The sweet face of his mother took on a curious expression of mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and contrition.
"If I must confess it, Phil," she said, "neither could I; and I"m afraid that there was more notion of doing penance in my asking her than of real hospitality. She is after all not to blame for her manner, and no doubt we do her wrong."
"If you have come to doing penance, mother, there"s no knowing how soon you will be with me."
"No, Phil," she answered softly, "do you remember what Monica told her son? "Not where he is, shalt thou be, but where thou art he shall be.""
He shook his head, sighing.
"I ought not to have touched on that matter, mother. You know that I am trying to follow my conscience."
"Yes, I cling to that. I should be miserable if I did not believe that your way and my way will come together somewhere, on this side or the other; and I bid you G.o.dspeed on whatever way you go with prayerful conviction."
A sudden impulse leaped up within him, and it was almost as if some voice not his own spoke through his lips, so little was he conscious of meaning to ask such a question.
"Even if the way led to Home?"
Mrs. Ashe grew paler, but her eyes steadfastly met those of her son.
"I trust you in the hands of G.o.d," she said.
Late that night Philip woke from a heavy sleep into which fatigue had plunged him. He reached out his arm, and drew aside the curtain near his bed, so that he might see the window of his mother"s chamber. A faint light was shining there; and he knew that the beams of the candle fell on his mother on her knees.
XX
IN WAY OF TASTE Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3.
The two deacons were together again in the Clergy House. Maurice frankly confessed to himself that he did not like it, and he wondered if Philip were also dissatisfied. It was a question too delicate to ask, however; and he contented himself with watching his friend to discover, if possible, whether the stay outside had affected Ashe as it had him. They returned late in the afternoon, and their greeting was of the warmest.
"Dear old boy," Maurice cried, "you don"t know how glad I am to get at you again. Where in the world have you kept yourself?"
"Just at the last," Philip responded, "I"ve been down to Montfield."
"Down home? Have you really? How is everybody? I hope your mother is well."
"She is very well, and I do not remember anybody that we know who isn"t. I went down to see Mr. Wentworth, and found that he is already pledged to Mr. Strathmore."
"Is he really? How did that happen?"
"It seems that he is a cousin of that Mrs. Gore where we heard that heathen, and she is greatly interested in Mr. Strathmore"s election.
Mr. Wentworth promised her his vote. How people are carried away by that man. Mr. Wentworth told me that he looked upon him as the greatest man in the church to-day."
"It is strange," Maurice a.s.sented absently; "but he is a man of great personal fascination."
"To me," Philip retorted, "he is a whited sepulchre. His doctrine of mental reservation amounts to nothing less than that a priest is at liberty to believe anything he pleases if he will only conform outwardly."
Maurice was secretly much of the same opinion, but they came now to the dinner table, where silence was the rule. Wynne had a feeling of dishonesty from the fact that he concealed from his friend that he had sought an interview with Strathmore, yet he felt that he could not confess the visit. While they sat at table a brother read aloud, and the reading chanced to be to-night from the book of Job. The words of the splendid poem mingled in the mind of Maurice with the most incongruous and unpriestly thoughts. He chafed at the routine into which he had fallen as into a pit from which he had once escaped; the meagre repast seemed to him pitifully poor; and most of all he was angry with himself that he could not feel joy at his return to the house which was the symbol of the consecrated work to which he had given his life. After dinner came an hour and a half of recreation, and in this he was called to the study of the Father Superior.
"You returned so late in the day," the Father said with a smile, "that you will not mind giving up recreation to-night. I wish to speak with you on a matter of importance."
Maurice took the seat toward which the other waved his hand. He felt alien and strange. He recalled the att.i.tude of submission and reverence with which he had once been accustomed to enter this room, the respect with which he had heard every word of the Father; and he blamed himself bitterly that he now took rather a defensive mood, and felt an instinctive desire to escape. He reflected that he had been poisoned by the world; yet he could not wholly shut out the consciousness that he had no genuine desire to be freed from the sweet madness which had seized him. He tried to put all thought of these matters by, however, and to give his whole attention to what the priest might say to him.
"I think that you have met Mrs. Frostwinch," the Father said.
"I went to her house once," Maurice answered, surprised at the remark, and feeling his pulse quicken at the remembrance of his first sight of Berenice.
"I remember that you mentioned it in confession," was the grave reply.
"Satan sets his snares in the most unlikely places."
The words seemed almost a reply to Wynne"s secret thought. His first impulse was to resent this open allusion to a sacred confidence whispered in the confessional. It was like a stab in the back, or a trick to take unfair advantage; and the matter was made worse by this allusion to a snare of Satan, which could mean nothing else but Berenice herself. Maurice flushed hotly, but habit was strong in him, and he cast down his eyes without reply.
"Have you heard that Mrs. Frostwinch is on her way home?" Father Frontford went on.
"No."
"It is said that her faith-healing superst.i.tion has failed her, and she is coming home to die."
"To die?" echoed Maurice.
He recalled Mrs. Frostwinch as he had seen her, gracious, high-bred, apparently brilliantly well; and it appeared monstrously impossible that death should be near her. She had seemed a woman who would defy death, and live on simply by her own splendid will.
"So it is said," the Father a.s.sured him. "Do you know how important it is to us to have her influence in the election?"
"I know that there are certain votes that she may influence, and that she is in"--he almost said "your," but he caught himself in time--"our interests."
"There are three and perhaps four votes which depend upon her. Three are sure to go over to the other side if she is not able to stand behind them. They are all dependent upon her for support in one way or another."
"But surely," Maurice suggested, "they would not vote unconscientiously? They wouldn"t sell their convictions for her support?"
"They would not vote unconscientiously," was the dry response, "but they believe that the support which she gives to them and to their missions is of more importance than that the man they really prefer should be chosen."
"But what can be done?"
Father Frontford sat leaning back in his chair, his face in shadow, and the tips of his thin fingers pressed together in his habitual gesture.
"Perhaps nothing," he answered.
His voice had dropped into a soft, silky half-tone, insinuating and persuasive. Maurice began to have an uneasy feeling as if he were being hypnotized; yet the words of the other came to him with a quality strangely soothing and attractive.
"Perhaps," the priest went on after a pause of a second, "perhaps everything that is necessary."
It seemed to Maurice that there was something significant in the tone which the words did not reveal. He looked keenly at the shadowed face, but without being able clearly to make out its expression. He could see little but the bright eyes holding and dominating his own.
"It is for you to do this work," Father Frontford continued; "and it is wonderful how Providence brings good out of all things. Here is an opportunity for you not only to expiate your fault, but to serve the cause of the church."