Part 33 (1/2)
Candish did not answer, and they went into the study in silence. The host sat down in the well-worn chair by his writing-table, while Philip took a seat facing him.
”What a foolish thing for me to say,” Ashe broke out; then surprised at the querulousness of his tone he stopped abruptly.
”Mr. Ashe,” Candish said gravely, ”if there is anything I can do for you will you tell me what it is?”
Philip rose quickly, and took a step towards him, leaning down over the thin, homely face.
”I have found you out!” he cried with exultation. ”I came to confess my sin to you, and I find that you love her too!”
”Don't be hysterical and melodramatic,” was the cool response. ”Sit down, and let us talk rationally if we are to talk at all.”
The manner of Candish recalled Philip to himself. He sat down heavily.
”I beg your pardon,” he said. ”Since that fight I have been half beside myself. I am like a hysterical girl.”
The other regarded him compa.s.sionately.
”Mr. Ashe,” responded he, ”there is no good in my pretending that I didn't understand what you meant just now. You and I are both given to the priesthood. If we both love a woman”--
”I love her,” burst in Philip, half defiantly, half remorsefully, ”and I have told her so! I have condemned myself”--
”Stop,” Candish interrupted. ”First you have to think of her.”
Philip stared in silence. It came over him how entirely he had been thinking of himself, and how little he had considered Mrs. Fenton in his reflections upon the events of the previous evening. Here was a man who could love her so well as to think of her first and himself last.
”But I have given her up,” Philip stammered.
”Was she yours to give up?”
There was nothing bitter or sneering in the words; they were said simply and dispa.s.sionately.
”No,” Philip answered, dropping his voice; ”she was not mine.”
The older man rose and walked to the fire, where he stood looking down at the flaming coals.
”After all,” he said, ”we are pretty much in the same plight. I knew her when her husband brought her here a bride, the loveliest creature alive. Arthur Fenton was a clever, selfish, wholly irreligious man; and I could not help seeing how completely he failed to understand or appreciate his wife. She was kind to me, and when her trouble came she turned to me for comfort and sympathy. It is my weakness that I love her; but she will never know it.”
”And does she love n.o.body?” demanded Ashe jealously.
Candish turned upon him a look of rebuke.
”What right have you or I to ask that question?” he retorted sternly.
”I do penance for loving her, and G.o.d is my witness how carefully I have hidden it. It is not for me to question her right to love if she please.”
Philip rose, and went to the other, holding out his hand.
”Mr. Candish,” said he earnestly, ”you have taught me my lesson. I have been a weak fool, and worse. I will pray for strength to lay my pa.s.sion on the altar and forget it.”
The rector took the extended hand, looking into Philip's eyes with a glance so wistful, so humble, and so tender that the remembrance went with Ashe long.
”And forget it?” he repeated. ”I do not know that I could do that!”