Part 40 (1/2)

”Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it”--John smiled indulgently--”but he is no criterion, either.”

”Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too,” the girl went on. ”He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you have--your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she has pa.s.sed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you, and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that is, brother John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you through your intuition.”

This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed, with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was seeking it for himself alone.

But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other.

Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city, and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways.

”I'm becoming sure,” Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left, ”that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one I'd want for him.”

”So it is like that, is it?” John said, resignedly. ”Well, I have no objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy.”

CHAPTER II

One evening, shortly after that, Harold came into John's room, saying that he wanted to speak to him in private. He was slightly above medium height, quite thin, and attenuated-looking. He wore the black frock-coat, high, stiff collar, and black necktie of his calling. For a man of less than twenty-four years of age he certainly was grave and serious-looking. He was endeavoring to produce a show of whiskers on his cheeks and chin, but the effort was almost in vain, for the hairs grew spa.r.s.ely and were of a color between yellow and light brown that did not make for density of appearance. However, he was earnest and sincere, and John liked and trusted him.

”I've been wanting to see you for some time, Mr. Trott,” he began, taking a chair that was vacant near John's and linking his white hands between his knees. ”I don't know what you will think of me, but I've had the audacity to fall in love with your sister, and, as I look upon you as her guardian and protector, I felt honor-bound to come to you.”

”I see, I see.” John had flushed with embarra.s.sment. ”Well, the truth is, Harold, I have been suspecting something of this sort lately, and I can imagine what you want to say.”

Harold had never been one to give in to embarra.s.sment. Life was too serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or emotion in that way, so without change of color, or quickened pulse, he went on. ”I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing bothering us both has been--”

For the first time Harold hesitated.

”Go ahead,” said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was forthcoming.

”You see, I know what she has been to you all these years,” Harold resumed, ”and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you would prefer as Dora's husband a man of--well, a man whose views were more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be.”

Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, he really would have preferred to have his protegee marry, if she married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he possessed.

”I see you understand me,” Harold half sighed, ”and I am not so full of religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there are no atheists--that every man who does good, defends goodness, and contends against evil of any sort has as good a G.o.d as any one. I don't agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you.

That act was G.o.dlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal instinct.”

John was touched. He held out his hand. ”Let all that pa.s.s, Harold,” he smiled. ”I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy.

You are her choice. You have a right to her.”

”I thank you,” Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There was silence for a moment, then Harold said: ”There is yet another matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a desirable post among the missionaries in China.”

”China!” John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a dull fixity of gaze.

Harold shrugged and nodded. ”I thought that would pain you, and so did Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly.

The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set on aiding me in the Orient.”

The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to each other?

”I see that you are hurt,” Harold sighed, softly, ”and I am more than sorry, Mr. Trott.”

John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many natural circ.u.mstances and had to be borne.