Part 53 (2/2)

”I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” she said, ”but I had to light a fire in the parlor, I was so cold. However, I have something to show you that will interest you.”

”Is it the will?” he asked eagerly.

She answered with a laugh, but led the way across the narrow front entry into the parlor. The pleasant noise of a crackling fire sounded within, and as he entered the room he saw that the fireplace was filled with a ruddy blaze. Then he rushed forward with a cry. There on the top of the blazing logs were the unmistakable remains of the desk, eaten through and through by tongues of red flame. He seized the tongs, and dragged the burning ma.s.s to the hearth, but even as he did so he saw that he was too late.

”It is kind of you to want to save my old desk, Maurice,” jeered his companion; ”but I had the misfortune to put the poker through the bottom of it before I called you, so that I'm afraid it really isn't worth saving.”

He saw that the wood had indeed been punched through and through, and that it was reduced almost to a cinder. It was easy to see that the bottom had been double, and burned flakes of paper were visible among the remains; whether of the will or not it was obviously impossible now to discover. He looked at the burned bits of board falling into ashes and cinders at his feet, realizing that here was an end to all his dreams of regaining his aunt's fortune; that with this dream ended, too, his visions of being in a position to offer Berenice--His wrath blazed up in an uncontrollable force.

”You are a fiend!” he cried, facing the woman who smiled beside him.

”You are a thief, a shameless, deliberate thief!”

She stood the image of mirthful, innocent girlhood, her smooth forehead unclouded, her eyes gleaming as if with the merriment of a child.

”It is a pretty fire, isn't it, Maurice?”

Then her whole expression changed. Into her dark, dewy eyes came a look of rage, visible murder in a glance.

”You called me a liar, there in Boston,” she said hissingly. ”I am not surprised to have you add thief now. I have only done what I chose with my own property; but I would have been cut into little bits before you should have had that will through me!”

He could not trust himself to reply. He felt that if he spoke he might break out into curses, and he was conscious of an unmanly longing to strike her, to mar that beautiful, false face, childlike and pure in every line,--for the expression of rage had melted as quickly as it had come,--to feel the joy of seeing her limbs slacken and her red lips grow white. He clinched his hands and turned resolutely away.

”I'm sure I don't know that there was anything there that you had any interest in,” she pursued lightly. ”I tried as long as I dared to get the bottom open, and I couldn't, so I decided that it wasn't any of my business. Only when I put the poker through there seemed to be papers there.”

Maurice could endure no more. He started toward her so fiercely that she recoiled, a sudden pallor blanching her rosy loveliness. Then he turned abruptly away again, and got out of the house.

x.x.xII

NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4.

Interest in the question who would be bishop increased as Lent waned and the time for the meeting of the convention approached. The general public could not be expected to be greatly concerned about a matter so purely ecclesiastical, but the wide popularity of Mr. Strathmore gave to the election a character of its own. The question was generally held to be that of the prevalence of liberal views. Many who cared nothing about the church were interested in seeing whether new or old ideas would prevail. The age is one in which there is a keen curiosity to see what course the church will take. It is partly due, undoubtedly, to the inherited habit of being concerned in theology; it is perhaps more largely the result of unconscious desire for a liberalism so great that it shall justify those who have been so liberal as to lay aside all religion whatever.

The papers had entered into the discussion with an alacrity quickened by the fact that at this especial season there was not much else in the way of news. Rangely wrote for the ”Daily Eagle” a glowing editorial in which he urged the choice of Strathmore on the ground that the new bishop should be not the representative of a faction, but of the whole church, and as far as possible of the people. It insisted that only a man liberal himself could have breadth to understand and sympathize with all shades of feeling. Others of the secular press had taken up the discussion, and Mrs. Wilson declared that the devil was contributing editorials to the papers in his keen fear that Father Frontford would be elected.

Lent wore at last to an end, and the festivities which follow Easter came in with all their usual gayety. One evening, about a week before the election, a musicale was given at the house of Mrs. Gore. Mr. and Mrs. Strathmore were present, the tall figure of the former being conspicuous in the crowd which after the music surged toward the supper-room and later eddied through the parlors. Fred Rangely came upon the clergyman at a moment when he had detached himself from the admiring women who usually surrounded him, and taken refuge in the shadow of a deep window.

”Good-evening, Mr. Strathmore,” Rangely said. ”Are you making a retreat? I thought Lent was the time for that.”

The other smiled with that kindly benevolence which was characteristic.

”Ah, Mr. Rangely,” he responded, extending his hand. ”I am glad to see you. Will you share my retirement?”

”Thank you,” Rangely answered, stepping into the recess. ”A retreat is especially grateful to a journalist. We get so tired that even a moment of respite is welcome.”

Mr. Strathmore smiled more genially than ever.

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