Part 25 (1/2)
”How unjust,” commented Mrs. Morison, ”and how human. Did you never make peace with her?”
”Yes, but of course I was careful that she should understand that I didn't do it for the sake of her money. She told my mother that she had made a new will in my favor, but it never turned up. My aunt's death was very singular. She was found dead in her bed, and the woman who lived with her, an old nurse of mine, had disappeared. Of course there was at once suspicion of foul play, but the doctors p.r.o.nounced the death natural, and there was no evidence of theft.”
”Did you never discover the nurse?”
”Never. We tried, for we thought she might give a clue to the missing will. She'd been in the family so long that she was a sort of confidential servant, and knew all Aunt Morse's affairs. She was devoted to me.”
”The romance may not be ended yet,” Mrs. Morison suggested smilingly.
”Who knows but the missing nurse will some day turn up with the missing will.”
”I'm afraid that after a dozen years there's little enough chance of it.”
His mind was so racked upon this wretched question of the right of a priest to marry, that he could not rest until he had drawn from Berenice also an expression of opinion on the subject. He made Mr.
Strathmore again the excuse for the introduction of the topic.
”I don't see,” he said to her, ”how you can think that it's well to have a married bishop. His wife is sure to be meddling in the affairs of the diocese.”
She looked at him with a mocking glance.
”Do you wish to drag me into a discussion of the wisdom of allowing the clergy to have wives?” she asked cruelly.
He flushed with confusion, but tried to carry a bold front.
”Very likely it does come down to the general principle of the thing,”
he answered.
”Well then, the question of the marriage of the clergy doesn't interest me in the least.”
She looked so pretty and mischievous that he began to lose his head.
”But it is of the greatest possible interest to me,” he returned, with a manner which gave the words a personal application.
She flushed in her turn, and tossed her head.
”That is by no means the same thing,” she retorted.
”But what interests me you might try to consider; just out of charity, of course.”
”Oh, well, then, since you ask me, this celibacy of the clergy of our church isn't at all a thing that anybody can take seriously. Everybody knows that a clergyman may have his vows absolved by the bishop, so that after all he can marry if he wants to; so that the whole thing seems”--
”Well?” he demanded, as she broke off. ”Seems how?”
”Pardon me. I didn't realize what I was saying.”
”Seems how?” he repeated insistently.
He challenged her with his eyes, and he could see the spark which kindled defiantly in hers. She threw back her head saucily.