Part 59 (2/2)

”You are the lady that came once in that terrible storm,” she said.

”Yes, I am the one.”

”Would you like a gla.s.s of water--or wine?”

Mariana looked up, in the hope of dismissing her.

”I should like some water, please,” she said, and as Agnes went into the dining-room she looked about the luxurious study with pa.s.sionate eyes.

It was so different from the one at The Gotham, that comfortless square of uncarpeted floor, with the pine book-shelves and the skull and cross-bones above the mantel.

The desk, with its hand-carving of old mahogany, recalled to her the one that he had used when she had first known him, with its green baize cover splotched with ink.

The swing of the rich curtains, the warmth of the Turkish rugs, the portraits in their ma.s.sive frames, jarred her vibrant emotions. How could he pa.s.s from this to the farm in the South--to the old, old fight with poverty and the drama of self-denial? Would she not fail him again, as she had failed him once before? Would she not shatter his happiness in a second chance, as she had shattered it in the first?

The tears sprang to her eyes and scorched her lids. She rose hastily from her chair.

When the servant returned with the gla.s.s of water she drank a few swallows. ”Thank you,” she said, gently. ”I will go now. Perhaps I will come again to-morrow.”

She pa.s.sed to the sidewalk and turned in the direction of the church, walking rapidly. She had not thought of his being at church. Indeed, until entering his study she had forgotten the office he held. She had remembered only that he loved her.

As she neared the building an impulse seized her to turn and go back--to wait for him at the rectory. The sound of the intoning of the gospel came to her like a lament. She felt suddenly afraid.

Then several persons brushed her in pa.s.sing, and she entered the heavy doors, which closed behind her with a dull thud.

After the grayness of the day without, the warmth and color of the interior were as vivid as a revelation. They enveloped her like the perfumed air of a hot-house, heavy with the breath of rare exotics--exotics that had flowered amid the ardent glooms of mediaevalism and the colorific visions of cloistered emotions. Entering a pew in the side-aisle, she leaned her head against a stone pillar and closed her eyes in sudden restfulness. That emotional, religious instinct which had always been a part of her artistic temperament was quickened in intensity. She felt a desire to wors.h.i.+p--something--anything.

When she raised her lids the colors seemed to have settled into harmonious half-tones. The altar, which had at first showed blurred before her eyes, dawned through the rising clouds of incense. She saw the white of the altar-cloth, and the flaming candles, s.h.i.+vering from a slight draught, and above the crucifix the Christ in his purple robes, smiling his changeless smile.

Within the chancel, through the carving of the rood-screen, she saw the flutter of the white gowns of the choristers, and here and there the fair locks of a child.

Then the priest came to the middle of the altar, his figure softened by circles of incense, the sanctuary lamp burning above his head.

He sang the opening phrase of the Creed, and the choir joined in with a full, reverberating roll of male voices, while the heads of the people bowed.

Mariana did not leave her seat, but sat motionless, leaning against the pillar of stone.

From the first moment that she had seen him, wearing the honors of the creed he served, her heart had contracted with a throb of pain. This was his life, and what was hers? What had she that could recompense him for the sacrifice of the Eucharistic robes and the pride of the Cross?

He came slowly forward to the altar steps, his vestments defined against the carving of the screen, his face white beneath the darkness of his hair.

When the notices of the festivals and fasts were over, he lifted his head almost impatiently as he p.r.o.nounced the text, his rich voice rolling sonorously through the church:

”For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?”

And he spoke slowly, telling the people before him in new phrases the eternal truth--that it is good for a man to do right, and to leave happiness to take care of itself--the one great creed to which all religions and all nations have bowed. He spoke the rich phrases in his full, beautiful voice--spoke as he had spoken a hundred times to these same people--to all, save one.

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