Part 59 (2/2)

”Then I'll walk along with you,” rejoined the other. ”I do wish you'd let me help you. You are evidently all played out physically, and half an eye could see that you've something on your mind. Is it the bishop?”

”That has troubled me a good deal,” Ashe returned, feeling a relief in being able to say this truthfully.

”Well, Phil, if you worry yourself sick over what you can't help, what strength will you have for the things that you can do? I'm glad it isn't all my going that has brought you to this, for you look positively ill. I wish you'd get sick-leave, and go off a while.”

Ashe shook his head again. He felt that if Maurice went on talking to him he should lose his self-command. He must get away; yet he could not bear to hurt his friend. He turned toward Maurice and held out his hand.

”Dear Maurice,” he said, ”don't be hurt; but I can't talk with you. I must be alone. I am upset, and not myself. It is not that I don't trust you, you know; but there are things that a man has to fight out for himself.”

The other stopped, and regarded him closely.

”All right, Phil,” he said. ”I understand. If you've got a fight with the devil on hand n.o.body can help you. I only wish I could.”

He wrung the hand of Ashe, and added:

”Good-by. I'm always fond of you, old fellow; and you know that when there is a place that I can help there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.”

Ashe tried to answer, but he could not command his voice. He could only return the warm pressure of Wynne's hand, and then, miserable and hopeless, go on his way to his conflict with the arch fiend.

Once in his chamber Ashe fastened the door, drew down the shades, and lighted the gas. He laid aside his ca.s.sock, and loosened his clothing so that his breast lay bare. He took from a drawer a little crucifix of iron. This he placed across the chimney of the gas-burner, and watched it until it was heated. Then he seized it with his fingers, but the stinging pain made him drop it to the floor. He bared his breast, wildly calling aloud to heaven, and flung himself down upon the crucifix, pressing the hot iron to his naked bosom. A fierce shudder convulsed him; he extended his arms in the form of a cross, and with closed eyes lay still an instant. A horrible odor filled the room; great drops of sweat dripped from his forehead; his teeth were set in his lower lip. For a moment he remained motionless; then in uncontrollable agony he writhed over upon his back and fainted.

The return to consciousness was a terrible sensation of misery and weakness. He was heart-sick and racked in body and mind. Feebly he rose, and gathered his scattered senses. Then with trembling he got to his feet. His wound gave him bitter agony, but the bodily pain made him smile. He took from the same drawer a picture of the Madonna, and knelt before it with clasped hands. His doubts, his pa.s.sion, his self-reproaches, danced like demons before his distracted brain. The troubled, stormy thoughts of his distraught mind merged insensibly into prayers. He put aside the clothing and showed to the Virgin Mother his wounded breast, scarred and bleeding. He looked into her face with murmured words of contrition, of imploring, of faith. A gracious sense of her womanly pity, of her heavenly tenderness, stole soothingly over him. He seemed almost to feel cool hands on his hot forehead; it was as if in a moment more the heavens might open and grant to him the beatific vision. There came over him a wave of joy which was beyond words. The longing of his soul for the woman he loved was merged in the desire of his heart which yearned toward the blessed Virgin Mother. His prayers became more glowing, more ecstatic, until in a rapture of adoration, of bliss, of pa.s.sion, he fell prostrate before the divine image, crying out with all his soul:--

”Thou ever blessed one! To thee I give myself! 'O thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave,' receive me, save me!”

He had no sense of incongruity to make the phrase unseemly or ludicrous. It was to him the formal transfer of his deepest allegiance from an earthly love to a heavenly. He had at last found peace.

x.x.xVII

THIS IS NOT A BOON Oth.e.l.lo, iii. 3.

It was Mrs. Wilson who was the immediate means of bringing about an understanding between Maurice and Berenice. Mrs. Wilson was never so occupied that she was not able to attend to any new thing which might turn up, and her interest in the spring races did not prevent her from having a hand in the affairs of the lovers. While she was in town attending to the luncheon for Marion Delega.s.s she dined with Mrs.

Staggchase, and Maurice took her down.

”I understand that you are a renegade,” she remarked vivaciously as soon as they were seated. ”I wonder you dare look me in the face.”

”Because you are the church?” he demanded.

”Certainly not now that that Strathmore is bishop,” she retorted, tossing her head. ”However, I always said that you were too good to be wasted in a ca.s.sock.”

”Thank you. What would you say if I made such a reflection on the clergy?”

”Oh, I've no patience with the clergy!” she declared. ”They bore me to death. There's that solemn-faced friend of yours, Mr. Ashe--his name ought to be Ashes!--he actually lectured me on my worldliness! _My_ worldliness, if you please, and I working myself to a shadow for the election of Father Frontford!”

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