"Because when a man is in the grip of superst.i.tion there is no knowing what he will do or leave undone. So-called religion is made an excuse for so many things."
"For not committing suicide, for instance?"
"Exactly. If a man gets the stupid notion into his head that he is accountable to somebody for his life, or that he will have to give an account at some hypothetical judgment day, that man becomes a slave at once. He is no longer his own master. No longer free to do what he likes."
"My dear Muller," Rufus questioned, with a smile. "Are you free to do as you like? Is not the life of every one of us bounded by laws and conditions that we cannot escape?"
"Up to a point, no doubt. Freedom is not chaos. Liberty moves within legitimate bounds. Our philosophy is at any rate rational."
"Then you believe in a moral order as well as a physical?"
"The moral order man has evolved for himself. It is a concomitant of civilisation."
"Why not say he has evolved the physical order for himself? Would it not be just as reasonable? He may have evolved considerable portions of his creeds and any number of dogmas. But the moral order is no more a part of ecclesiasticism than earthquakes are. It is part of the universal cosmos before which we stand helpless and bewildered."
"My dear Sterne, you talk like a parson. Who has been coaching you?"
"No, no, Muller; the subject is too big and complex to be dismissed with a sneer."
"I expect I shall hear of you next playing the martyr for moral ideals,"
Muller said, with a slight curl of the lip.
"That seems to be the next item on the programme," Rufus answered, quietly; "for, after all, what is honesty--the just payment of debts--but a moral ideal."
"It belongs to that code of honour certainly that civilised peoples have shaped for themselves."
"Then you think I am bound to my pledge by nothing more weighty than that?"
"What could be more weighty? You could not escape from it without--without--but why discuss the impossible? You are a man of honour, that is enough."
"And when is the latest you would like the money, Muller?"
"It will need a month or two to clear up things," he said, evasively.
"And if I am too precipitate I might be suspected?"
"Exactly. You cannot be too wary. Companies have grown suspicious. There have been so many attempts of late to cheat them, and, of course, in the eye of the law robbing a company stands in precisely the same category as robbing an individual."
Rufus gave a start, and all the blood left his cheeks, and for several moments he stared at the fire in silence.
Muller rose from his chair, and began to brush his bowler hat with his hand.
"I"m frightfully sorry it"s happened," he said, consolingly, "but, after all, it will soon be over."
"Ye--s."
"I advised you against it. I did not like the risk from the first."
"But you"ll profit by the transaction?"
"My dear fellow, we"re bound to make a little profit now and then or we should starve."
"Profit?" Rufus mused, as if to himself, "what shall it profit a man----"
"Perhaps you will advise me nearer the time?" Muller said, uneasily, and he moved towards the door.
"No. The papers will advise you."
"Well, good-night. I will not say good-bye; perhaps something may turn up yet." And he pulled open the door and pa.s.sed out into the hall.
"Good-night," Rufus answered, and he turned back to his easy-chair and sat down.
CHAPTER XXVI
QUESTIONS TO BE FACED
Rufus sat staring into the fire for the best part of an hour, with eyes full of pain and questioning. Unwittingly Felix Muller had startled him out of the condition of semi-insensibility into which he had fallen. The dull apathy, mental and moral, pa.s.sed from him like a cloud. He was keenly alive once more, keenly sensitive to every question that touched his personal honour. He was amazed that he should have failed to see the moral issue raised by Muller. Amazed that he had never considered the rights of the company in which he had insured his life.
Was it true, he wondered, that departure from the Christian faith, the relinquishing of the idea of accountability to a Supreme Being, lowered a man"s moral standard? Would he have lost sight of the moral view if he had not drifted into the cold and barren regions of materialistic philosophy? He had prided himself on his personal honour, and yet had he not been sliding downwards, steadily and unconsciously, ever since he cast religion definitely aside? The Churches might concern themselves mainly with questions that were of little account. But, after all, they did keep alive the sense of G.o.d, the idea of accountability, the importance of right living.
If he had held on, for instance, to the faith of his childhood, would he have lost sight for a moment of the fact that to cheat a public company was just as dishonest as to cheat a private individual? Could he under any circ.u.mstances have entered into the compact he had? Would he not have sighted the moral issue in a moment?
He felt humiliated and ashamed. How could he patch the garment of his personal honour with stolen material. The conduct of Micawber in paying Traddles with his I.O.U. was n.o.bility itself in comparison with his proposal to pay Muller by cheating an insurance company. The only question that had worried him until now was whether a man had any right to take his own life. And his materialistic philosophy had led him to the conclusion that in such a matter he was responsible to himself alone, that his life was his own to do what he liked with, to end it or use it, just as seemed good in his own eyes.
That might be true still for all he knew, though he was beginning to doubt. But on a question of common honesty there was no room for two opinions. Society was built up and held together by the recognition of certain fundamental principles. There was practically universal agreement on certain things. No argument was necessary. No one was asked to prove that fire was hot or that ice was cold, for instance. So with honesty and dishonesty. A man who tried to defend cheating would be ostracised.
But why had he failed to see this clear moral issue? That was the question that troubled him. He had struck a blow at his own integrity and was not conscious of it. Just as the worst kind of h.e.l.l is to be in h.e.l.l and not know it, so the most terrible state of depravity is to be depraved and to be unconscious of the fact.
Rufus felt such a sense of personal loathing as he had never known before. He saw himself as in a mirror--not darkly, but clearly. He realised that in casting away the husks he had cast away the grain also, that in losing the sense of accountability he had obscured his vision of righteousness.
There were certain excuses to be made for himself he knew. He had been so certain of the success of his scheme that he had never given himself time to consider the alternative issue. It was only recently that the idea of failure had seriously crossed his mind. At the beginning he had refused to consider it even as a remote contingency. That the company would ever be called upon to pay the money was too absurd to be thought of.
In addition to that, there had been a vague idea somewhere at the back of his mind that a company and an individual were not in the same category, that they belonged to a different order of things.
A company was something impersonal--something that had neither morals nor conscience, that had neither a body to be kicked nor a soul to be saved. Hence the idea of cheating a company was on a par with trying to cheat a steamship or a railway engine.
He had never said this to himself. He had never really looked at the matter, but he was vaguely conscious that there had been some such feeling or idea in his mind. Why such an idea should have possessed his sub-consciousness he did not know. Now that he had become wide-awake to the real issue he was amazed.
Then there was another question that went hand in hand with the others.
Why did his moral sense become acutely awake at this particular juncture? He had been getting back again to the old landmarks. He had been recovering his lost faith on many points. His visit to Tregannon and his many conversations with Marshall Brook had helped him to discern what was vital in religion. He had been separating, unconsciously, ecclesiasticism from Christianity. He disliked the former as much as ever, but the philosophy of Jesus seemed the n.o.blest thing ever given to the world. If he had been asked if he believed in Jesus Christ and His teachings he would have said yes. Had he been asked if he believed in the Church and its teachings, his answer would have still been a negative, or, if an affirmative it would have been conditioned by so many reservations that he would not have been deemed suitable for church membership in any communion. Yet he was not far from the kingdom of G.o.d. The kernel of Christianity he accepted. He knew it and felt it.
His quarrel was no longer with Christ, but with those who pretended to represent Him, with an organisation that in the main had lost His Spirit.
Was, then, the quickening of his moral sense the outcome of his recovered faith? If he had never known Madeline Grover, never read the books she lent him, never listened to the teachings of Marshall Brook, would he have troubled about the rights of an insurance company?