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“Do you mean–––”
“I ain’t saying right out just what I mean,” she broke in as she paused on the kitchen threshold. “If you’re real bright on guessing, you’ll be able to figure that out for yourself. The thing that’s most interesting to me is that the Lord is wonderful in the performing of all His works, and we ain’t to question how He brings ’em to pass. I wasn’t much in favor of the way Josiah done last night when he first told me, but the more I think about it, the more it seems all right to me. It didn’t seem dignified and nice to break up even a bad meeting that way, but what else was he to do? You’ve got to stay here, that’s plain, and if He ain’t got saints enough to keep you He’ll use the heathen.... Go right in and set down.”
“I’m not sure that it will bring Providence or any one else much glory if I stay here,” said the minister, with a faint smile.
Miss Pipkin returned with a steaming pot of coffee. She took her place at the table and for some time eyed the minister in silence. She was a thoroughgoing mystic in her religious178faith, but her mysticism was tempered with such a practical turn of mind that it was wholesome and inspiring.
“Mr. McGowan, it is the will of God that you stay right here in this town. If we do His will we ain’t to worry about the glory part,” she emphatically affirmed. She placed the cups and saucers beside the coffee-pot and filled them. “You hit ’em hard last night, and that is exactly what’s ailing them. You’ve been hitting ’em too hard for comfort. The shoe’s pinching and they’re not able to keep from showing how it hurts. You hit me, too,” she observed, looking earnestly into the minister’s eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t be, ’cause it wasn’t you speaking. It was God speaking through you. Them words you used for your text rung in my ears all night long. I could hear ’em plainer than when you spoke ’em from the pulpit: ‘Launch out into the deep.’ Mr. McGowan, do you believe there is any forgiveness for the unpardonable sin?”
Evidently knowing that a minister of the179Presbyterian faith could entertain but one answer and remain a moral man, she did not wait for a reply.
“It was years ago when I first heard them words. They were just as plain to me then as they was last night, but I refused to obey ’em. I didn’t think I could stand the ocean. You know the way I was coming over from Riverhead. Well, I’m always sick on the water, and so I said right out that I wouldn’t set sail as a seaman’s wife. I was young and strong-headed then, and didn’t understand. The man I said ‘No’ to went off, and I never heard from him but three times since. Some said he was drowned at sea, but I know he wasn’t. I’ve been true to him all these years, trying to atone for my sin of disobedience. If he’d come back now, I’d go with him though he’d slay me.”
Mr. McGowan wanted to smile at the mixed figure, but the serious face before him prevented him. “Did you say you never heard from him?” he asked, sympathetically.
“No. I didn’t say that.” She spoke180sharply, but immediately her face and tone softened. “I didn’t mean to speak cross, but I ain’t spoke of this for years, and it upsets me when I think of what I done.”
“We’ll not speak of it, then.”
“It won’t disturb me the least bit. It sort of helps to talk about it. I’m thinking all the time about him, how brave he was. He was so manly, too, was my Adoniah.”
“Adoniah?” questioned the minister, sitting up with a suddenness that astonished Miss Pipkin.
“Adoniah was his first name. I ain’t spoke it out loud for years. It does sound sort of queer, doesn’t it? I didn’t think so then.” She sighed deeply. “The spirit of the Lord seemed to go away from me when Adoniah did. If only he’d come back.”
“He has not left you. God is not a hard master, leaving people alone for their shortcomings.”
“Do you think He’ll send him back to me?”
“He is here now. He has never left you.”
Miss Pipkin looked dazed, then puzzled,181and finally provoked. “I didn’t think you’d trifle, or I’d never told you.”
“Indeed, I’m not trifling.”
“Then, what happened last night has gone to your head, poor thing! I’d ought to have known better than to have troubled you with my sorrows. You’ve got all you ought to carry. Poor thing!”
She slowly pushed her chair from the table, eyeing the minister as though expecting signs of an outbreak. But he motioned her back into her chair with a calmness that reassured her.
“I don’t quite understand your meaning, I guess,” she said.
“And it is quite apparent that I didn’t understand yours. You were speaking of the Spirit of God leaving you, and I said He was right here with you–––”
“Now, ain’t I a caution to saints!” broke in Miss Pipkin. “I did mix you up awful, didn’t I? What I was asking you about was if you thought God would send back my Adoniah Phillips. He–––Why, Mr. McGowan, what’s the matter now?”
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The minister had risen and was looking oddly at the housekeeper.
“What on earth have I said this time?” she implored.
“You say your lover’s name was Phillips, Adoniah Phillips?”
Miss Pipkin did not reply, but looked at him fixedly.
“Please, don’t look at me like that, it makes me feel like I’ve been guilty of something,” he said, trying hard to smile.
“You sure you ain’t sick?”
“Of course, I’m not ill. I’m slightly interested in that peculiar name. I’ve heard it just once before, and I’m wondering if there is a chance of its being the same man.”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Well, I have heard his name.”
“There ain’t likely to be another name like his.”
“Have you any idea where he is at present? You said a bit ago that you did not think he had been drowned at sea.”
“No,” she answered curtly.
“Can you so much as guess?”
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“I don’t know if he’s living at all, so of course I ain’t got no idea where he is,” was her snappy reply. “Has he been telling you about me and him?” she asked, nodding toward the up-stairs where the Captain was presumably asleep.
“He hasn’t said anything to me, but–––”
“You’ll promise not to repeat one word to him of what I just told you?” she begged, again jerking her head toward the stair.
“I promise to say nothing about what you have told me. But I have my reasons for wanting to know something about this man Phillips.”
“What are your reasons?”
“I should not have said reasons, for I guess it is nothing but my curiosity that prompts me to ask. If you could tell me more of the facts I might be able to help you locate him.”
“You mean you have an idea that he is still living?”
“I can’t say as to that, but if you’ll only help me I am certain that we shall find out something interesting.”
Miss Pipkin drew the corner of her apron184across the corner of her eyes, disappointment written deeply in every line and wrinkle of her face.
“There ain’t much more to tell. Adoniah went to sea. I got a letter from him once from Australia. I wrote back saying I’d take back what I’d said. He answered it, but didn’t say nothing about what I said to him. He spoke of meeting up with some one he knew, saying they was going in business together. I ain’t never told anybody about that, not even Josiah, and I ain’t going to tell you, for I don’t think he was square with Adoniah, but I can’t prove it.”
The thud of heavy boots on the rear stair checked further comment she seemed inclined to make, and she dried out the tears that stood in her eyes with short quick dabs as she hurried to the kitchen.
“Lan’ of mercy!” she exclaimed, returning with a smoking waffle-iron. “I clean forgot these, and they’re burned to ashes. Here, don’t you drink that cold coffee, I’ll heat it up again,” she said, taking the cup. Leaning closely to his ear, she whispered, “Mind, you185ain’t to tell a living soul about what I said, and him above all others.”
The minister nodded.
Miss Pipkin entered the kitchen just as the Captain opened the stair-door. He sniffed the air as he greeted the two with a hearty “Good morning.”
“Purty nigh never woke up. You’d otter have come up and tumbled me out, Mack.”
“Rest well, did you?”
“Just tolerable. Clemmie,” he called, “I seem to smell something burning. There ain’t nothing, be there?”
“We was busy talking, and them irons got too hot.”
“Talking, be you? Don’t ’pear to have agreed with neither of you more than it did with those irons.”
“You didn’t pass a mirror on the way down this morning, or you’d not be crowing so loud, Josiah.”
“No, that’s a fact I didn’t. You see, Eadie busted mine during that cleaning raid, and I can’t afford a new one.”
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“You must have hit your funny-bone, or something,” hinted MissPipkinas she poured a cup of the reheated coffee.
“Now, don’t get mad, Clemmie. I was just fooling. Mack understands me purty well, and he’ll tell you that I didn’t mean nothing by what I said.”
“Josiah Pott! You’re that disrespectful that I’ve a good mind to scold you.”
“What’s up now, Clemmie?”
“The very idea! You calling the minister by his first name.”
“I’ve done it ever since I knowed him, and he wouldn’t like me to change now. Hey, Mr. McGowan?”
“Call me by my first name, Cap’n. Too much dignity doesn’t sit well on your shoulders. You needn’t mind, Miss Pipkin, for that is a habit that was formed before I became a minister, and there is no disrespect, I assure you.”
“You mean you two knowed each other before you come here?”
“You see, Mack come to me one summer when I was starting on a cruise, and he was187such a good sailor that we spent four seasons together after that.”
“You never told me that,” said Miss Pipkin.
“I didn’t think to, Clemmie. Mack, have some more of these waffles. They’re mighty tasty. It takes Clemmie to cook ’em to a turn.”
“Just listen to that!” rejoined the housekeeper. “He ain’t had none yet.”
The minister did the unheard-of thing: he refused the offer of waffles!
“Mack, you ain’t going to let them hypocrites and wolves in sheep’s clothing come right up and steal your appetite out of your mouth, be you?”
Mr. McGowan assured him that he had no such intention.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” declared the Captain, smacking his lips to make the waffles appear more appetizing. “Have just one. Maybe your appetite is one of them coming kind, and I’ll swan if ’tis that one taste of these would bring it with a gallop.”
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“Don’t urge him if he don’t want ’em, Josiah.”
“Cal’late your talking must have gone to his stomach, hey, Clemmie?”
“Josiah!” she exclaimed, coloring. “He’ll soon forget all I said to him.”
“You sartin give it to ’em good last night, Mack. It was the best I ever heard. Got most of ’em where they lived, and you took ’em out into the deep beyond their wading-line, too. How about you, Clemmie?”
Miss Pipkin had important business in the kitchen.
“Yes, Mack, that sure was a ringer,” continued the Captain as he helped himself to another layer of waffles. “Wonder if Clemmie took what you said about launching out as literal?”
Miss Pipkin returned with a plate of smoking waffles and placed them at the Captain’s side.
“Thanks, Clemmie. I was ’feared you’d be setting out to sea in my dory after hearing that sermon last night,” he said banteringly, with a twinkle in his eyes. “You’d best explain189that your meaning was figur’tive, Mack. I looked up that word once and it means–––”
“Josiah Pott! How can you be so cruel!”
With a sob that rose from the depths, Miss Pipkin fled, slamming the kitchen door after her.
“I’ll swear, if she ain’t crying!” exclaimed the surprised seaman. “What in tarnation do you suppose is up, Mack? You don’t cal’late she thought I was relating to her for earnest, do you?”
He rose and started toward the door. Mr. McGowan laid a hand on his friend’s sleeve.
“You’d better leave her alone.”
“But I never meant nothing. She’d otter know that. I’m going to tell her,” he said, pulling away from the minister, and trying the closed door. “Clemmie, be sensible, and come out of there. I didn’t mean nothing, honest, I didn’t.”
But Miss Pipkin did not come out. She did not so much as answer his importunings. When the men were out of the dining-room190she went up-stairs, not to appear again that day.
It was afternoon when Mr. McGowan hobbled out of his study, ate a light lunch, put a few sandwiches in his pocket, and started in the direction of the peninsula road that led to the beach.
191CHAPTER X
Mr. McGowan left the highway a little beyond the Fox estate, and followed a crooked, narrow old footpath across-lots. The path dipped and rose with the contour of the land till at last it lost itself in the white level stretch of sandy beach. He walked on and on, so deeply absorbed in his thoughts that he was unmindful of the blistered foot. It was only when hunger pains conspired with the irritation of his foot that he dropped on a log. He drew the sandwiches from his pocket, and proceeded to devour them with genuine relish. For hours after he had finished his lunch, he sat with his back to the warming rays of the afternoon sun, and gazed vacantly across the wide stretches of sand-dunes.
The chill of the evening air roused him at length to the fact that he must be going home. But when he tried to rise, he discovered that his long walk had produced an ill effect on Miss Pipkin’s remedy for sprained ankles.192He dropped back again on the log, pondering on how he was to retrace his steps. The sun slipped into the misty haze that hung low above the horizon of the autumn sky. The shadows crept slowly up out of the waters and over the landscape. A thin cloud drifted in over the Sound, through which a pale moon pushed a silvery edge. With the gathering darkness there came a deep mystery over land and sea which seemed to creep round and envelop him.
Suddenly, the chill of the evening air was filled with a glowing warmth, as when one senses the presence of a friend. He stared about him. He listened intently. Could it be possible that this sudden change was only a mental fancy? He hobbled a short way up the beach, and as he rounded a promontory his weakened ankle turned on a loose stone. With an exclamation he settled down on the sand.
A figure near the water’s edge rose as though startled. She paused, ready for flight. Then with an involuntary cry came toward the man huddled up on the sand.
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“O dear, you are hurt!” she cried, as he attempted to rise.
“Elizabeth!” He spoke her name without thought of what he did, even as she had unknowingly used the word of endearment in her exclamation of surprise and concern.
“You should not have walked so far,” she said, her tone cordial, but her eyes holding a smoldering fire. She helped him to a near-by stone, and sat down beside him.
“I somehow felt that you were near.”
“You thought––what?”
“No, I did not think it, I just sensed it.”
“You certainly have a very fertile imagination.”
“Yes. It has been both my blessing and curse.”
“But how did you come to feel I was about here?”
“I don’t know. It does seem strange, doesn’t it?” he mused. “But I was certain–––”
“Perhaps you were thinking–––” She stopped abruptly.
“Of you,” he finished for her. “I was. I194was feeling quite lonely, and couldn’t help wishing I could talk with you.”
“I heard to-day that you are thinking of leaving Little River,” she suggested, tactfully changing what she considered a dangerous subject.
“You heard that I intend to leave? Pray, tell–––”
“Then you’re not going?”
“Quite to the contrary, I intend to fight this thing through if it takes a whole year.”
“I’m so glad!” There was deep relief in her voice. She hesitated before continuing. “I had a terrible quarrel with Father this evening.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I was very angry, and left him to come out here. It is the first time we have ever really fallen out. I’ve thought over some of the unkind things I said to him, and I am ashamed. I was about to go back to him when you fell on those stones and hurt yourself.”
“You are right, Miss Fox. Go back to him. He will see differently, too, now that he has had time to think it all over.”
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“That is what worries me. He won’t see differently, though I know he is in the wrong. I’m afraid we’ll quarrel again.”
“Then, I should wait. He will come to you in time.”
“Father will never do that,” she said, sorrowfully. “I hurt him more than I had any right.” Searching the minister’s face under the dim light, she concluded: “Please, Mr. McGowan, don’t blame Father too severely for what happened last night! He is not himself.”
“Miss––Elizabeth! Did you quarrel with your father about me?” His heart gave a bound into his throat.
She nodded, looking for the world like a child grown tall. Her eyes did not waver as they met the hungry look in his own.
“About me?” he repeated incredulously.
“Yes.”
A wild passion swept through him as he listened to the quiet affirmative.
“It began about you and the Athletic Club. Father does not understand about your work among the boys. It ended about196you and the action of the church last night.”
“But that action was not voted through.”
“I know. But the end is not yet.”
“Do you think that my relations with the Boys’ Club is all that was behind the abortive action last night?”
“I–––”
“Would you advise me to give that work up for a while till all this blows over?”
“No, indeed!” she declared strongly. “I think–––Well, he says that you are not orthodox. Do you need to preach like that?”
“If my theology is of poor quality, I can’t help it. I can preach only what is truth and reality to me.”
“But couldn’t you be more careful how you do it? Couldn’t you be less frank, or something? Should you antagonize your people so?”
“I’m sorry if I have really antagonized any one by what I say. Do you find anything unorthodox in my sermons?”
“That isn’t a fair question to ask me. I’m197not familiar with such things. I thought you might preach less openly what you believe so strenuously. Coat the pills so they’ll go down with the taste of orthodoxy.” She smiled faintly. “I hate to see you putting weapons in their hands.”
“And do you honestly think I’d be dealing fair with myself or with those to whom I preach to sugar-coat my thoughts with something that looks like poison to me?”
She did not reply, but with a quick look she flashed from her wonderful eyes a message he could not fail to catch even in the semi-darkness. She dropped her hand lightly on his sleeve, and his fingers quickly closed over hers. She drew nearer. He could feel the straying wisps of fair hair against his hot cheek. His emotions taxed all his powers of self-control.
“We must be going,” she said, rising. “Oh, I forgot your foot! You must wait here till I send the trap for you along the beach.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll get on very well, if you’ll help me a little.”
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“Please, wait till I send Debbs. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Your father might object to my riding in his carriage,” he remarked, with a light laugh.
“Mr. McGowan, you must not talk like that. I know you don’t like him, but he is really the best father in all the world!”
“Forgive me, Miss Fox. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m afraid I was just trying to be funny. As a matter of fact, I do like your father, but there has been no opportunity–––”
“Have you tried very hard to find an opportunity? You’ve stayed away from our house pretty consistently, and have not asked him one thing about the church work.”
“I stayed away because I was requested to.”
“That was only for the time he was ill.”
“I’d be glad–––”
“Why will you grown men act like children sometimes?”
“Miss Fox, please be seated again,” requested the minister, a note of authority in his voice. “I have something important to199say to you, and the time may not come again.”
The girl obeyed, taking her place close beside him on the stone.
“I see you do not understand what has brought this trouble between your father and me. Neither do I, but I don’t think that it’s a matter of doctrine. Nor do I believe that it’s the work I’ve been doing down at the Inn with the boys. Some cause strikes deeper than both. They are merely excuses. You remember that he made no objection to me in the beginning along these lines, and I preached no less strenuously then, as you call it, than I do now. In fact, had it not been for your father I doubt very much if the installation had gone through last summer. Behind the scenes there is another man, and he is pulling the strings while he directs the play. When I was ordained to the ministry in the New York Presbytery, that man fought me desperately, while he raised no objections to others who were ordained at the same time, and who held views far more radical than mine. That man was at the installation.200When your father told me that he was coming, I made no protest, for I saw that there was a fast friendship between the two. You know what that man tried to do at the installation. You doubtless know, too, that he has been much with your father of late. You also saw him at the meeting last night.
“Miss Fox, if we knew all the facts, we should be able to lay the blame for this trouble and your father’s condition right where it belongs.”
“You refer to Mr. Means?”
“I do. What it is–––”
“Mr. McGowan, if you think any man can influence my father, you do not know him. I dislike Mr. Means, maybe because he is so preachy. But he cannot influence Father.”
“I wish I could believe that!”
“You must believe it. You are letting your imagination color your judgment.”
“I should like to believe anything you tell me, but I can’t believe anything else than that Mr. Means stands behind this whole mess. Just why, I don’t know, but it looks very much as though there is a skeleton concealed201in his closet, and he’s afraid that I’m going to let it out.”
“Why did you say that?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see what connection I could possibly have with the man.”
“You are talking nonsense!”
“Perhaps, but truth sometimes masquerades in the garb of the court fool.”
“Just what do you mean?”
“I wish to heaven I knew!”
“Do you think–––” She paused. She searched his face, which was dimly and fitfully lighted by the moonbeams as they broke through the phantom-like clouds that were beginning to sweep the heavens. “Tell me, please, just what it is you are thinking.”
“I dare not. But there is some reason not yet come to light, and it is sheltered in the mind of Mr. Means.”
“Perhaps he knew you before you entered the ministry?” she half suggested, half questioned.
“I have no recollection of even so much as meeting him before coming before the ordaining Presbytery of which he was a member.202So far as the history of my life is concerned, he may find out the whole of it, if he so wishes. It wouldn’t make very interesting reading, though. Miss Fox,”––his voice took on the quality of his earnestness,––“if you have any way of finding out what the actual cause is for the conditions in my church, I shall do all in my power to make amends, providing the fault is mine.”
“Why don’t you go to him? He might be reasonable, and listen to you.”
“Didn’t I go to him? Didn’t I try to find out what I had done till you and the doctor forbid my coming again?”
“I don’t mean Father. Why don’t you go to Mr. Means?”
“Would you, if you were in my position?”
She shook her head decidedly. “But I don’t like him.”
“Perhaps that may be my reason, too.”
“But I thought all ministers had to love everybody.”
“We might love the man, but not his ways.”
“There’s no merit in saying a thing like203that when a man and his ways are one and the same thing, as is the case with Mr. Means.”
“I’m honest when I say I have nothing against Mr. Means. I don’t know the man well enough for that. I suppose he can’t help his ways.”
“There, you’ve gone and spoiled it. I was beginning to think that you are like other men.”
“Like other men?”
“Men who love and hate. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you are really fond of that man who fought you at the Inn.”
“He was a good boxer,” was the enthusiastic reply.
“And you like him?”
“I might if I knew him.”
“Can you fight everybody like that, and still have love for them?”
“Self-control is the better word. Unless a man can learn that, he had better stay out of the ring. What is true in boxing, is just as true in life.”
“But, when there are those who threaten to204wreck your whole life and your work, what are you going to do?”
“That is the time when one needs to summon every ounce of self-control he possesses. It is when the other man is seeking to land a knock-out blow that one needs to keep his head the coolest, for unless he does he can’t make his best calculations.”
“Oh, Mr. McGowan! You’ll keep that way in this trouble, and not let any of them get in that kind of blow?”
“Yes, if you will only help me.”
“I help you? But I can’t!”
“No one else can.”
“Oh!” cried the girl, beginning to take in the meaning of his words.
“Elizabeth–––”
“Don’t say it, please!” Her fingers went to her lips in a hurt gesture. “You may spoil everything.”
“I must speak. I love you! I have loved you from the first day beneath that old elm-tree on the Captain’s place.”
“Oh!”––she sprang to her feet and faced him,––“now, you have made it impossible for205me to help you, where before I might have done something!”
“Only if you say so.”
“I did so want to help you! You seem so alone in this trouble! I thought you were going to give me an opportunity. I thought you would tell me how!” Her mobile lips puckered as the shadow of pain flitted across the light of her eyes.
“Elizabeth!” he called, holding out his hand.
“Why did you say that to me?” she cried, her youthful face deeply furrowed as though she had grown suddenly very tired.
“Because I could not help it. I’ve known so little of love in my life that since this has come to me it hurts like the turning of a knife. I’ve never been accustomed to human care like other men. Had I been, I should have been able to hide my feelings behind the screen of pretense. You asked me a while ago why I do not love and hate like other men. I do love, and I hate! I have been schooled all my life to hide my hates, but experience neglected me with the other. Elizabeth–––”
206
She drew farther from him.
“I don’t think I understand you,” she said, her eyes widening in the light of the moon till they appeared like two shining orbs. “Have I given you any reason to think of me like that?”
“No. But I thought–––”
She drew into the shadows that he might not see the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. “Forgive me, if I have!”
“I’m the one to be forgiven. I’ve never had much instruction concerning social custom. I was reared where they were little known. In school I was too busy to bother about them. I’m crude. But, Elizabeth, I love you. I see now that I’ve no right to tell you, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve been driven to desperation. I have been like a caged animal for weeks past. I’ve been wild for just a little love and understanding in the midst of all I’ve gone through. But you don’t love me!” His breath was coming hard. He trembled as he rose. “You will love me some day! God will not let a man love as I do and give nothing in return!”
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Stirred with pity, Elizabeth came to him from out the darkness.
“Forgive me,” he said as she came nearer. “I had no idea it would be like this.”
She did not take the hand he extended, but folding her arms behind her, she stood quite still and stared. “I’m so sorry! But I don’t understand you at all.”
“You need not try. I don’t understand myself. I have never been through anything like this in all my life. I thought instinct would lead you right to me. I never questioned but that you would understand. But don’t try, for I can’t explain. This afternoon I had just one thought: to tell you how I love you. I thought it would make me happy. Happy!” He laughed bitterly. “I didn’t stop to reason. It seems I have no reason.”
“Mr. McGowan, please stop! You frighten me,” cried the girl, drawing away again as he limped a step in her direction.
“Hate!” That one word was like the sharp sudden sting of a whip. “I hate this age of social position, where money stands208above the man. I hate the shell of so-called good families, as if lineage made the man, instead of man making the lineage. I hate–––”
“You must stop! Love that gives such torment as you have been describing to me is apt to turn out as nothing more than infatuation. I care for you, but in no such way as you have indicated to me. I want you for a friend. Don’t spoil that!”
He hobbled off down the beach as rapidly as his limping foot could travel. The girl came to his side and slipped her arm through his. “Lean on me just as heavily as you like,” she urged. “I know you think me unkind and cruel, but I do so want to help you.” Her voice broke unsteadily.
“I don’t think you unkind, Miss Fox,” replied the minister as he accepted her proffered assistance. “The cruel thing is this that has been burning within like fire. If you only knew–––”
“Mr. McGowan,”––she interrupted kindly,––“I cannot tell you as to the height of esteem in which I hold you. Nothing can ever209harm that. But even if I cared for you as you ask of me, don’t you see how impossible it would be for me to go back on Father? I can’t help but think there must be some real reason for the attitude he has taken against you.”
“Do you honestly believe what you have just said?”
“Is there any reason why I should not believe it?”
“I suppose not,” he replied, heavy fatigue in his voice.
She saw from his averted face that her question had pained him. She wanted to speak, to soften her question, but no words came to her dry lips.
The way home was traveled in silence. They reached the pile of stones below her father’s place, and Elizabeth released her aching arm. In silence they watched the strangely mottled effect where the moonlight fell in patches across the water as the clouds flitted past. A patter of rain, accompanied by a sharp whistle of wind, warned them of coming storm.
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“I’ll go up the path with you, and go home by the road,” volunteered the minister.
“No, indeed. It will be much easier walking for you along the beach, and you’ll not need to climb any hill. I’ll call to you from the back gate, and you’ll know I’m safe.” She turned toward him once more. “Harold came home to-day, and Father has been worse since that. Harold found out something about the man he went over to Australia to look up. He must have told Father about it to-day. Since then he has been in a terrible state of mind. It seems that Harold found out something about you, too.”
Mr. McGowan was too surprised to reply.
“Against you, Father says. I was not going to tell you this, but you have compelled me to do it by what you said to me. I know nothing of your past life.”
“Miss Fox, will you be kind enough to explain?”
“I have nothing to explain. All I know is that from the way Father acted it must not be to your credit.”
He looked his amazement.
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“Good night,” she said, extending her hand. “You will not forget what you said about the way one should do in boxing, will you?”
He smiled faintly.
“Mr. McGowan, you are not going to disappoint me, are you?”
“Would it make much difference? You seem to have already formed your opinion from the things you have heard.”
“If you are going to give up like that it will make no difference what you do. I thought you were more of a man than that.”
She turned and ran up the path. At the top of the pile of stones she stopped, her slim outline silhouetted in clear-cut lines against a patch of moonlight, and her loosened hair giving the suggestion of a halo as the mellow light played through. She lifted her hand as she declared, “And you are more of a man. I do not believe that whatever Father thinks he has found out can harm you in the least. That is what we really quarreled about to-day. Does that tell you how much I care? ‘Now is the time when you need to summon212every ounce of self-control you possess. When other men are seeking to land the knock-out blow you should keep your head the coolest, for unless you do you cannot make your best calculations.’ You see, I have not forgotten, and neither must you. And in everything, Mack,” she finished, hurriedly.
The rear gate clicked, and she sent him a light trill.
The minister went to his study as soon as he reached home. For hours he sat, his mind a blank. He was roused at last by the opening of hisstudy door. He looked up into the face of his old friend. The blue eyes, usually clear and steady, had a faded look as though the fire in them had suddenly gone out.
213CHAPTER XI
“I’ve been shut up with the most onreasonable feller I ever see in all my life,” said the Captain to the unasked question in the minister’s eyes. “I cal’late I’ll keep my thoughts to myself to-night, Mack, and sleep on them. The way I feel wouldn’t be conducive to prayer-meeting language. Good night, son.”
It was scarcely daylight when Miss Pipkin began work in the kitchen on the following morning. Shortly afterward the Captain descended.
“Morning, Clemmie.” He held the kitchen door ajar, and his voice wavered as he spoke.
Miss Pipkin did not reply. The Captain, to reinforce his courage, stepped back into the dining-room. Miss Pipkin walked over and closed the door. This spurred the seaman to action. He cautiously pushed the door open again, and peeped through a narrow crack.
“Clemmie, be you in there?”
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“Where else do you think I’d be, down the well?”
“Can’t I talk to you, Clemmie?”
“No. I don’t want you to come sneaking into my kitchen at this hour in the morning. You ought to be in bed.”
A note of friendliness in her voice led him to open the door a little wider.
“You’re up too early, Clemmie.”
“I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“If you ain’t too busy, I’d like awful well to speak to you about something.”
“Well, I am busy, leastwise too busy to be bothered with your nonsense.”
“It ain’t foolishness this time.”
Something in his tone made her look up into the face framed in the crack of the door.
“Josiah!” she cried at sight of the drawn features.
He threw open the door and entered.
“Mr. McGowan ain’t sick this morning, is he?” she asked.
“No. Leastwise he wa’n’t when I passed the time of night or early morning with him on my way to bed.”
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“Are you sick, Josiah?”
“What I got might be called that, Clemmie. I’m sick of the hull damn round of life,” he said, despondently.
“Josiah Pott! How you do talk! What do you mean by it, anyhow?”
“Purty much as I say. I’m always bungling things of late. I––well–––”
“Now, you set down in that chair, and stop staring at me for all the world like an old wood-owl, ’most scaring the wits out of me. One would think you’d gone clean out of your head. I never heard you talk so in all my born days. If you ain’t sick, you’re in a heap of trouble. Now, do as I tell you and set down. Tell me what’s wrong, that is if that’s what you come down for.”
“That’s why I come down, Clemmie,” he said, slouching into one of the kitchen chairs. “I heerd you come down-stairs, and I just had to follow. Fust of all, I want to tell you how bad I feel about them things I said yesterday morning that hurt your feelings so.”
“For the lan’ sakes! Be that what’s ailing you? I thought it was something that216amounted to something,” she declared, the color rising into her faded cheeks.
“That does amount to something. It means a lot to me. That ain’t all, but I wanted to get it off my chest fust. I was never intending less to hurt nobody than when I said that to you. I thought ’twould cheer you and Mack up a little; you was both looking a mite blue. You’re a good woman, Clemmie, and any man that’d insult you would have me to settle with purty tolerable quick. You know how much I think of you.”
“Be you beginning to propose again?” she asked, her arms akimbo. “If that’s what’s ailing you, and you’re asking my pardon just to get ready to ask me–––”
“Don’t get mad, Clemmie. No, I ain’t going to get down on my old prayer-bones, they’re a mite too squeaky, though I’d be willing enough to do it if I thought it would do any good. I ain’t going to pester you any more about that. You know your mind, and it ain’t right for me to be disturbing it at my time of life.”