He paused.
"Yes," said Malling; "unless--"
"A thing almost impossible were to happen."
"May I, without indiscretion, ask what that is?"
"Unless he were to leave St. Joseph"s, to go quite away."
"Surely that would not be impossible!"
"I often think it is. Chichester will not wish to go."
"Are you certain of that?" asked Malling, remembering the curate"s remark in Horton Street, that perhaps he would not remain at St. Joseph"s much longer.
The rector turned his head and fixed his eyes upon Malling.
"Has he said anything to you about leaving?" he asked, suddenly raising his voice, as if under the influence of excitement. "But of course he has not."
"Surely it is probable that such a man may be offered a living."
"He would not take it."
They walked on a few steps in silence, turned, and strolled back. It was now growing dark. Their faces were set toward the distant gleam of the Herne Bay lights.
"I am not so sure," at length dropped out Malling.
"Why are you not so sure?"
"Why do you think Chichester"s departure from St. Joseph"s impossible?"
Malling spoke strongly to determine, if possible, the rector to speak, to say out all that was in his heart.
"Can I tell you?" Mr. Harding almost murmured. "Can I tell you?"
"I think you asked me here that you might tell me something."
"It is true. I did."
"Then--"
"Let us sit down in this shelter. There is no one in it. People are going home."
Malling followed him into a shelter, with a bench facing the sea.
"I thought perhaps here I might be able to tell you," said Mr. Harding.
"I am in great trouble, Mr. Malling, in great trouble. But I don"t know whether you, or whether any one, can a.s.sist me."
"If I may advise you, I should say--tell me plainly what your trouble is."
"It began--" Mr. Harding spoke with a faltering voice--"it began a good while ago, some months after Mr. Chichester came as a curate to St.
Joseph"s. I was then a very different man from the man you see now.
Often I feel really as if I were not the same man, as if I were radically changed. It may be health. I sometimes try to think so. And then I--" He broke off.
The strange weakness that Malling had already noticed seemed again to be stealing over him, like a mist, concealing, attenuating.
"Possibly it is a question of health," said Malling, rather sharply.
"Tell me how it began."
"When Chichester first joined me, I was a man of power and ambition. I was a man who could dominate others, and I loved to dominate."
His strength seemed returning while he spoke, as if frankness were to him a restorative of the spirit.
"It was indeed my pa.s.sion. I loved authority. I loved to be in command.
I was full of ecclesiastical ambition. Feeling that I had intellectual strength, I intended to rise to the top of the church, to become a bishop eventually, perhaps even something greater. When I was presented to St.
Joseph"s,--my wife"s social influence had something to do with that,--I saw all the gates opening before me. I made a great effect in London.
I may say with truth that no clergyman was more successful than I was--at one time. My wife spurred me on. She was immensely ambitious for me. I must tell you that in marrying me she had gone against all her family.
They thought me quite unworthy of her notice. But from the first time I met her I meant to marry her. And as I dominated others, I completely dominated her. But she, once married to me, was desperately anxious that I should rise in the world, in order that her choice of me might be justified in the eyes of her people. You can understand the position, I dare say?"
"Perfectly," said Malling.
"I may say that she irritated my ambition, that she stung it into almost a furious activity. Women have great influence with us. I thought she was my slave almost, but I see now that she also influenced me. She worshiped me for my immediate success at St. Joseph"s. You may think it very ridiculous, considering that I am merely the rector of a fashionable London church, but there was a time when I felt almost intoxicated by my wife"s worship of me, and by my domination over the crowds who came to hear me preach. Domination! That was my fetish! That was what led me to--oh, sometimes I think it must end in my ruin!"
"Perhaps not," said Malling, quietly. "Let us see."
His words, perhaps even more his manner, seemed greatly to help Mr.
Harding.
"I will tell you everything," he exclaimed. "From the first I have felt as if you were the man to a.s.sist me, if any man could. I had always, since I was an undergraduate at Oxford,--I was a Magdalen man,--been interested in psychical matters, and followed carefully all the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. I had also at that time,--in Oxford,--made some experiments with my college friends, chiefly in connection with will power. My influence seemed to be specially strong. But I need not go into all that. After leaving Oxford and taking orders, for a long time I gave such matters up. I feared, if I showed my strong interest in psychical research, especially if I was known to attend seances or anything of that kind, it might be considered unsuitable in a clergyman, and might injure my prospects. It was not until Henry Chichester came to St. Joseph"s that I was tempted again into paths which I had chosen to consider forbidden to me.
Chichester tempted me! Chichester tempted me!"
He spoke the last words with a sort of lamentable energy.
"Such a gentle, yielding man as he was!"
"It was just that. He came under my influence at once, and showed it in almost all he said and did. He looked up to me, he strove to model himself upon me, he almost worshiped me. One evening,--it was in the pulpit!--the idea shot through my brain, "I could do what I like with that man, make of him just what I choose, use him just as I please." And I turned my eyes toward the choir where Chichester sat in the last stall, hanging on my words. At that instant I can only suppose that what people sometimes call the _maladie de grandeur_--the mania for power--took hold upon me, and combined with my furtive longing after research in those mysterious regions where perhaps all we desire is hidden. Anyhow, at that instant I resolved to try to push my influence over Chichester to its utmost limit, and by illegitimate means."
"Illegitimate?"
"I call them so. Yes, yes, they are not legitimate. I know that now. And he--but I dare not think what he knows!"
The rector was greatly moved. He half rose from the bench on which they were sitting, then, making a strong effort, controlled himself, sank back, and continued:
"At that time, in the early days of his a.s.sociation with me, Chichester thought that everything I did, everything I suggested, even everything that came into my mind, must be good and right. He never dreamed of criticizing me. In his view, I was altogether above criticism. And if I approached him with any sort of intimacy he was in the greatest joy. You know, perhaps, Mr. Malling, how the worshiper receives any confidence from the one he worships. He looks upon it as the greatest compliment that can be paid him. I resolved to pay that compliment to Henry Chichester.
"You must know that although I had entirely given up the occult practices--that may not be the exact term, but you will understand what I mean--I had indulged in at Oxford, I had never relaxed my deep, perhaps my almost morbid interest in the efforts that were being made by scientists and others to break through the barrier dividing us on earth from the spirit world. Although I had chosen the career of a clergyman,--alas! I looked upon the church, I suppose, as little more than a career!--I was not a very faithful man. I had many doubts which, as clergymen must, I concealed. By nature I suppose I had rather an incredulous mind. Not that I was a skeptic, but I was sometimes a doubter. Rather than faith, I should have much preferred to have knowledge, exact knowledge. Often I even felt ironical when confronted with the simple faith we clergymen should surely encourage, sustain, and humbly glory in, whereas with skepticism, even when openly expressed, I always felt some part of myself to be in secret sympathy. I continued to study works, both English and foreign, on psychical research. I followed the experiments of Lodge, William James, and others. Myers"s great work on human personality was forever at my elbow. And the longer I was debarred--self-debarred because of my keen ambition and my determination to do nothing that could ever make me in any way suspect in the eyes of those to whom I looked confidently for preferment--from continuing the practices which had such a fascination for me, the more intensely I was secretly drawn toward them. The tug at my soul was at last almost unbearable. It was then I looked toward Chichester, and resolved to take him into my confidence--to a certain extent.
"I approached the matter craftily. I dwelt first upon the great spread of infidelity in our days, and the necessity of combating it by every legitimate means. I spoke of the efforts being made by earnest men of science--such men as Professor Stepton, for instance--to get at the truth Christians are expected to take on trust, as it were. I said I respected such men. Chichester agreed,--when did he not agree with me at that time?--but remarked that he could not help pitying them for ignoring revelation and striving to obtain by difficult means what all Christians already possessed by a glorious and final deed of gift.