisyphus." " Let the world say it, and it will not make it so." " Perhaps you're right," agreed Fuller. " But let me teil you of a dream I once had." He feigrned a calm- ness. " I dreamt I was walking on a long and wind- ing road. That I came to a bridge across a river — passed it — and reached a mountain wheu I beheld a strange and wonderful light. There a Figure met me, and led me through a valley, where it vanished. I stil] followed the light along a broad highway to the lip of what seemed a bottomless gorge, and stepping upon its sandy verge, I slipped helplessly over the precipice. But just before I reached the bottom I, of course, awoke." Harmon had listened in vague astonishment. " Mar- vellous dream," he declared, wholly unable to divine the relevancy of it," but I confess I'm not an oneirocritic." t ;■■' ^ i i -■■■ j I if I 10 " Harold," returned Fuller, who was now as solemn as if he were a witness in a murder trial. " I was only journeying the Way of Life. Crossing the Bridge of Maturity over the River of Time, I imagined I beheld the Star of Truth. Logic led me through the Valley of Investigation, to the Summit of Wisdom. From there I journeyed along the Highway of Despair, and still pursuing the delusive light, stepped upon the Sands of Human Frailty, and plunged down the Precipice of the Knowable. ... * Man's but a shadow, and life a dream ' — and Harold, that's invariably a large part of the dream." Harmon was nonplussed. " Cliss ! " he said, " you're a philosopher. Where did you learn that ? " The words, 'you're a philosopher,' pleased Fuller. It was immaterial, where he had ' learned it.' " Why," he continued, in the same serious tone, " if it were not so, don't you suppose others would have found it out ? What has the greatest intellect in the history of brains said — or made Macbeth say ? — ' All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.' And isn't it true ? Our yesterday is no more, and to-morrow's but the phosphorescent light that rises from its dead opportunities, luring, to the graves of the buried efforts of others, those insane enough to dream of things beyond this life." " Why, Cliss," repeated Harmon, " you are a philoso- pher." Fuller smiled behind a gorgeous handkerchief. " But now, how about that dinner ? " he laughed. '^1 XJ "S( iller '^ "C 1 it?" " I'] tan ■| "0 Bintly S^roid ,1 '*S( :;% "L( - w 11 Harmon roused himself. " You say your cousin will \e there ? " " Yes,— and, frankly, I want you to meet her." " I should be very happy — " " Her father— " ' V/hat of him ? " " Well, ... he's worth a cool half-million." " Too bad/' said Harmon, " she's burdened with both [me and money." Fuller laughed. "Well, I must be off," he said. (You'll be up to-morrow ? " Unnoticed by both, Gerard Balfour had entered, id still stood unseei:. in the shadow of the opposite )orway. " Sav at two o'clock," continued Fuller. " Well — two o'clock," answered Harmon, v/ithoat )king up, " Don't lorget then. Au revoir ! " " So it's not farewell," laughed the intruder. But lUer was already in the hall. " Clissold ! " shouted Balfour, " what about that Jit ? " ^ " I'll see you about it later," Fuller returned, " I've [t a minute, old man ! " And he had gone. " Old man ! " repeated Balfour, " but he's imperti- Sntly familiar! ... What scheme has he on now, irold, that he's in such a desperate hurry ? " '' Scheme ? " " Let's call it a contrivance, then," said Balfour. " Well now," said Harmon, drily, " anyone who * , !■ 12 Jill iii 1 m I l! didn't know you might think you meant that as an insult." " Perhaps I do," returned his friend, " for, as luck would have it, I've got myself all tangled up in a suit| of his that's little less than a contrivance." " He hasn't mentioned it to me." "Then let me tell you of it. I've just left Bishop | Menen — " " What? At this hour?" " Oh, yes, he remarked it was early. I met the I rector, too, the defendant ir. this suit, and the fact is. he's now my client. We're solicitors, you know, for ihil Synod in England, and the Bishop thinks the world of us. He would have me tak3 the case, and what could j I do?" " Why, refuse, of course," said Harmon, " why mix J yourself up with such — " Balfour interrupted with a gesture of impatience,' " Why, I haven't had such a compliment paid to iiiy| ability since I've been at the bar. But the trouble is the suit has been filed by Fuller's aunt — the aunt whosel hospitality we're enjoying. I'm afraid we must seek| other quarters." " Not I," said Harmon, with a touch of acerbity inl his tone, " and the best thing you can do is to get rid ofj the case at once." " Ah, be assured I will. It will never get into court,! if I decide to stay in America. But, as I told the Bis- hop, I only came here to induce a visionary young manj to return to his motherland, and give up dreaming ...r 13 'he rector asked me to bring my dreamer with me to mner. Harmon interrupted with an unintelligible exclama- tion of disgust. " However," continued Balfour, " the case will not jet into C(. art. Fuller could have settled it, if he had taken time to see the rector. There was no need of a suit." " What's it about ? " condescended Harmon. " Property ! — and it isimply means x^hey're tr^'ing to iiake the recl^or pay twice fo^* it. He got a conveyance )f it from Fuller's uncle, the late Mr. Morley, in satis- faction of a claim he had against him, and now Mrs. Morley — or her counsel for her — says that the deed ras ... let me see, oh yes — ' surreptitiously ' obtained." " ' Surreptitiously ' is good." *' For nothing, in this case. It's but a trumped up iuit." "They generally are — to the defendants," said Har- lon, rising to arrange his scattered books. " Well," said Balfour, " then you'll not come over 'ith me to-morrow, to dine with the rector ? " " I've promised to dine with Cliss. That cousin of lis is here." " The one who was ill ? " "Yes, Yiona." 14 II. ! I On the morrow — which was Sunday — Clissold Fuller, still revolving in his mind the chances for Viona's marriage, strolled up and down before the grey cathe- dral, waiting for his wife. It was a glorious April morning, but the young attorney, busy with his plans, had no eye for the promises of Spring. Only the day before, he had received, from Viona's father, a letter urging him to hasten with the match. " No time should be lost," old Linton wrote, " in presenting Viona to his lordship. Spare no expense, and if you cannot get him to come down to Newport, let me know, and I will go to New York. I quite agree," the letter had closed, «' that it will be better to keep Viona, from knowing of the title. I will depend on you. You have my pro- mise." (It was a promise of ten thousand dollars.) " Her fool father," thought Fuller, " is rich as well as daft ; and lord, how I need the money ! " 15 The congregation had already been dismisses, and Fuller's wife was not long in coming — with Viona. His fair cousin greeted him with a half coquettish seriousness. " Oh, why didn't you come to church ? " she sighed ; " it's wicked." " Churches are for the wicked," he returned, jok- ingly, " the good don't go." "Oh, Cliss," protested his wife, "you shouldn't — " " V id 1 don't ! Did you ever know me to go nearer than this ? " " Yes, once," she sighed. " Cliss," said Viona, seiiously, " you're very sacrile- gious." Fuller smiled. " Another true word said in jest ! And I heard one to-day — a jest, I mean — a sacrilegious jest." " What was it ? " asked Viona. " Tell us," demanded his wife. " Well, now ! I don't think it would— " " Yes, it would," interrupted Viona, laying her hand upon his arm, " tell us." They stood there in the quiet street. Ten minutes before, Gerard Balfour had left his friend Harmon, at their lodgings, and was now upon his way to keep his appointment for dinner with the rector. Chance had brought him to this very corner. As he passed Viona's eyes met his. - ,< v " Do tell us," persisted Mrs. Fuller. But her hus- band, turning to Viona, now caught sight of Balfour. 16 < ; » " Come ! come ! " ho said, " we'll never get home at this rate. It's nearly one o'clock." " That's time enough," said Mrs. Fuller. " But Harold's to be there at two. Come, we must hurry." They moved slowly up the str<^et. Balfour watched the retreating trio. " By Jove ! " he exclaimed, " what a stunning woman ! That must be Viona — and Harold dines with her to-day ? I wouldn't mind being Harold," he laughed. Then the thought of Fuller's sudden departure sobered him. He was already becoming suspicious of the young attorney. " Well," he said at last, " I'll keep an eye on him — and my other eye on Harold." But, not two blocks away, Harmon's progress towards the Fullers' had been interrupted by a little girl. She was lost, and crying in the street. He had asked her name, but had received for answer only a muffled sobbing. He had, however, gathered from her incoherent explanations, that her home was near a church ; and now that she had about ceased crying — an involuntary sob alone giving token of the subsiding tempest — they turned a corner, and came upon a little unpretentious house of worship, whose ivy-mantled walls reminded Harmon, with a pleasing painfulness, of all he had renounced in England. " Is this your church ? " he asked. The child drew back. " No ! no ! " she wept, " I don't want to go back. Meletta isn't there — I don't want to go back." . . , ... , .,,., 17 " Meletta," mused llannon, " someone she is fond At that moment a tall young woman, dressed in black, came out and stood at the side entrance of the building. Instantly, as the cliild beheld her, she broke away from Harmon, and ran to meet the proffered embrace. The stately woman stooped and kissed the child, as with upturned face the little one exclaimed : " Meletta ! " She looked at Harmon. " He was going to take me back," said the runaway, as she essayed some clumsy explanations. " I thank you for your trouble, sir," said the woman, graciously. " She ran away a week ago — a wayward little girl father has adopted." Harmon bowed without replying. " We are much obliged to you for your kind- ness," she repeated. " Not at all," he answered, drawing aside to let them pass, '* I'm only glad I had the opportunity." She smiled again, more pleasantly, and hand-in-hai.d with the child, turned up the street. Harmon stood and watched them absent-mindedly, gazing after them until they could be seen no more. The woman's grace of mould and manner had strangely fascinated him. Many others were now coming out of church, and soon the street about him was thronged with noisy worshippeiu When these were gone, a Bowery outcast came that way, and yet H^vrmon had not moved. He looked with pity at the wrinkled face and tattered clothes. In the vagabond's eyes was that hunted look, a ^ 18 ' I which spoke of a desperate and ceaseless struggle for life in the dirt of a great city. His lips were sunken over toothless gums, and from the front of his torn and shapeless cap, a single thin, pathetic wisp of snow-white hair, hung down upon his brow. He stopped, on reach- ing Harmon, as if to re-collect his failing powers. An elderly couple passed them by. " There," said the old lady, pointing to the tattered form, " is drink — the devil's best friend." " And God's worst enemy," said her partner. Harmon laughed derisively. "Just what all their class would say," he sneered. " They forget that ' tem- perance is but self-preservation, not non-indulgence.' " The bent form shuffled down the street. Unconsciously, now, Harmon turned in that direc- tion in which the woman and the child had gc and as he re-passed the side door of the chapel hi ered half aloud, upon the thought of her : " Oh, lon. : lord ! lord ! what a vision ! " A man neatly dressed in black, it may be fifty years of age, coming down the steps, had overheard him. *' Young man," he asked, in a kindly tone, " why do you take the Saviour's name in vain ? " "Have I not reason," thought Harold, "when an angel smites me. — But I beg your pardon," he said, with a touch of irony, " I did not mean to offend you." " Not me, my young man— you have not offended me, but your Maker, who alone can pardon." ts j n;. " Oh well, I'll ask for that by-and-by." Ao-A J ; . For one who doubted and derided as he did, Harmon 19 liad a frank and open countenance. His whole appear- ance had, in fact, misled the minister, who thought this .studied sceptic one that had been led astray by wilder comrades. " But by-and-by," he said, " may be too late." " Ha, ha," laughed Harmon, unguardedly, " to hear you say it." The mockery touched the rector, nearly. "Why scoff? If you but realised the peril you are in — " " Peril, indeed !" exclaimed Harmon, to himself, " if I should lose her." " The peril," repeated the minister, " oh, the peril — " " Sir," interrupted Harmon, " you are surely old enough to know — " He turned aside, and slowly walked away. How could a man, educated in the ' University of Sacred Mistake,' be expected to know better. Hearing, then, a child cry " Papa," he turned and overheard the little girl, whom he had left a half hour before, say : " Hurry, Pa — Meletta's waiting." Harmon watched in sick astonishment. With the child's hand in his, the rector turned away, but on reaching the corner the child stopped abruptly, and asked : " Papa, won't you take me to England with you?" " And would you brave the ocean, too ?" " You bet I would," the child returned, " to get away from Gra'ma." ' And as they reached the gate of the rectory, Gerard Balfour met them. i I 1, 20 III. An August afternoon, four months later, saw Harmon and Melet+a walking together in the garden of the rectory, as if confir ming the solemn promises which their love, in many former meetings, had already hallowed. For, with the aid of Gerard Balfour, Harold had been able, in the absence of the rector — who had not yet returned from England — to woo and win the stately woman who had seemed a vision to him on that April Sabbath when she smiled her thanks upon him for returning her the missing child. But Meletta Vanar was more than beautiful. The purity and innocence of her mind found fitting image in her graceful form that, ' with its every movement made a silent music' From her childhood she had shown a character, simple and reserved, yet steadfast and self-reliant, that had compelled the admiration and respect of every man who met her. A favoured few s 21 witliin the circle of her life, accounting themselves worthy of her friendship, if not her love, had flattered themselves by favouring her with overtures of both. But, since her mother's death, the natural reclusion of her mind had deepened to a simple reticence, proof against the solicitations of all too- worldly men. To the melancholy Harold she had extended an instant sym- pathy. The gloom and loneliness of his thoughts, the shadows which his dreamings cast about him, had quickened sympathy to pity, and pity then to love. Of all her other suitors, Reginald Menen, tlve son of Bishop Menen, alone had won some small regard. Harmon, not unconscious of his great good fortune, smiled with a quiet happiness, as Meletta and he now strolled up and down the garden walk. " Father will be home to-day," she was saying. " You will come and see him, won't you ? ... He will for- give you, I am sure." "I hope so," he replied, lightly, "though he may refuse at first." ' Why so ? " she asked. " He knows we can't all think alike." " It is well for the world we can't," he answered, musingly "If we all thought alike, what a ' bari'en waste of ennui, sleepy with the yawns of stultified and ambitionless automata — ' " " What ? " exclaimed Meletta, " what were you saying ? " ' '■ I forgot myself," he laughed. 1 ■ 22 l;i!iii ! f! Hi if . "I am afraid you think too deeply on these things," she answered, sadly. • : They were standing now beside the gate. Clissold Fuller, like an evil genius, had passed and seen his friend. " See how'shft ' sucks the honey of his music vows,' " he sneered, " and I must make this harmony all discord. I must — by Jupiter, I must ! Who would have thought that Harold would have courted thus his social death ? What more is she than a funeral in the flesh!... The cortege comes." He drew back into the shade of a neighbouring maple. " Come back soon," he heard Meletta say, " I'll look for you — good-bye." " What can I do," thought Fuller, as he watched Harmon pass slowly down the street. " Expose him to the rector ? Humph ! that might do. I could tell the credulous parson how a devil of a young man in saint's robes, by visiting here — we'll say by night — made Meletta the gossip of the neighbourhood . . . Oh 1 another of the household," he exclaifned, as he saw the child Lena, come tripping to the garden gate. ' ■• -; " Oh, here's Papa," she cried, catching sight of a familiar figure some distance down the street. She ran towards him, and the foster father, picking up the child, kissed and [fondled her as she strove after arrears of love. " And who gave you this ? " asked Cyrus, as he fht »g to ler a of he I ^ * 23 turned over and over a liitle gold locket that hung from Lena's neck. "Was it Reginald ?',' . , . "No, Harold." ,..-,. -^:m^,..-. ... : -r'.'"- , ' ■:-' ' "Harold? And who is Harold ? " "- ' .:iJ;H -- ** Why, Harold. You know Meletta's beau — and mine. " Meletta's beau ?" repeated Cyrus, to himself, "then she must have given over Reginald. Harold ? Harold ? who can Harold be ? " They were going in the gate. And Fuller, whose eagerness had galloped oflf with his discretion, hastened to the rector's side, .v :i',. " Sir," he said, " m^y I hava a word with you ? " \ f- " You may." >j >yj v -r.^ "You are the Rev. Mr. Vanar?" .yj " I am," answered Cyrus, advancing. " Then I wish, in confidence, to tell you, that during your absence, there has been a young man calling at your house who is the talk of the neighbourhood." " Is it possible ? " The rector's face clouded. Could this be the Harold ? " I hope you'll pardon my presumption, but — " " Who is the man ? " Cyrus interrupted, " have I ever met him ? " " No," — Fuller thought he was telling the truth — " but you might have met him here a moment ago. He seemed to know the very hour of your coming." " His name," demanded the rector, with manifest impatience. PW 24 '''I "Well," returned Fuller, assa /.iii^g .«ome reluctance, " he goes by the name of HarnK^. ' " Harmon ? Harmon ? " said the other — " I haven't met him. Then I'll not condemn him till I do." He faced his informant, suddenly. '* What business is this of yours ? " Fuller was taken unawares. " Well," he stammered, "I've heard the people talking so — so much of the goings — on " " Sir ! " roared Cyrus, " you are deceiving me, I'll hear no more of it." He strode along the pathway to the house, cali^'ng to the child to follow. Lena obeyed, with backward j:;lances of astonishment. " Well, by St. Paul," cursed Fuller, " I'll make it warm for you ... I must not lose," he groaned. ** My wife still thinks that I have money, and I must have it. I'll fight the suit against this parson now. I'll fight it to the end." ^ Turning from the rectory, he saw Gerard Balfour almost within speaking distance of him. "Ah ! " exclaimed Fuller, with quick invention, "just the man I'm looking for. Where the dickens does your rector live?" ^m: ., . >v.; ^ ; ' " Why, you're right before his house," said Balfour, laughing. "Come about that suit ?" '" ""'*• ■ " Yes," said Fuller. " is he back from England yet ?" " I came over for the express purpose of finding out. Are you going to drop the suit ?" ■ ' *' ' ' •; ■' ^'' a^^ufy -:. '* Not much," returned Fuller, " there's not enough money in the whole diocese to settle it now." v^'^^>^'*^' '^Hl'-** ti'l V. 25 " Oh, come ! come ! What, cash dowa ? " " No, not in cold cash," he replied, giving vent to a little of the rage that seethed within him, " I'll fight it to the Supreme Court. I'll expose that rector — " " And expose yourself," interrupted Gerard. Fuller lifted his eyebrows in amused amazement. " — For let me tell you that, as a lawyer, you don't know when you're out of court, or when you're in. Your suit, on behalf of Mrs. Morley, has not been brought within the statutory time. However, the Rev. Mr. Vanar doesn't wish to take advantage of this tech- nicality, I am sure, and will be willing to pay Mrs. Morley an equivalent compensation for the error we have discovered in the deed." Fuller was put to invention again. " My counsel, Mr. Waring, lias the case now," he said, even with a tinge of disappointment. " No matter — she'll have whatever she's entitled to." Balfour made a step towards the rectory. "Let's en- quire when the rector arrives." " Oh, there's time enough for that," said Fuller, " or are you anxious to see that daughter ? " " Harmon would have something to say to that." *' She's shattered him." *'And fatally," laughed Balfour. '* '"" ' ' The sanctimonious siren," said the other, drily. She has him shipwrecked— drowned in baptismal waters," Balfour went on. "There can be no doubt about that." tin « C!1 "I fear it." m^^^'m.^^-». ■i <>iij iX.^ ^-%r 26 :• " Fear it ? * Then,' as Cassius said to Brutus, when the Roman ratepayers were about to crowr Caesar, — ' then must I think you would not have it so.' " Fuller affected an elaborate frankness. " Indeed," he said, " I would not. For in V '■^ case, the crown is but a crown of thorns she'll place upon his knightl}'^ head — of thorns with poisoned points." " It's • better to be poisoned in blood than in princi- ples.'" " Is it better to die than to live ? " " Yes — better for the world in the case of some people ; but lovers are not in that category." " Well, when a bachelor talks like a benedict, the world had better watch him." " And when a benedict talks like a bachelor — " "I hope you don't mean anything personal," said Fuller. , "Nor you." " It never entered my mind. Come," he continued, in a conciliatory tone, " let's stroll down to the Club." " I have a pressing engagement in half an hour," re- turned Balfour. " I'll only walk part way." The pressing engagement was with Viona. He was to meet her here, for the sole purpose of seeing the future Mrs. Harmon. Had thev waited a moment, they might have seen the one whom they had elected to so name, come out into the rectory garden, crying. Her father followed, quickly, with a letter in his hand. Though usually a man of quiet and reserve, he had, as the result of what he had now learned, given way II' ■!;1 27 to a wrathful, but, as he believed, a righteous indignation He had written to Harmon briefly, but to the point ... " I have to inform you that I cannot allow your atten- tions to my daughter to continue. I have forbidden her to again receive you. I am compelled to take this course for reasons you can well understand. The man who would marry into my family must be a Chris- tian." " Mild enough," he mused, as he stood beside the post-box on the corner ; " if anything, it's far too mild. Well ? we'll see what effect it has." Reginald Menen, who had heard of the rector's return* had come to call upon him. He was already advancing to the gate. Cyrus greeted him warmly. He would have him come in for supper. Reginald, wishing to see Meletta, unwillingly declined. " You must," said Cyrus, taking him by the arm, " I only wish your father had come with you." Half out of breath, Viona turned the corner just in time to see them entering. " Well," she protested, thinking that the younger was Balfour. "I wonder if he thinks I'm going in alone." *' Then, it must have been Harold," she said, as she saw Balfour himself approaching. " You weren't on time," she smiled, as he drew near. *' No," he bowed, " I was half an hour too early." " Is that the way you keep appointments ? " " Yes, important ones." • And are mine important ? " — jp-WT, ■"■,'1'" i fl^ 28 " Are yours important ? " ..." Well, it's too late to go in now — Harold's there before us, I saw him enter." " It's not too late to stay out," he ventured, looking wistfully down the street. Viona smiled. " Well, you may take me ' the long way home,' " she said. J I .-■*:;:.'- ■''.■::■■>'.■ • '''''.', '■■^»/.'" '''^.i-". hi:\3 ii" ,! ! M > 29 IV. The broad sky throbbed with stars. For an hour it had rained lightly, but now the only evidences of the transient shower were the glistening pavements here before the rectory, and the drip-drip from the leaves in the garden. The church at the neighbouring corner was Argus-eyed with flaming windows. A single passer-by stood listening before it to the intermittent swell and ebb of the muffled music from within. . *• Nearer, My God, to Thee " rolled out upon the silence, and thrilled Harold Harmon to the very fibres of his flesh. His head hung heavily forward, his arms motionless by his side, while the remembered emptiness and vanity of life, hissing with a new derision at his unbelief, stirred a sick whirl and torrent in his blood. " Why do I doubt ? " he moaned, " Why do I doubt ? " ... The second verse of this immortal hymn of hymns he heard as distinctly as the first, but with less emotion. ■unii m 30 He clenched his hands with sudden petulance. " Bah ! This is sentiment. I have sworn allegiance to Science and Truth. Meletta — and happiness — the price of my apostacy ! * The man who would marry into my fam- ily must be a Christian/ " he repeated, — " ' must be a Christian ?' ... Or a hypocrite. Can I live that lie ?" He stood a moment, sunken in a dumb despair, then turned and wandered aimlessly away. , Clissold Fuller, who had followed his unfortunate friend from his lodgings, still watched him at a safe distance. " Well," he laughed, " this was worth coming out to see — yven with the toothache. I wonder what he wanted ? Tv> see Meletta ? — to speak to her about her father's letter '? Oh, that letter was a godsend ! I'll be able to give Viona's father some hope now. ' " Ah, here's the other daughter — the adopted one." He drew closer into the shadows where he stood. Lena approached from the rector^^, swinging her hat by the strings as she walked. " Here was a messenger for Harold," he thought, " if he had stayed. Wonder if I couldn't make use of her ? ... Lena ! Lena ! " he called, cautiously. The child stopped, startled. " Is that Harold ? " she asked. " Yes," he answered, trusting to the darkness to deceive her, " tell Meletta—" The child recognized the unfamiliar voice, and screamed. " Hush ! " he hissed, shaking her by the shoulder. 31 She redoubled her cries. Fuller, in desperation, attempted to muffle her with his handkerchief. She struggled desperately. "The chloroform," lie thought. In another moment, the fumes of the potent drug — which he had purchased for his toothache — had ren- dered the little one unconscious, " In luck for once," he panted. " Now what ? By G — , they'll think that Harmon did it." He hailed a passing cab. His little niece had fainted. A-M" .jt'-*;-.,. Ul' . \:t¥rs*>ii':{ ■*'•**{■! d* h.'...: •: * ;; r<> :: a / -^ ,,..-/.:.:H '•v:>i, 't ;t»^-' !;, :^>vnq*:^!. f'X;iA «i:v ./-t/ ,. !-< :»■ 32 i il " Well, I think the rector means it — but it's mild, very mild," said Balfour, pacing up and down the ante- room in Mrs. Morley's home. " The devil it is ! " returned Harmon. " You should have waited for the rector — " " The brainless biped ! " " — Apologised, and declared that you intended to live as they, and the world, would have you." "Live how?" " For the benefit of others. There's no other way to be happy." "Why &I 3uld there be any un happiness?'' asked Harmon, with sudden bitterness. " Would you be any happier if you knew ? Why not accept this remedy at once? Human philosophy hasn't yet even imagined a system that could answer every demand. Explain anhappiness ? We can explain 33 nothing. Everything is the citadel of a secret. And, as Dryden M^rote : * We should not, with thoughts of what might be, destroy what is.' " ' Harmon had not answered. " Harold," continued Balfour, laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder, "join the army of those who seek to lessen the sum total of human misery, and increase that of its joy. I never knew a dreamer yet, who did not wake up as he was about to carve his second initial upon the altar of his fanciful temple of Fame. For then he invariably becomes aware, upon information and complaint of his own self-glorified self, that the whole structure is without foundation. Be practical — even if you owe the world for the time and labour you have wasted. Be a man, and liquidate this, your greatest debt — " It was the night of a reception, and the hostess, Mrs. Morley, had now entered. " Aren't you coming in to see the guests ? " she ask- ed, accusingly. '* Mr. Linton, Viona's father, is here. (Jlissold has been asking for you, Harold. And Viona for you, Mr. Balfour," she smiled, turning to him. " I go where Beauty calls me," said Balfour, melo- dramatically. " Won't you come, Harold ? " asked the aunt. " Not yet," he answered, wearily, '• I am ill — and tired." Mrs. Morley regarded him with anxious eyes. " I'll be in as soon as I am rested," he added. 5 i 'I P ii 1^ * 34 " Arrested ! " exclaimed Fuller, who had just ap- proached in time to badly overhear the last word, *' It iiasn't come to that, has it, old man ? " " Come to what ? " asked Balfour, turning; back with Mrs. Morley. " Why, to an arrest. I only heard of a search-war- rant." " Search-warrant for what ? " exclaimed Harmon and Balfour, at once. " Why, to search this house for Lena Vanar — " " This house ? " repeated Mrs. Morley. Balfour looked in astonishment at Harmon. *' Why ! what do you mean i " asked the latter, " what has happened her ? " Fuller was nonplussed. " Why, haven't you heard ? — Someone has stolen the adopted child. And they suspect — " " Suspect me ? " gasped Harmon, clutching Fuller by the arm. Clissold shrugged his shoulders. " It seems so," he replied. Harmon gazed from one to the other with an un- spoken question in his eyes. '* What do you intend to do ? " asked Balfour. " Do ?" snapped Harmon, turning on him, " What can I do ? " i. '• Why, go over and see the rectorj of course." • ** Did he come to see me ? * ' " Oh, here, here, Harold," said Balfour, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "this .won't do." 35 Mrs. Morley, with native tact, had taken Fuller to one side. The two friends remained alone, before the curtained door, ■ " " Harold," he continued, " someone has been mis- representing you to her father ? ... Take my advice and go over at once." / . Harmon scowled at the chandelier. ' " You wouldn't let a thing like this deprive you of Meletta?" ' " No," he yielded, swallowing his pride, " I'll go." . "J , » ■ .■.*..■ ' r ■ 36 VI. Harmon called a cab, and hastened to the rectory. Cyrus received him in his Study. " Sir," said the young Englishman, as soon as the door had closed upon his entrance, " you have procured a warrant to search my lodgings." The rector looked coldly at him from the opposite side of the table which stood between them. " I have given your name to the police," he answered, with in- sulting calmness. Harmon suppressed his anger with an effort. " You suspect me of stealing your adopted daughter ? " " I do." " Why ? " " A man of your belief would stoop to anything." ** Sir, you are mistaken," answered Harmon, ear- nestly. " It is true that all my endeavours to accept the tenets of your reliejion — all have been in vain. But 37 I have not been a hypocrite, I have not gloried in my unbelief, and my life has been directed, as well as I could direct it, to the doing of no evil." There was a sincerity, almost pathetic, in his tone. The Rev. Cyrus Vanar had looked for anything but this. - ' ■ . " Be seated ! " he condescended to reply. Harmon sank listlessly into the nearest chair, and bent his gaze upon the floor. The rector watched him, without speaking. " Who are you ? " he asked, giving involuntary utterance to his thoughts. " A gentleman," replied the young aristocrat, with a contemptuous bitterness. " I was considered such in England — and they treated me as such." " You are 9 friend of Mr. Balfour ? " " I am." " You are, in fact, the young man whom he came from England to take home with him ? " " Yes." Harmon took no heed of the possible impertinence of his questioner. " Why do you not return ? " The other raised his eyes. " One reason — I love your daughter," he said, simply. Cyrus stared hard. Young Harmon met his gaze. " And she ?— " . . " Has listened to me." The rector stepped quickly to the door. " Meletta ! " lie callqd. She had been waiting above for the sum- mons, and in a moment entered, pale but calm. Harmon 38 ! rose when she appeared, and, as if unconscious of hei- father's presence, advanced to take her proffered hand. " Are you ill ? " he asked, anxiously. She shook her head and smiled. The rector started at her expression. " Meletta ! " he exclaimed, " but this man is an atheist and an un- believer." " Not an atheist, father," she replied. " And he is not happy in his imbelief." Harmon still held the hand w^hich he had taken at her entrance, toying unconsci- ously with it now, and smiling at the earnestness of her defence. Her voice was passionate and pleading. " Father," she was saying, " you have judged too quickly. He has tried to believe the Word, but has not yet the saving grace of faith. We may be the instruments of Divine selection to save him from the penalty of his doubt. You would not shut him out from his salvation ? " Cyrus turned away his head. Harmon raised Meletta's fingers quickly to his lips. "Your daughter," he said, advancing with the words, — " your daughter has spoken the truth. I am not happy in my unbelief, and I would consider that man my greatest benefactor who would give me the peace which scepticism has denied me. You are a min- ister of God. Will yoii not help me ? " " Why do you not believe ?" asked the rector, turn- ing to him. " Why ? If I say to my soul believe this or that, will it believe ? Teach me to believe, and I will pray 39^ to the God whom you have given back to me to bless you to eternity." > ^ —■;■:,-:-- -r-rT.^N";;,:;7;v; ■ The rector arose as he answered. " I have misun- derstood you," he confessed. " I was prejudiced against you by some strange reports I heard. You have ene- mies, young man — and friends," he added, smiling at Meletta. " Let me see you again to-morrow afternoon." He shook hands, with a friendly smile, and left the room. Harmon turned eagerly to Meletta. With her face buried in her hands, she sat trembling in her father's chair. " Meletta ! Meletta ! " he whispered, striving to untwine her nervous fingers, " what is the matter ? " " Oh, I don't know," she sighed, " I am afraid — Oh, Harold ! If anything happens father will never forgive me. " Happen ?" he laughed, tenderly raising her head, • Why, what can happen ? " -'+■ 40 VII. Meanwhile Mrs. Morley's guests were chatting in the drawing-room. "Where has Harmon gone, Balfour?" Fuller had asked. " To see the Rev. Mr. Vanar, I believe, about that missing child." " I suppose the rector will offer a reward ? " Before Balfour had time to answer, Viona's father hurriedly approached. " Where is Sir Harold ? " he whispered, incautiously, to his nephew. Fuller conjured up a desperate cough, but Balfour had overheard the pregnant word. " Sir ? Sir ? " he repeated to himself. " And he knows of it ! " Fuller noticed his abstraction. " By the way, Bal- four," he said, adroitly, " I've dropped that suit, you know." 41 " Oh, have you ? ... Oh ... have you ? " " Yes, we've decided to accept your offer of a thou- sand dollars. Aunt's quite satisfied with that amount ... Of. course, it was all a misunderstanding — " Balfour had not been heeding. His eyes were on Viona, where she sat beside the curtained doorway of the hall. Across the crowded room, she called him to her with a glance. " Well," he said to Fuller, as he moved away, " we can arrange that matter some other time." Viona received him with a reproachful smile. " You're very attentive to me this evening," she said. " That is ironical, I suppose ? " he answered, laugh- ing. " Or would you take it otherwise ? " ** Well, I confess my thoughts have been attentive." " But I'm not a mind reader," she smiled. " I wish you were." " Why, Mr. Balfour ? " ■ " Oh." — He shrugged his shoulders. — "It would save me saying such a lot of things I have lO say to you." He seated himself beside her. Viona turned away her head. ** And, what have you to say to me ? " she coquetted. ** Don't you know ? " She laughed nervously. *' No, I confess I don't/' " Well," he said, " I thought woraen had better dis- cernment ... At least, in affaires de coeur.'* " I don't speak French, Mr. Balfour." . , •* But Cupid does." ti 4'^ *' Talking of Cupid ? " laiif^hed Mrs. Morley, com- ing lip. " I said ' cupidity,' " he answered, mischievously. " There is a difference," she said, as she passed them by. Balfour turned again to address liis partner, but Mrs. Morley was not the only person who chanced to see their tete-a-tete. Viona's father, Mr. Meldrum Linton, in something of a rage at the sight, had been watching what he considered Balfour's treason to an absent friend. For Fuller, with the ten thousand dollars still in view, had been careful to encourage the good father in liis l)elief that Viona had happily begun to settle her affec- tions on Sir Harold Harmon, Bart. ; and Balfour's atten- tions were ardent and unequivocal. Meldrum Linton would permit no such cowardly plotting to succeed before his very eyes. If Viona had any secret admiration for this second suitor it must be blotted out at once. He stepped up suddenly, and called her to one side. She followed him, at his request, into the outer hall. Balfour, without either noticing the father's manner, or supposing himself concerned in their affair, gathered himself up from his seat upon the sofa, and strolled leisurely away to see the other guests. A very few minutes were sufficient for Mr. Linton to blacken the character of the unfortunate lawyer, and having done it all " only for her own good " (as he as- sured his own uneasy conscience), he left his dazed and speechless daughter in the hall, and returned, with a blinding air of jollity, to the company gathered it; 4.S within — swinging his gold glasses, as he walked, against the lower pearl buttons of his white satin vest. The unhappy Viona felt her way along the silent hall in search o^ some more secluded spot, half-whisper- iiig, half-sobbing as she went, " Can it be true — can it be true ! Gerard a fugitive trom justice." The weight of a hand upon her shoulder silenced her with a sudden fear, and turning she faced — Fuller, " Why, Viona," he asked, " what's the matter ? " "Nothing! nothing!" she stammered. " Oh, but there is — Come, tell me. What is the trouble ? " " Oh, I can't," she answered, burying her face in her liandkerchief, " I must not." " Must not what ? " " Tell you." " Tell me what ? " She tried in vain to pass him, " Oh, I can't believe it," she sobbed, " I can't believe it." Fuller seized her hands. " Believe what ? " he asked in a whisper. " Come, tell me. What is the trouble ? Can't you trust me ? " She made no answer. " It's not Harold ? He hasn't been arrested after all, has he ? " he ventured, with alarm. Oh, no I no ! " she cried, again raising her handker- chief to her face, "I'll tell you ...of it... some other time . . . Ciiss," she continued, trying again to evade him. But Fuller, resolved that he would learn from her own lips the cause of her strange grief, now led, now ■', 44 followed, }ier into a small, secluded room adjoining. " Tell me, Viona," he demanded, with well-assumed con- cern, " has that Balfour been insulting you ? " " No ! " she returned, indignantly, " Gerard is a gentleman. I'll not believe anything you can say against him ... Why is he a fugitive from justice ? " she asked, thoughtlessly. " What has he done ? " " ' A fugitive from justice,' " gasped Fuller to him- self. "Whose invention is this?"... He would make it " fit." " Father should be careful — " " Hush, Viona ! Someone may hear you," he caution- ed, speaking with a laboured slowness, as if to give full weight in every word. He stepped behind her to in- dulge in the triumph of an unseen smile, and then, to represent that he had known it all, began to walk about in a circle with bowed head, muttering — just loud enough for Viona to hear — " Oh, why did he have to expose him ? " " Expose him ? " " Yes, poor fellow. We didn't want anj'-one to know it..." But he was at a loss to continue his fitting phrases, and, to add to his embarrassment, V'ona remained silent. It was left for him to speak and act without a better cUv , and, stepping slowly towards her, he rested both his hands upon her shoulders. " Viona," he said, sadly, '* promise me you will never tell anyone that you know of this." 45 " No ! " she exclaimed, drawing from him, " I must know what he has done, first." ' " But, my girl," he said, affectionately, " we are not permitted to tell that ... If it were known, it would cause his immediate arrest, and he would be taken back to England and imprisoned, and you — " Viona rested her folded arms upon his breast, drooped her head, and wept. ■ " — And you," he went on, with great compassion, " would not see him go to prison ! He is no friend of ours, but we should not, for Harold's sake, get him into trouble when we can so easily avoid it." He laid a tender hand upon her wavy hair. " Don't cry, Viona," he implored, " don't cry ! " But the woman's susceptible nature at once gave way, as it ever did when m^ved by words of sympathy and love, and, in the heavy silence, her sobbing became dangerously audible. Fuller, forgetting that to be consistent it was neces- sary for him to show renewed alarm at this, and, having only in his mind that single aim to assure him of her secrecy, raised her head. " Promise me, Viona," he whispered, " promise me that you will never breathe a word of it to any one . . . not even to Gerard, himself, .. nor to Harold." " Then, it is true ? " she implored. " True, Viona, as you are my cousin." And Viona gave h*ir promise. i-: -»FV)ii;, 7 46 .-i I VIII. Harmon, returning, went at once to his room. Stealing up stairs that he might avoid Mrs. Morley and lier guests, he threw himself* into his chair in a petulant aelt'-disgust. " Have I been a hypocrite ? " he asked himself. " Have I been a hypocrite ? I couldn't quarrel with him, and Meletta. . . Well !. . . Perhaps he can convert me ! " He rose in sudden passion. ** Convert ! Convert to what ? Make me believe in Jehovah ? Never ! With Jehovah as God * earth is but a quarantine for Heaven.' Con- vince me," he went on, hectoring up and down the is a God of vengeance room, "that a God of such infinite love ? ... Didn't like the spelling of the names of ' Abram, and Sarai,' and so they had to be changed ; and liked war so well that He stayed the sun and the moon to prolong one ... Blood, and plague, and famine, and fire, and flood, and blood ... the blood of the inno- 47 cei ^' ... Jehovah's but the fossilized nightmare of a l»ar- })arous brain— nothing but ... a ... a — " He paused in his irreverent maze. The same was Meletta's God, had been his father's ... his motlier's. He sank dejectedly in his chair. ** The twilight devil of incertitude, who blends the white of truth and the black of falsehood to one lying grey," so long his com- rade, was his comrade still. What should he do ? What believe ? To whom should he look for light in this his hour of darkness ? Must he believe all ( That this Jehovah was the God of all I "Then, I must^believe," he protested, more calmly, "that God created man and woman imperfect, and then punished them for the disobedience which resulted from their imperfection ... that He descended to earth in the form of a babe to relieve them of the penalty He had Himself imposed, bearing a few hours' pain as an equivalent for the eternal sufferings \vl)ich He had decreed!" He laughed in ridicule. " \yhat is it but a contrivance to enable man to escape a doom impos.ed because of the foreseen imperfection of an imperfect creation ? " Harmon had reached that state of revolt in which the blasphemer, irritated by his own words, becomes willing to accept the most positive form of unbelief. But when he fell to (piiet and his normal calm, he rea- soned that, as belief in the whole of the Bible was seem- ingly a matter of form, he might pretend that he be- lieved. "But, what!" he exclaimed. ihall I be a hypocrite for this woman's sake, when I would not for myfather?...ShaliI— " ' 48 I .:l Footsteps in the hall ! The door handle was rattled by a vigorous wrist, and Balfour entered. "Why," he asked, ** when did you get back?... What did the rector say ? " The answer was a smile. "I thought so," went on Balfour. ''Didn't T tell you it would be all right . . . but Meletta ? " *' Stood by me like a guardian angel." *' And angel she is," returned Balfour, with un- noticed sadness. *' I suppose you'll be living over there now, altogether ? " '* Perhaps ... If we can find Lena. They haven't the least idea where she is." " How did he come to think yov^ knew ? " " Some reports he had heard. He confessed he had misunderstood me." " And you apologised ? " " Oh, yes, I took your advice. If we can only find Lena, I think everything will be about settled," con- cluded Harmon, still too preoccupied for conversation, and anxious to prevent his friend from enquiring the extent of his apology. "Well, Harold, I've something too ..^. to settle to-night." "That suit?" " No, that's settled. The rector has his receipt, and he's well out of it for a thousand . . . It's simply whether I remain here another day, or go back to England." " Why, what has happened now?" asked Harmon, with a sudden interest. 49 " Oh, I simply don't see the use of my staying here," answered Balfour, nervously walking up and down the room. " You're as good as married, and there's nothing left for me but to chase myself over the blue." " Nonsense ! " answered Harmon, settling back in his chair. " Wait till you are sent for." " No ! I'm not needed here ... that's been evidenced to-night." " No ! " Harmon was on his feet at once. " Who ? ... Not Mrs. Morley?" "No, Viona ... she's like the others. Who would have thought it ? She seemed — I was beginning to have some hopes of taking her back to England with me." " Vliat has happened ? " " Oh," with a shrug, " she has thrown me over. I tried to offer her my escort home, but she evaded me. I know she saw me. I called her twice. Didn't even condescend to give me a reason for it ... Oh, frailty, sure enough, ' thy name is woman,' and wo men, truly, ' but the slaves of chance, and flies of every wind that blows ! ' " " Oh, come ! come ! " smiled Harmon, resuming his »eat, " you know what the same bard says of the course of true love, and how he compares it to ' The uncertain glory of an April day — Which now shows all the brightness of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away.' Poetry, like law, can be quoted to support any- thing. I don't think you have given her a fair trial," he 7 50 ,i'. \' went on, mockingly. " You've found her guilty upon a preliminary investigation, — now, she's entitled to a fair trial, and you, of all men, should be an impartial judge ... Even if she's convicted she has the right of an appeal." Balfour's hopes began to brighten. " Did anyone go home with her ? " asked Harmon. " I don't know." "Where was Fuller?" " He left afterwards with her governor." "Ah, well, Gerard... You can depend upon it, as between men and women, the women are to be trusted." " You can safely say so." " And so can you. You know Miss Linton is no hypocrite, if she is coquettish. Rely upon it, someone has been deceiving her, ... misrepresenting you." The reasonableness of it flashed upon Balfour. " It's possible," he assented. " And highly probable. Didn't they try it with me ? It's the plague of all of us. But, perhaps it's better i':- should be so," he added, philosophically. " You know they say, ' not all the virtue is in the prize, there's some of it in the winning.' " " I suppose," said Balfour, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. ** But now — how am I to lix this ? " " Leave it to me, dear boy. I'll see Viona to-mor- row. " Shall I go with you ? " " Well, perhaps that would be better.' 51 IX. The next day, or rather that day — the day after Mrs. Morley's reception — Harmon, on his way to keep his appointment with the Rev. Cyrus Vanar, was pass- ed by an open carriage in which were seated Mr. IVIeldrum Linton, Mrs. Fuller, and Viona. Linton caught sight of Harmon on the sidewalk, and, thought- lessly exclaiming " Why, there's Sir Harold ! " ordered the driver to draw up beside the curbing. " Sir Harold," repeated Viona, turning a look of amazement on Mrs. Fuller, who sat before her with eye- brows also elevated in enquiring wonderment. Linton bit his lip. " Ah, yes," he laughed, " I always feel like calling him * Sir Harold,' you know. He seems so much like a young English nobleman." Mrs. Fuller's hand fell upon Viona's knee, and both smiled. 52 m Linton, leaning forward in the carriage, greeted Harmon with a warmth which could not be evaded. He approacl\ed. " Leaving for home ? " he asked, as he glanced at the baggage in the otherwise vacant seat. " Yes," answered Mrs. Fuller, " and I am going with them," she added, affecting a superabundant pleasure in the prospect. " Yes," smiled Linton, " I have to return. I received a despatch last night, and I must go back to-day." Viona was strangely silent. Harmon guessed tho cause. He would intercede at once for Balfour, and, bringing down both hands upon the carriage door, " But Viona need not go," he said, abruptly. " I know she likes New York." Viona looked up in happy surprise. She half divined his hidden meaning. Mrs. Fuller again knit her pretty eyebrows, gazing intently at Harmon's now expressionless face. Linton, pleased beyond measure, hovered curiously between a familiarity and a formal respect. He looked at Harmon, then at his daughter, grandly misinterpret- ing the expressions of both. Clearly, Harmon did not waDt Viona to leave New York. Then his wish must be granted. But what of Mrs. Fuller ? Linton was in a quandary. He would appear to leave the choice wnth Viona. " Well, Viona, what do you say ? " he asked. "I would rather stay, father ... for another week — if it wasn't for Lillian." 53 " Oh, it's whatever you say, Viona," returned Mrs. Fuller, with instant indifference. Harmon, anxious only to carry out Balfour's wishes, was willing, to that end, to forego his visit to the rector, if that were necessary. And it became necessary since Linton was in duty bound to leave the city, and Har- mon could not but consent to accompany them to the depot. But even as their carriage turned the church- corner, Harmon, to his surprise, saw Cyrus leaving the rectory in an opposite direction, with grip and water- proof in hand. In the meantime other matters were in progress. Fuller, wishing to apprise Harmon of the necessity of the dear Viona's immediate return to Newport with her father, had called at Mrs. Morley's only to find Balfour there. " Where is Harmon ? " he had asked. " Gone over to the rectory," answered Balfour, seeing no reason for concealing the truth. Fuller instantly fell to the use of an English not altogether standard in his references to Meletta and her father, saying something to the effect that ' the sancti- monious saint was meant for a brainless curate.' In Balfour's opinion, one so given to scoffing at all sacred things was never worth conversing with. It was to him a grievous pity that Fuller and Harmon should have ever met. In like manner, Fuller still held his old opinion of Balfour, What little respect they showed each other was because of their common friend. IVl 54 n. Fuller turned the subject with a seriously-expressed allusion to the lost Lena. " And they haven't heard anything of her yet ? " he asked at last, intently study- ing Balfour's face. " Not that I know of," answered Balfour, without looking up. He sat toying with his knife. " But they'll find her yet ! " he said, closing the blade with a vicious snap, and returning the knife to his pocket. " Why, what makes you think that ? " asked Fuller, with unguarded eagerness. " Oh, I simply think the police will find her in time," he replied, with the same indifference. Fuller, standing in the centre of the room, raised one of his ' patent leathers ' to his knee, and striking a match upon the sole of it in ostentatious deliberation, observed, with an added gesture of disdain, " My boy, if you depend upon the police to find her ...I'm afraid she'll never be found." He regarded the burning match with half-closed eyes and something of a smile (and his smile was ever less agreeable than his habitual expres- sion), and, lighting his selfish cigar, continued, as he puffed at the uncertain spark, "She's ... perhaps a ... thousand ... miles from here ... hy this time." Balfour, pained at the vanity of the man, made no reply. "I think they've made a mistake in not offering a reward," Fuller continued, buttoning up his coat as he approached the door. "It would serve the parsimonious old parson right if he lost her. He might 55 have had her back by this time if he had advertised a reasonable reward." He had reached the door, and standing with one hand upon the knob, the other resting on his hip, he <,'azed at his * patent leathers ' as if there were a row of * footlights ' before him. " If I could only be of some assistance," he said, in a self-communing tone ... "Har- mon is such a decent fellow. I came over to tell him that Viona had gone back to Newport." At once Balfour was all interest ; but Fuller, looking out of the corner of his eye, saw no outward change. " I don't think she'll be back for at least a year," he went on, with a feigned touch of sadness. " You might tell Harold I'll try and see him before Sunday." And he had gone. Balfour was relieved to hear the door close on his departure. Now he sat staring forlornly before him. *' My God, how I have been misled ! " was the burden of his burning thoughts. " Ah, well," he said, rising with a bitter laugh, " better to have discovered it now than afterward. To-morrow's Saturday. Then I sail to- morrow." An hour later Harmon had returned. " What ? packing up ! " he exclaimed. " Why, Ger- ard, what's up ? " • " This ! " said Balfour, as he attempted to crowd a parcel into a space half its size, "that I ... will be ... in England . . . within a week. I've had enough of Gotham ! " He paused to gaze at his belongings. " Viona," he said, " has gone back to Newport for good." 56 " Why, where did you hear that ?" smiled Harmon. " Fuller ! ... he waa just here. Told me to tell you." " Fuller !" exclaimed Harmon, " Fuller said that / " " Yea— Fuller ! " "Well, Gerard, I'm done with him ... He's just what you always said he was." " Hasn't she gone back ? " " No . . . though she was going back for a week. I met them driving to the depot ... Mrs. Fuller with \Shem. I knew from Viona's demeanour that she didn't want to leave, and I coaxed the old man to let her stay another week. I never saw such a sudden change in the ex- pression of a woman's face. She was all smiles at once, and that shows what she thinks of you." Balfour smiled his agreement. " Did you suggest another week, or did she ? " " She did. They were only going to be away a week, and Viona intended to return with Mrs. Fuller." " Then, what could Fuller have meant by saying a year ? If I find he's been deceiving Viona, I'll — " " Don't soil your hands with him. Leave him to his fate. He'll meet it soon enough. You can rest assured some one has been deceiving her. I asked her if she had heard anything detrimental to you. She blushed to the roots of her hair. That was all the answer I wanted. I sa!il> 'Miss Linton, upon my honour as a man, he has never committed an unbecoming act since I have known him, and whatever you have heard to the contrary is false, and has been told in malice.' She promised she would tell you all she had heard, and » 67 wanted nie to arrange for a meeting. I fixed to-morrow lit 11 o'clock." " Where ? " " In Central Park." " Central Park ? " " Yea, — that ought to be a lover's paradise enough for you." " Oh, it's too public ! " " Not where f. > E Si (if- ■ • Meletta had returned. " I thought you were glad a moment ago," she said, smiling, and seating herself before him. "You don't look happy." Harmon did his best to brighten. "Your liberal preacher hasn't left me yet," he said, reflectively. " I was just thinking," he went on, more cheerfully, " what a different sermon Christ would have preached." Meletta began to rock herself in her chair as if the subject had already become distasteful. " — but then," went on Harmon, apparently heedless of her indifference, " Christ preached by prfecept and example, — they don't preach that way, now-a-days." " Then, don't you think some allowance should be made ?" she asked, leaning a little towards him. " I don't agree with them in everything," she went on, as she rocked again more slowly ; " but then I can't see what there is to be gained by w orrying much about them — as long as we live rightly. We can't all think alike." Harmon took courage at once. " Then why does the church ask us to believe alike ? — for, as the minister said to-night, 'unless we believe we'll be damned.'" Meletta was silent. " Oh, Harold," she said, at last, " I don't know. I have never discussed that." " Well, Meletta, let me ask you — Do you rep.lly believe that Christ ever said it ? " "Said what?" " That ' he that believeth not shall be damned.' " " It doesn't seem to me he would," she said, slowly ; "but Harold, it's in the Bible." *;»»•',•" '■ 73 Harmon's courage was stimulated by this evidence that she was inclined, at last, to let reason decide. It was the belief in the * literal inspiration ' that was her trouble, too. He took a moment's silence to recall the two occa- sions when Christ was asked what one should do to obtain eternal life — by the lawyer and by the rich man. Drawing nearer to her, he told, with simple earnestness, of both — speaking from memory, and as if he had been a student of the Bible all his life. Meletta regarded iiim throughout with admiration and concealed sur- prise. " And so you see," he said, concluding with increased earnestness, " there is not a word in either about the necessity of belief. Christ did not say, ' You must believe in me, or believe every word of the Bible,' but lie practically said to both, * Do unto others as you would have them do to you,' teaching the rich young man to be benevolent, as well as obedient to the Com- mandments, and the lawyer to be as humane as was the ^^ood Samaritan. Why, then, believe that Christ would say what Mark records ? — and Mark is the only one of the Gospel writers who does record it." Meletta for the moment made no answer. She saw the reasonableness of his argument, but yet she felt she could not openly agree. How could she, when she knew her father would not ? " I don't know what to say," she confessed, at last ; ' I don't think so deeply on these things. I believe what I can understand, and the things I cannot I leave 10 y 74 m ih Yil for others. I don't see that it can have much to do with right living... When I heard Mr. Wernor before, that seemed to me to be the view he expressed, and that is why I liked his preaching. If I remember, he preached from the text, * Pure religion, and undefiled, is to— to— ' " The * baffling sense of the nearness of escaped mem- ory ' brought the blush to her cheeks, and Harmon, himself, flushed to see it. She looked divinely fair. "... and undefiled is to — " " To ' visit the orphan and the widow in their afflic- tion, and to keep unspotted from the world,' " said Harmon, slowly. Meletta turned quickly towards him. " Why, you weren't there, were you ? " she asked. " Oh, no, but I have often read it." Meletta was more than surprised at his knowledge of the Bible. The thought that he had been educated for the church came upon her with baffling sudden- ness. "... But almost next to those grand words," he went on, with a slow deliberation and an occasional pause for thought, " I have read something to the effect that if we keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, we are guilty of all. How strangely different, yet the sayings of the same Apostle, We can all agree with the first, but how can we a'. '-r 78 m M:| XL it There was awaiting Harmon, at his hotel, a note which he received that night upon returning. The paper bore the name and stamp of a trans- Atlantic line, and Harmon guessed at once the message was from Balfour, though the handwriting would scarcely have been regarded as a proof sufficient of identity, for Bal- four had written it, in something of a hurry, from the office of the Company just before sailing. It had not, by any means, been delivered in such a hurry. In that the Company's messenger had been left to consult his own convenience. The letter stated, and merely stated, as reason for their hasty departure, that Viona was afraid her father might return to New York at any hour ; that they had been down at the dock seeing the vessel sail, and that, upon the moment, they decided " to get married on 79 board the ship, and reside in England." Brief denunci- ations of Old Linton and Fuller followed, and, concluding, Balfour expressed the hope that Harmon and Meletta would soon follow. " If vou don't return with or with- out her within six months, I'll come over the blue again and bring you back," the letter closed. Harmon, standing in the hotel lobby, laughed as he read. He seated himself in a secluded corner. " Well, he need not come back for me," he mused, drawing the rolled letter though his fingers. " Cyrus and Meletta and I will be living in England, too, within a month. I have Meletta convinced already, and Cyrus... I know he'll change and come with us." He sat there in the quiet corner for half an hour, reviewing the past from the day and hour he had first set foot in Gotham. Of Linton and Fuller he had had enough. As for Lena, he had given up all hopes of her returning. His last thoughts were of Cyrus. What if the rector should refuse to listen to him — or denounce him before Meletta. " But," said Harmon, rising at last, " he only demanded of me that I should be a Chris- tian, and I am ... He cannot refuse to hear me." It was Tuesday afternoon before the rector returned. He had chanced, while away, to buy the very paper which contained the account of Balfour's elopement, had surprised Meletta with the news, and now sat in his Study re-reading the report. He threw the paper down at last, and, resting his arm on the back of his chair, ran his fingers slowly through his hair. A gleam of yellow brightness from the descending sun cast shadows 80 ': i s 11 B m i^i I?.!.: ll of curtain and blind upon the figured rug at his feet. Meletta, in the drawing-room below, was in almost the self-same position. But their thoughts were wholly different. Cyrus was concerned about Balfour and the lawsuit. " I wonder," he asked himself, " have I been swin- dled ? I half believe he wasn't a lawyer, after all, and any man who would elope — would so deceive a woman — is capable of anything to get the needed funds." He had trusted fully in the man, and had, in settlement of the suit, paid to him for Mrs. Morley $1,000 in cash. True, he had her receipt — but it might be a forgery. He was sorrv enouirh that he had not himself settled the affair. He believ^ed he could have settled for half that amount. If he could only have had some notice of Balfour's going. Harmon must have known of it on Friday — ample time — and yet on Sunday he says noth- ing of it. What could the deceiving wretch have meant by such a silence ? A double elopement ? Cyrus rose at once. Had Meletta told him all ? He walked up and down the room with hands clasped behind his back. No doubt, she had spoken the truth, but had she told the whole truth ? If Harmon was another Balfour, if — And at this moment Meletta inopportunely entered. " Father, I can't belive it's true," she said, seating herself upon the leather upholstered sofa beside the door. " Harold would have known of it — " ' " And do you suppose he didn't ? " " But he would have told me of it, if — " 81 " Meletta," tlie father interrupted, looking down upon her, " are you sure ? " The question stung. Meletta hung her head. " Why, how was it possible for him not to know ? " went on Cyrus, with some emotion, " living with the man as he did ... Meletta ! it's preposterous ! " He hesi- tated. Could he go further ? Why not, in the face of such conduct, express his opinion of the man once and for all ? Meletta raised her head as if to speak, but did not " Why, think of it," Cyrus still continued, " bosom Iriends, and living together, and yet one of them pre- tends not to know on Sunday night that the other had gone back to England on Saturday morning." " It does seem strange," she admitted, in a self-com- iniming tone. " Strange ! . . . Why, I simply can't believe it." " But, father," she asked, looking up, '* are we to dis- believe all thino-s that seem unreasonable ? " Cyrus stood amazed. Did this not show already the influence of Harmon ? — a willingness to argue which he luid never seen in her before. But he would not be iiasty. Meletta looked up for the answer. "Well, yes," he answered, ... "unless circumstances are such as to warrant us in believing, and the circum- stances are not such here. Why should he not tell you ? — if he was free from the disgrace himself ! ... It's likely he knew of it a week ago ! " Meletta's thoughts began to burn. She had intended to tell lier father of Harmon's coming on Wednes- 11 82 fl. W'' clay night, but she had not yet had the courage. She had told hiui of all save this, and of Harmon's opinion of the sermon, and now, fearing that she would be ques- tioned before her lover had had a chance to explain himself regarding Balfour, she rose to leave. But the very question she would have escaped was upon her father's lips. She halted in the doorway, and reluctantly returned. " You did not tell me what he thought of Mr. Wer- nor — of the sermon ! " he said, slowly. Meletta had resumed her seat upon the sofa, drawing one hand slowly over the other as she followed up her thoughts. She would answer the truth. " Well, it did not please him, father," she confessed, with some deliberation, ..." nor me." Had she not added those two words, Cyrus might not have questioned her much further, but he saw in them an unmistakable evidence of influence — his grave fears realized at last. " What ! " he gasped, turning suddenly in his chair, " didn't please you ? Why, Meletta, what do you mean ? " Meletta was silent. Cyrus took this for an answer. He quickly rose, and closed the half-closed door. " Now, Meletta, I want you to tell me," he asked, with some compassion, " hasn't Harmon been trying to get you to reject Christ ? " " No, father," she answered, frankl}?^ looking up, " he has not." " Why did you say ' the sermon didn't please you ? ' " " Because, father, it didn't." 83 " You've heard Mr. Wernor before — " " And I always thought he wavS so liberal." *' Ah, yes," said Cyrus, calmed at this, ... " once too liberal." " His whole sermon," went on Meletta, unheeding her father's words, '* seemed to be about eternal punish- ment." She spoke as though it pained her to repeat it, and her ' face was the index of her mind.' " What if it was ? — Do you mean to say you don't believe this doctrine ? " " Well," she answered, simpl}'-, "I sometimes think it can't be true." " Ah, but my child,' he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, thankful that she had not wholly denied it, " we must not let our own weak reasons decide these questions. We must take the Bible, as it reads, for our authority, and there is no higher." " But Mr. Wernor did not seem to believe it himself when I heard him last." " No, Meletta, He came nearly being led astray with his study of the ' higher criticism,' and with his efforts to explain away this doctrine and others to please the worldly worshippers of his church. Many of the clergy, in fact, thought he was simply trying to make a name, and charged him with insincerity. He only escaped a trial for heresy by retracting." ^ " Strange, you neve" told me of it." Cyrus merely replied that he thought he had men- tioned it at the time it had occurred. He spoke now at some length of this, and of like influences that had V IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) iM 1.0 I.I fflllM IM >.' 1112 ISM 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► y <9 /} ^} 'a. m ■Km M^ -> « W /; y Photographic Sciences Corporation i\ s ,v ^9) V ''I." 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 'V^ &?< c-?. I >'• 84 been brought to work upon other of his brotlier clergy- men. But they had all manfully held fast to the rock of their salvation. The storms and tempests were but trials of their faith. He himself might yet be tempted even as they. " But, Meletta," said he, bending towards her, '* Satan tempted even our Saviour — why then should we escape ? We must not forget Christ, in our tribulations — and there is no othci.- name under Heaven by which we can be saved. So many call themselves followers of our Lord, who do not realize what it is to be a true Christian." " Harold says he is a Christian." " Then let him prove himself to be one. His con- duct doesn't show him to be even honest. I had hoped he would have joined the church by this time, but now I've lost all confidence in him. I don't think he should be trusted any longer. He seems to be the same stamp of a man as Balfour. I suppose, if the truth were icnown, he didn't believe 'a word of the sermon. But he'd be as silent about that as about his friend's elopement . . . Did he say what he thought of any of it ? " he ventured, with some indifference. And what should Meletta answer ? Should she tell all? ..." What did he think of the text ?" Here was a direct question. Meletta was bound to answer. y' " Well, father," she stammered, " he doesn't think it / can be true that Christ would say — ' he that believeth \^ not shall be damned.' " 85 " I thought as much," said Cyrus, risino^ in unex- pected calm,; — " he's heard someone say it's an inter- polation ! Oh, Meletta, can't you see that this man's an infidel at heart — that he is not even the sincere unbe- liever we thought he was." He bent above her. Have no more to do with him, I beseech you, Meletta, for your own good." ' His hands were now upon her bowed head. And Meletta's tender soul gave way. The tears welled over and ran fast. Could it be Harold was deceiving her ? The thought overwhelmed her. She had lost all cour- age now to tell of his coming, and rose to seek her own room where she might weep in silence. " If I could convert him I would," continued Cyrus, returning slowly to his desk, " I would most gladly for his own sake ; but I know% Meletta, it is impossible — I can see it now." Meletta made no answer. Cyrus looked up, but she had gone. " She'll give him up," he mused, standing now between the open curtains at the window. " She'll give him up, I know. I'll rule by kindness. She's be- ginning to see him in his true light, as I do. These cunning deceivei-s — men seemingly sincere, yet at heart the worst of infidels— I leave them to their Maker. Balfour deceived me, but by divine direction I have dis- covered Harmon." He looked at his watch. " It's likely the Bishop will be in," he said, rolling up the newspaper as he closed his desk ; " I'll go over with this and see him, and Regi- nald—God bless him ! " v/ J 1 1 1 1 'iii V ^ 86 :r5 1?- .' ■ ? \ K XII. The Bishop, naturally surprised at the lateness of the rector's visit, apprehended, as the motive, something of a startling nature. It proved all startling enough (for not a word had he heard of the doings of the young lawyer), and, standing directly beneath the little chande- lier, he read the story to the last line without a com- ment. " Cyrus ! " he exclaimed at last, looking over the tops of his glasses, " what are the young men of to-day coming to ? . . . I thought him such a noble young fellow," he added, reg^-etfully, as he tossed the paper on the book-covered table between himself and his unex- pected guest. " And I ... I trusted him fully," Cyrus acknowledged. " And, Bishop, I can't help thinking that he has de- ceived me." " Deceived you !... in what ? " 87 " In the settlement of that suit." The Bishop, with a backward step, resumed his seat. " Why, what makes you think that ? " he asked. " From the conduct of the man. I think he has settled it for less than he pretended." The Bishop rested easily. *' Well, I hardly think that," he said, giving his glasses the full length of the chain. ** I don't think he was that kind of a man." His long, well-favoured face had resumed its appear- ance of a calm that was marred only by an unconscious humorous twitch of his thick, red lips, as if they indeed were conscious of * the savor of good things unspoken.' " But," said Cyrus, " no one would have thought he was this kind of a man.'' ** Well, no," agreed the Bishop. '* This is one of those affairs in which both may repent at leisure; but, as for being dishonest in business matters — I don't think we can justly charge him with that. He told me that he srave, if I remember rightly — gave Mrs. Morley one thousand dollars. Didn't he give you her receipt ? " " Yes, but I thought it might easily be a forgery." ** Oh, no ! no ! " returned the other. ** You can rest assured, Cyrus, he was never so badly in need of money as to stoop to that. You're quite safe with the receipt ... But what became of his friend — Harmon, I think — wasn't that his name ? The account says nothing of him." Cyrus looked vacantly at the border of the rug at his feet. ..." Did he go back with Balfour ? " 88 " No," replied the rector, with look and tone of regret ..." He is still here, I am sorry to say." The Bishop was moved at the sadness of the words and of manner of his friend. " Why, Cyrus, how is that?" He moved to the edge of his chair... "Has he been mixing himself up, too, in your affairs ? " " Yes," answered Cyrus, reluctantly. " In what way ? " " With Meletta." The Bishop still bent forward. " But," he asked, in a whisper, *' you don't mean that he's attempted to repeat Balfour's conduct ? " " I've been half inclined to believe so." The Bishop rose at once. ..."It was through the influence of Balfour, you know," went on Cyrus, '* that he got to know Meletta, and I believe he is just such another man." **Well, I'm glad, for Meletta's sake and for yours, that you have learned of this in time." " It seems providential." " It does." " For I believe Harmon's an infldel." " And the worst of infidels," put in the Bishop, " if he's attempting to wear a cloak of religion to deceive your daughter." ** I never knew of it until lately," explained Cyrus — " when I returned from Encjland. Then I learned that he was the very same young man I had met just before I had left. He was passing the church, and seemed in trouble then — was swearing to himself. I politely remonstrated .■m 89 with him, but he replied with sneers and ridicule. When I came back, I learned that this same man was Harmon, wrote him at once to cease his visits — that the man who would marry into my family must be a Christian." " You did exactly ri^ht ! " said the Bishop, standing now against the hidden lire-place ... ** How is it — " Cyrus anticipated the question. "It happened through our lost Lena — poor child, how often I have prayed for her return." " God may restore her to you yet." " I trust so." ... "If it is for you to have her." " Well, I, of course," Cyrus went on, "suspected Har- mon of stealing her, it being the day after I had written liim — and I gave his name to the police. Within an hour he was at the rectory, and before Meletta and myself protested his innocence. I was convinced then that I was mistaken, and thought there was a chance of winning him for Christ — he seemed so sincere." " Sincere ? " " I thought so then." "And now — " " I'm convinced he's a born infidel. He had con- fessed he was not happ}'^ in his unbelief, that he was anxious to learn the truth — " *' Well, Cyrus," said the Bishop, in his large and earnest way, " it seems to me absurd for a man claiming to be sincere to say, in this age, that he doesn't know the way to Christ. I place little reliance in the sincerity 12 •>^ 90 "I w ■ :' V- 1 1 I ^ '' ■ of these so-called ' seekers after truth.' It always seems to me they are looking for some easier way to salvation — some way by which they can still serve the world." He walked about as he spoke, as was his habit. ..." And Cyrus," he exclaimed, stopping suddenly and standing before him, " I am convinced that this is the greatest danger the church of to-day has to combat — such men as these, who seek to fashion Christ's Gospel to suit the worldly, truckling to every so-called science and reform. They would so alter the Bible and our Faith as to give every man the liberty to sin." Cyrus bowed in silent approval. " Do you think Meletta cares much for him ? " asked the Bishop, with fatherly concern. Cyrus stared unhappily before him. " Yes," he acknowledged, at last, ..." she seems to, and yet I think she is beginning to see him in his true light, now." " I hope so, Cyrus ; I hope it's not too late to save her." " But I'm in doubt what course to take," the rector added, thoughtfully. " What course would you ad- vise ? The Bishop tapped the rim of his glasses, reflectively, against his closed lips. It was liard to say what was the best course. He felt, instinctively, that Harmon was to be recognized as a suitor, and dealt with as such, but to end the matter they must deal with Meletta herself. , . .;; " I think," the father ventured, " I'll send her out of the city — to her aunt's in Washington." 91 But the Bishop saw the danger of that course. Harmon might, by aiTangement, meet her there. " No, (vyrus," he said, returning his glasses to the upper pocket of his vest. " I would keep her at home, and let Harmon — " " Continue his visits ? " " Yes, because the moment you try to prevent them ... the fat would be in the fire. She must be reasoned with. " No, the infidel shall not darken my door again," Cyrus resolved, in an undertone. ** He was at the rec- tory on Sunday night, and would you believe," he said, looking up, ..." he didn't say a word about Balfour." " What, didn't tell her of this ? " pointing to the paper. " Not a word." There was silence for a space, only broken by the Bishop's very dramatically rendered, " Well ! well ! well ! " " Yes," Cyrus continued, " forty hours after it oc- curred." " Then you think he intended to take Meletta on the next boat ? " " I can see no other object, though I suppose he saw the utter impossibility of it, and concluded to say nothing, for she says he didn't even mention this Bal- four's name." " What does she think of him, now ? " - " She doesn't know what to think of him — she said at first she didn't believe he knew of it." Both laughed. There was another silence. 92 j r " No, I cannot let him darken my door again," Cyrus repeated, witli an injured look. " Why not," added the Bishop, " and let his conduct, itseli, convince her of his insincerity. Leave it to her to renounce him." " No," said the rector, stubbornly, " she has seen quite enough of hie conduct to be convinced, and I Ihink she will be fully convinced in a day or so. Only, I'm afraid she's been losing faith." " Is it possible ? " The Bishop's face clouded. "... And I would like you to come over to-morrow and see her ... See if you can notice any change. Per- haps — " But at this instant, Reginald, his countenance aglow, his lustrous dark blue eyes fairly dancing with delight, rushed into the room waving a paper he held tightly in his hand. " In luck at last, father ! " he exclaimed, — " passed third best." The proud father reached for both the young gradu- ate's hands, and looking at Cyrus, then at his honoured son, said — " All he needs now, Cyrus — " " Why, I didn't see you, sir ! " interrupted Reginald, extending his free hand, which Cyrus warmly grasped in his. '* ... is to be ordained," concluded the Bishop, smil- ing. The rector was not profuse, but intensely sincere in his congratulations. He rose with both of Reginald's hands in his, and all three stood grouped. 93 " And Reginald," continued Cyrus, " you must come over to-morrow with your father." Reginald had no thought of the possible signifi- cance of the invitation. " Say to-morrow afternoon," suggested Cyrus, look- ins; at the elder Menen. " I'm afraid I can hardly promise that," the Bishop answered, with spectacles again upon his lips, " I've an engagement at 3 o'clock — say early in the evening." Cyrus bowed assent. " And Reginald," he added, benevolently, " you will be sure to come ! Meletta will be delighted to learn from you of your success, and to surprise her I'll say nothing of it. We can introduce you as the Rev. Reginald Menen now, you know." " Yes," said the Bishop, looking again at the younger with gratified affection," ... he'll soon be able to take his father's place." " Perhaps mine first," the rector added, with a tender smile. Reginald was strangely silent. When Cyrus returned to his home, though the hour was late, he found Meletta waiting for him — and the recovered Lena. yi r Vrl, 94 XIII. Cyrus' joy at the return of Lena was manifested on the following morning as it had been on the previous night, by a prayer of thankfulness. But of Lena's recent home they could learn next to nothing from the incoherence of her story. They found it useless to enquire, too, of the ' strange man ' who, she said, had put her in the street, at nightfall, where the police had found her. Cyrus, in fact, remained within doors all morning. He would make no enquiries. It was enough for him to know that God had restored the child to his safe- keeping. Lena, unable to contain her joy, ran about the house all day in aimless ecstacy. She had thought and enquired of all her friends but one, and ran now to meet Meletta coming down the stairs. " When can I see Harold ? " she asked, with uplifted hands. t,i 95 Meletta caufjlit the little hands and bent towards the child, glancing, as she did so, to where Cyrus stood in the hall, with hat in hand before the mirror. " ...1 do want to see him," went on the little one, jncking at the row of buttons on the front of Meletta's wrap. Meletta was silent. What should she answer ? She felt she could not, now, within a possible hour of Harmon's coming, tell her father of it. Could she have liis call seem unexpected ? The ' su^^pression of the truth was ever a suggestion of falsehood.' " And why do you want to see Harold ? " the father asked, brushing his hat with some care. "Because I want to," answered Lena, jumping upon the low^er step, and laying her head upon her hands against the newel post. Meletta, believing that she was not morally bound to tell of Harmon's expected visit, had walked to the end of the hall. " Just because he gave you that locket ! " Cyrus laughed, returning the ivory-handled whisk to its rack. " No, it ain't ! " she cried, running after Meletta. " Oh, yes, it is," laughed Cyrus, louder, as he left. He had " a call " to make, and intended to return in an hour, or at least before the Bishop and Reginald should arrive ; for he had told Meletta nothing of their coming. He was fairly correct in his calculation, and returned in time to meet them as they were going in the gate. But they had no sooner entered the rectory than Harmon, too, came up the walk — Harmon with confi- Vv 96 l:. dence made bold. The Bishop, Reginald, and Cyrus were seated in the long, ill-shaped, and anciently furnished drawing-room, and Meletta, up-stairs, was preparing to descend, as Harmon reached the door. Cyrus, at his summons, rose at once to answer, but Lena, bounding along the hall, rushed in Harmon's arms. Standing on the threshold, he twice quickly tossed her up and down, and kissed her as he stood her on her feet. With furtive glance the Menens liad watched him. The rector stood speechless, and Meletta, beside the newel post, anxious and unnerved. Harmon saw but her. " Meletta," he said, in an earnest and sympathetic tone, "but here is cause for joy/' He left one hand upon the child's shoulder, and ex;.dnded the other to the only woman in the world. " No," exclaimed Cyrus, with a fiery gesture of dis- dain, as he beheld the proftered hand, ..." Meletta, this man's an infidel — " " Sir," interrupted Harmon, calmly, ..." why do you continue to misrepresent me ? ... Your daughter knows I am a Christian ! " " You have neve r proved yourself to be one," an- swered Cyrus, drawing from him. Harmon looked at Meletta, then quickly at her father. '' Then I am willing to prove it now," he said. For answer, Cyrus reached for Lena, but she clung closer to her friend. " Oh, what's the matter, Harold," she cried, wildly throwing the other arm about him, and hiding her face in his open coat. 97 «< fV\ That is all you have asked of me. I will never jisk the opportunity again, it* you will hear me now. Do you refuse ? " The rector, standing in the curtained archway l)etween the hall and drawing-room, became all nerves. What if he should prove his statement, and with Regi- nald there ? Meletta was silent p/ud motionless. '• Sir," went on Harmon, moved now to the depth of Ins being by the prese'ice, and by the silence of Meletta, " I am willing that your daughter should be the judge of the Faith that now is mine — to stand or fall by her decision." The father looked sharply at Melettc«. She went white with apprehension. Then he suffered his eyes to rest upon the man before him. Harmon modestly returned the haughty glance. .„. " God w^ill be the Judge of this," Cyrus answered, with great emotion, "and thro\igh Meletta will His voice be heard." He led his daughter in, and stood between her and Reginald. When the trying introduction was over, it loft the Bishop standing on Meletta's right, and Harmon before all. Save for her, all watched every movement of the silent man before them. A sudden and a solemn hush had fallen, it would seem, upon the world about them. Harmon, who liad been prepared to plead his cause before the rector, found himself equally ready to uphold it now. . . 13 ■•■ . 'fci [PI 98 " I have been searching for the Truth from my youth," he began, slowly and dispassionately, raising his quiet eyes to them as he spoke, ... " but now I have learned that I have been searching without a light, in the darkness of contending Creeds. At last, I see the fault has been with we, not with the Bible... 1 was tauffht to take the mistaken view I did." Only Reginald discerned the non-committal nature of that speech, and to the amazement of Cyrus and the Bishop — " What view were you taught to take ? " he asked. " I was taught to believe that the Bible was liter- ally inspired," Harmon answered, with an unchanged self-possession. Cyrus whispered something to the Bishop, Reginald looked at both, then at Meletta. She withdrew her lingering gaze from Harmon, and bowed her head nov/ in the painful silence. " Young man," said the Bishop, advancing a step, " You have been deceived. You have not read the Bible. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy says, 'All Scripture is given by inspiration of God — ' " " ' Not by the will of man ! ' " said Reginald. " ' Holy men of God,' " added Cyrus, " ' spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' " Harmon turned to him. '* So I have read," he an- swered, ... "but that is the teaching of the Church — not of God." The Bishop, fully anticipating the theory, brought his hands togetiier with deliberation. " Why, my young ■'W 99 man," he said, " without literal inspiration there would be no Church. It* the Bible is not literally inspired it is but a collection of myths and fables." " My lord Bishop," answered Harmon, with the utmost courtesy, " you must know, and your son (as I am sure the Rev. Mr. Vanar does), that the Church preceded the Bible, in fact, ^rew out of it. With its ethics the enlightened world agrees, tlie rest is but a polyglot of records of events — Jewish history, legends and traditions. It cannot, in the very natare of things, be, word for word, inspired. Its moral truth is alone inspired, as it ever is, whether found in or out of the Bible. Inspiration is wider than the teachings that can be given in mere words ; for if it were not so, we would not find it as we do in all Nature. The Bible's senten- tious, moral, and prudential maxims must remain while language lasts. To Cyrus this was paralogy, indeed, and about the amount of it he had expected. He smiled upon the Bishop ; and Reginald, taking advantage of the oppor- tunity to give some evidence of his overflowing faith, observed : " Yes, and how soon the Bible would lose its authority if what you say were true — which God for- bid. The account of Creation, and the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel would be rejected. The Kings and Chronicles would become but priestly perversions. The whole idea of vicarious sacrifice, nothing but a symbol of reconciliation between man and his Maker. Vica- rious sacrifice, the very keystone of the ' Arch of Evan- gelism,' you would ruthjessly tear out of the Church of 100 M the living God, and crumble into dust — and the Atone- ment, which has pervaded the theology of the Christian Chui'ch from the beginning, you would discard from the Christian teaching of the future." Cyrus, even more than the Bishop, felt a rapture at the words. ** How eloquent, and how fitting ! " Harmon but replied : " It is not Christ's death that is of value to tho world — i^o is his life." *' Ah," smiled Reginald, ..." then the Gospel writers wrote fiction ! " "Andtruth." " But how are we to tell where the fiction ends and the truth begins ? " " Lei I'eason rule." " And how soon every passage that restrains appe- tite and governs passion would be relegated to the domain of fiction and of forgery." "' Not by reasonable nor by honest men," answered Harmon, " and the stamp of divinity does not prevent others from disobeying them now. The Gospel w^riters differ with each other in many instances — " *' Which is a proof of their independence and the truth of the Gospels." " I think it is,' Harmon confessed — " but it' shardly a proof of * literal inspiration.' The Bible is not, and cannot be, wholly inspired, and Jehovah is not, and cannot be, God. Jehovah was but the God of the Jews ■ — a God of infinite vengeance — and so not God at all." "Then you believe — " >.. . _ ._., ".■•:, T 101 " I believe," interrupted Harmon," that the Bible's moral truth is inspired by a true, just and loving God, and Christ to have been the discredited moral philoso- pher of his day — not the impossible union of human and divine. Humanity is, broadly, my religion, the happiness of others now my life's aim, and " — he looked directly at Meletta — " I m ^uld liave love the priest, and my home far from the discord of earth's warring creeds." But Meletta, though she had listened to all, did not raise her head. Reginald, who had resumed his seat, sat twirling his thumbs. The Bishop had whispered something to Cyrus, and the latter, as if awaking from a reverie, advanced with unsteady step to Harmon. " Sir," he said, laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder, with fatherly deliberation, ..." you are out of Christ. .1 see it is impossible to convert you. I had hoped I could save you, but now that you reject the God of the Bible—" "Sir, the true God of the Bible I will ever worship." "... and the Christ of Calvary." " I honour his very name — in the true light I'll follow his example as a true Christian." Cyrus turned upon him. " It is not enough 1 " " Let Meletta say so," pleaded Harmon. " You must accept Christ Crucified as your Saviour, ' for God so loved the world that — ' " " Let her decide — she will not say so." Both had stopped abruptly. There was a moment's silence, painful as it was intense. Cyrus, remembering his promise, turned to his daughter, then to Reginald, 102 1, 1 ;'•( ii«i .(:■ then to the Bishop. The latter sat unmoved, with Cyrus now bending towards him, both looking at the lovers as they stood between them and t)ie object of their affection. Reginald, unstrung with emotion, sank into the chair which stood beside him. Meletta raised her hands, turned a little towards him, and so remained. Her father, with the utmost confidence both in the wisdom of her decision, and by that her choice, stepped towards her. " Meletta," he called, in a tone commanding and severe, " as the God of Abraham said to the idolatrous Israelites, ' choose you, this hour, whom you will serve,' and show to the World the one true way to the Truth and the Light." The Bishop rose and stepped to the side of Cyrus. Reginald raised himself slowly by his arms. Harmon stood ready to advance upon the word. Meletta raised her head, and was about to take a step forward, when a sudden dimness crossed her sense of sight. She put her hands to her brow, and moaning, *' Oh, father — father ! " fell at their feet. In an instant Reginald was at her side. Cyrus and the Bishop gently raised her to a chair. Meletta lay with head upon the cushioned back, and tried to speak. Harmon was drawing near. ** No ! " exclaimed Cyrus, raising a hindering hand, " not yet." The Bishop and his son, standing on either side of the fainting girl, now bent above her. Reginald reached for her hand. ^ lo:^ " No," she whispered, " no — Harold ! ... Harold ! " ** Wliat ? ... Harold !" gasped the father. Harmon, now bowing at her feet, kissed her willing hand ... "God has answered through her, as you wished," he said, appealing to the speechless roetor, " Let us be friends." The Bishop caught Cyrus in his arms. " Then, come Meletta," said Harmon ; " come, my love, be brave, and show the World ' the way to the Truth and the Light.' " She rose, and leaning upon his breast, they reached the door. Meletta faltered. She tried to speak, but could not. Harmon pressed his cheek against her fore- head. Then she spoke. " I must say good-bye to . . . to father." " Leave Inm ! " cried the Bishop, standing there with Cyrus, ...'for the sorrow is more than lie can bear." And Reginald looked up. But they were gone. '•'W"* -iw -ri*^: I". 104 >:V : *' 1 f ' ■-J".: XIV. Now, for manjT^ years, Harmon has been connected with one of tlie great railway lines which have their ter- minus at Brighton, Eng., his name appearing among the directors as Sir Harold Harmon, Bart. Lady Harmon presides as a happy hostess (happy but for Cyrus) at " The Oaks," just out of Brighton, and the most welcome of all their guests are Mr. and Mrs. Balfour, who come down from London every summer season. To Meletta it has ever seemed a romance, and to Sir Harold also — but to Balfour and Viona the most natural thing in the world. Sir Harold, it is said, threatened once to write it all, but Meletta discouraged him of it ; for said she : " No one, liow-a-days, would believe we could have been so blind." v, -f,-