on the shaded banks of the mountain stream with his fishing tackle,
baiting for speckled trout. Mrs. Thorpe always accompanied him and
sought to divert his mind from every care; while he fished, or perhaps
tramped through the woods and sought the homes of the feathered
songsters, she would busy herself with some piece of needlework, and
when he threw himself on the velvet grass beside her she would read to
him from some book, bright, crisp and care-destroying. Sometimes the
noonday lunch was carried in a basket and eaten at the foot of the
towering, blue-hung mountain, and then together they scaled the
mountain's height and from its summit viewed the valleys and woodlands
below; saw the lake like a silver basin and the stream like a white
thread; and all the world below seemed hushed and at rest, and their
individual cares and perplexities seemed to shrink and fall away, and
they breathed the life-giving ozone and felt that Life is so much
greater thing than its material forms can ever demonstrate. These were
days that long afterward lay in the memory like gems, rare, radiant,
exquisite.
Mr. Thorpe spent a considerable time with his venerable kinsman, the old
minister, and together they lived in the past, a past peopled with
father and mother and the sadly lamented brother cut down in his prime,
and other dear ones gone to the far, fair shore. When alone Mr.
Thorpe's thoughts tended to carry him back to a time when no shadows
clouded his life, when no fears regarding physical or spiritual strength
assailed him. With the ready assurance which is a phase of the disease
from which he was suffering, he felt that he was regaining his health,
and believed that full bodily vigor would be restored to him. But where
were the hopes and aspirations of his life, once so strong and
indomitable? Where the joy and gladness he had once felt in his work?
A dull despair filled him now. Willingly, gladly, he had put his all in
his work; and what had he received in return? He felt his heart
"Smitten and withered like grass." And the people to whom he had
ministered, to whom he had laid bare his heart and life, whom he had
sought with all the passion and pleading of his soul, was there anything
in their deeds or actions to indicate that their lives were marked with
the impress of the Master? And always amid his introspection, there
came the thought of his wife. The woman he loved had departed from the
beliefs of his life, from the tenets of his faith, she had not followed
him; her footsteps had taken a strange, new road, which must lead her
ever farther and farther from him. Yet this, that she had not followed
him, bitter as it was, was not the bitterest drop in his cup, was not
the worst aspect of the trouble that weighed upon him. He had so
cultivated the reverence in his nature for that which appealed to him in
religion, and so stimulated his devotion to that which he worshiped,
that he did not know that any soul-saving righteousness could exist
outside the orbit in which his mind revolved. Then it was not only that
she had not followed him--when he had so loved her--but it must follow
that she was a lost soul.
After long deliberation, Mr. Thorpe, feeling the burden and
responsibility of his wife's departure too great to be borne alone, he
laid the case before his venerable uncle.
The old man, thoughtful and considerate, heard him through without a
word. Then in his gentle voice, slightly tremulous, he said:
"I think you made a mistake, Maurice, when you adopted a lenient
attitude toward that which your judgment condemned. From your account,
the book you found on your wife's table was rank heresy, openly opposed
to established forms of religion. I have thought that perhaps this
false conception of the works of Christ, this spurious growth that we
know is gaining ground in the world to-day, is the very anti-Christ
against which we have been so strenuously warned. It certainly is your
duty to show your wife the falsity and error of these attacks on
established creeds and doctrines. This blasphemy about spiritual
healing is the most egregious error, the most harmful and misleading
thing, the most damned and baneful thing that the enemies of pure
religion have ever devised. I cannot understand how any honest person
can adopt a neutral attitude toward it."
Mr. Thorpe was silent for a few moments, and when he spoke the life and
spirit had gone out of his voice, and the shadow that had darkened his
life brooded over him.
"There is nothing neutral nor conciliatory in my mind toward this 'wind
of doctrine,'" he said. "In my opinion there is no greater sacrilege
than for man to claim the power of Christ." He hesitated a moment and
then continued as one who forces down the last drop of a bitter draught.
"Evelyn was a Christian woman when I married her," he said, "orthodox as
you or I; she has been very near to me in all my work, yet she has
departed from me; she has not been able to feed and live on that which I
could give. And if this woman, whom I have loved and trusted, has
failed to find spiritual food under my teaching, how shall I judge my
life's work?"
"This is a serious question, Maurice, and far-reaching; but your outlook
is morbid and unfair to yourself. Have no scruples about your life's
work; never doubt that the Lord has need of your service; let nothing
turn you from this. If there is any condemnation upon you it is because
you have allowed your heart to pervert your judgment."
There was silence again for a few moments, while a smile flickered
across the old man's wrinkled face; a smile that spoke of many things;
demons met and battles fought and every trace of human affection
subservient to the creed that rules his life. Nowhere in the history of
paganism do we find such atrocities as have been committed in the name
of Religion. The blood of the martyrs had within it the principle that
would condemn another to martyrdom and at the same time, if put to the
test, face, undaunted, an atrocious death. And the devotee to the
creeds and doctrines of our orthodox church will, for his faith, flay
alive the quivering soul of a loved one and yield his own soul to be
flayed with equal readiness. The smile, or the trace of it, lingered on
the old minister's face.
"I have a thought, Maurice," he said, "that it is the old story, old as
the Garden of Eden, of man's yielding to the witchery of woman. The
curse of Adam's weakness is in our veins, but there is no extenuation
for us in yielding to it. Were I in your place I should either root
this obnoxious thing from Evelyn's mind, or else deal with her exactly
as I should with any other heretic in the church. Go and read Mark 9,
from 43 to 49."
At the end of the summer when the first frost had touched the leaves and
dressed them in red and yellow garb; when a blue haze hung over the
landscape and the air was balmy with the summer's departing fragrance,
the pastor and his wife bade an affectionate farewell to the friends who
had been so kindly hospitable, and returned to Edgerly.
Pauline, capable, willing and always considerate, preceded them and had
the parsonage aired and renovated when Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe arrived.
Mrs. Thorpe expostulated: "You should have waited and allowed me to help
you," she said. "I can never repay you for all your kindness."
"The dust and close air would have been bad for Maurice," Pauline
replied. "And, my dear," she said, "you have been with Maurice
constantly and perhaps you cannot see as I can that the summer has not
improved his health. To me he seems thinner and more broken than when
he went away."
[Illustration: "WHY, PERMIT ME TO ASK, DO YOU NOT TURN SOME OF YOUR
WITCHCRAFT ON HIM?" (page 136)]
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE MINISTER'S DECLINE*
The family had not been home many days before Mr. Thorpe's cough again
became alarming; weakness and fever followed, and Dr. Eldrige was again
summoned. The old doctor prescribed and commanded. The patient must be
kept quiet, but nothing to indicate his condition must be manifested by
the family. He also advised that Mr. Thorpe resign his position as
pastor.
"He cannot preach this winter," he said, "and it will be the death of
him to try. Let him resign and have all care off his mind."
Mr. Thorpe objected to this and wished to obtain a substitute for a
time; Mrs. Thorpe agreed with him that this would be the better way; and
Pauline, although she said nothing, felt that his resignation would be a
tacit admission that he would never regain his health.
Dr. Eldrige fumed and stormed, as he always did when he met with
opposition. He told Mrs. Thorpe and Pauline to go on and have their
way, but to remember his words when they heard the clods upon the coffin
lid. And Mr. Thorpe's resignation was duly sent in.
As was his custom, Dr. Eldrige discussed his patient with his son. He
made a pretense of scoffing at his son's methods and manners, yet he was
always ready to lay his cases before him, and counted more upon the
young doctor's opinions and depended more upon his judgment than he
would under any circumstances admit.
"Our pious pastor is going to die," he said to his son. "Pious or
devilish, we all come to the same place at last, and we all go through
the same door and out into the same black hole."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. made no comment, but gave the consent of silence to his
father's statements; he felt that they needed no corroboration.
After a few moments the elder doctor spoke again: "Perhaps, though, a
man's better off dead than alive when he has a witch-wife," lie said.
"A witch-wife!" the young man ejaculated, and there was both incredulity
and remonstrance in his voice; but he said no more; he knew better than
to question his father outright, and he half regretted that he had
allowed the exclamation to escape him.
"Yes," the old man stormed; "a witch-wife, a distracted, wild-eyed manes
who has had seven devils--seventy for what I know--cast out of her and
now blooms forth in pristine freshness. When witches inhabit the earth
the doctors can seek another world in which to practice their vile
profession of medicine; their services will not be required in this one.
However, when our witch friend gets out among people she may find that
she has fewer friends in her health than she had in her sickness. She
may be able to ride over chimney tops on a broomstick and hobnob with
black cats in the forest for a time--but it may be a short time."
Heretofore the young doctor had given little heed to his father's
bluster about Mrs. Thorpe's recovery; but now he understood that his
words contained a covert threat. In the course of their relations
together the son had fallen into the way of arbiter between his father
and his father's patients, and many times he was able to prevent his
father's malevolent designs and to heal the wounds that he inflicted.
Now he looked up from the book that he was reading; he did not look full
into his father's face, but scanned it surreptitiously, and he admitted
to himself that his father's malady was working upon him again. The
harsh grating of his voice and his evil, malicious words had portrayed
it; and the fleeting glance at the old man's face had revealed the
purplish tinge, the swollen veins, and the murderous gleam of his eyes.
Never could he forget the day that he had discovered his father's
secret--the disease that was ravaging body and brain. He had come upon
him suddenly, unexpectedly, and had turned hastily from him, partly in
recoil at what he saw and also to shield his father from the knowledge
that he had discovered his trouble. And from that time, as he valued his
life, he had given no hint of what he knew, although there was a silent
understanding regarding it between him and his father. And this
understanding had enabled him to know his choleric parent as he had
never known him before. He felt that the anger and malignity and rancor
to which his father gave vent were but the outflow, the suppuration of
the horror which held him in its grasp; and he dared not put the
question to himself, whether it might not be that this thing of horror
was but his father's evil moods materialized in the flesh. And now he
read an expression of his father's virulence in his remarks concerning
the pastor and his wife, and had he read no more than this he would have
made no reply, but he feared that his father's words contained a menace
to the peace of those to whom he was ministering, and he believed it was
time for him to ascertain the state of affairs at the parsonage.
"If Mr. Thorpe's decline is, as you say, slow and gradual," he said, "so
long as there are no complications, you may as well let me take the
case." His manner was quiet, free from curiosity, and indicated that he
was not interested in the matter of Mrs. Thorpe's recovery. "I have
calls that will take me in that part of the town to-morrow," he
continued, "and I will see Mr. Thorpe for you if you like."
Dr. Eldrige Jr. felt that he had scored a victory that was worth while.
His father would get a new grievance bye and bye, and then, if he saw no
more of the Thorpes, he would forget this one.
He called at the parsonage the next afternoon and found Mr. Thorpe
resting comfortably. The cough was better and the other symptoms less
pronounced. After this he continued his calls at different times for
several days; then a call came that took him out of town for a few days
and the old doctor made the call on Mr. Thorpe.
After the visit he said to Mrs. Thorpe, who had accompanied him to the
hall: "The present treatment seems to be working so well that it will
not be necessary for me to call again until Mr. Thorpe is taken worse;
but be sure and let me know at the first return of the unfavorable
symptoms." He spoke of this contingency as though it were a foregone
conclusion; that it was only a matter of time.
This was the first real intimation that Mrs. Thorpe had had that her
husband's condition was serious. For the first moment she felt as if
her heart had ceased to beat, or was it that she was blind that the
daylight should be so black? Then she felt that a burden so heavy that
she could not bear it had been suddenly and rudely thrust upon her. She
felt that she staggered and was unsteady on her feet. But she faced the
doctor and spoke as bravely as she could, although her voice sounded in
her ears like a voice that she had never heard before. Yet in her
consciousness there mingled with this deadly certainty that the doctor
expressed something of her new-found faith in a higher power, and so she
said:
"If he is taken worse we will let you know at once."
Dr. Eldrige lowered his head and looked at her over his glasses; he was
in a villainous mood, and that little flame of faith that had shot out
in her words had not escaped him.
"If," he roared; "indeed, Mrs. Thorpe, there is no 'if' about it; he
will be taken worse." Then with the heart of one who knows he has
maimed, but craves to kill, he said: "Don't you know that your husband
is going to die?"
Mrs. Thorpe paled to the lips. She looked the man steadily in the face,
but no words came to her.
He saw that she did not shriek nor cry aloud; she did not faint nor
fall; and with all the malevolence in his nature he made another thrust.
"There was a time," he said, "when I believed that you would leave your
husband free in the world, but the tables have turned. Why, permit me
to ask, do you not turn some of your witchcraft on him? What is fair
for one ought to be fair for another. You saved yourself by some
devilish machination, but you are little inclined, it seems, to save
your husband by the same process."
The horror and resentment of Mrs. Thorpe's outraged soul were depicted
upon her face and gleamed from her dilated eyes. She had trained her
mind to dwell on the divine attributes in man; but alas, how human, how
very human, she felt this passion to be that possessed her now! Her
blood was like fire in her veins, a strange noise was in her ears and
hot, scathing words leaped to her lips.
"Dr. Eldrige," she said, and the words came keen and sharp; all her
anguish and passionate anger were there, but she caught her breath
sharply and stopped. Then again: "Dr. Eldrige--" Her voice wavered,
fell and broke. She turned and walked to the window. The doctor began
drawing on his gloves, his hand was on the door. Then she walked back
to him. Her face was white, her eyes fathomless. "You are my husband's
physician," she said. "I have no quarrel with you." Her voice was
even, guardedly calm.
The doctor regarded her curiously. He had read her horror and
resentment and with the utmost exactness he read her passion and her
anguish; now he as surely read her victory. His ill-will toward her did
not soften. He stood with his cane and medicine case in his hand, ready
to go, and without a word he turned and left her.
A lightning flash will sometimes cause objects and outlines to stand out
with more distinctness than does the noonday sun. The keen flash of her
bitter passion revealed to Mrs. Thorpe what the long summer days had not
disclosed.
Why had she not been free and frank with her husband and confessed to
him the change that had come into her life? Why had she shut her
blessing in her own heart and uttered no word to those about her?
The consciousness that had come to her of the power of Truth over all
evil and error never wavered nor failed. The actual demonstration of
what she had experienced was manifested in her own life.
God's truth is not a complex thing, difficult to explain and hard to
demonstrate; it is simple and natural. Health is the natural condition;
sickness is abnormal. Righteousness is the simple state of man; sin is
a distortion. But to live and demonstrate these truths in this
many-sided, complex life requires all the wisdom that Christ came to
earth to teach.
Mrs. Thorpe never doubted that could the saving power of Truth be
revealed to her husband his infirmities would fall from him; yet with
this message warm in her heart she had not broken the silence that lay
between them. In this course that she had taken she had shielded
herself behind the conviction that her husband would not accept this
message; and she had put back with a quieting touch, hushed and kept
asleep that which all the time had been to her so patent--that she was
deceiving her husband--afraid to make known to him her new conception of
the Christ-love and its transforming power.
Mr. Thorpe was in his study one morning, sorting and arranging his
books. The disease from which he was suffering has been known to play
with its victims as a cat delights to play with a mouse, and this was
one of the times when Mr. Thorpe fully believed that he was to regain
his health. He was finding great pleasure in his books this morning; he
had been away from them so long that now as he handled them they seemed
to him like dearest friends. Mrs. Thorpe tapped at the door of the
study and he bade her enter.
"It seems good to find you here, Maurice," she said; "like old times
again."
"Old times!" How the thought stirred his spirit--the time when there
was no barrier between them. The sunshine streamed through the window
and lay, a golden bar, on the floor; symbolic, he thought, of the
barrier that had insinuated itself between him and this fair, smiling
woman who stood before him; a barrier silent, far-reaching, heaven-high.
Mrs. Thorpe's eyes also were on the shaft of light.
"See how the sunshine lies like a bridge between us," she said; "a
beautiful golden bridge. I hope I may be able to build as fair a one,
Maurice, between your confidence and mine. I have been keeping
something from you. I wish to talk to you about it--about the new
belief--the light that has come to me."
Her heart was beating tumultuously. Her hand rested on a table beside
her husband and he noticed the firm, white flesh of her arm, where once
pitiful emaciation had marked it. He looked into her face and saw the
signs of health and vigor there--evidence that she had cast her lot with
some foreign power--some ungodly fetish!
"Evelyn," he said, "I have not questioned your belief nor demanded an
explanation concerning this new, strange doctrine which you have
embraced."
"No," she said, "you have not questioned nor demanded. I feel that you
have trusted me, you have been kind--"
"No, Evelyn! Not that--I have been weak, culpable, a coward--fearing to
ask lest from your own lips I get confirmation of the worst."
Mrs. Thorpe felt that her husband had thrust her suddenly outside the
pale of his sympathy. The hope in her heart grew cold and all her glad
words that she had been ready to speak deserted her; yet she answered
bravely:
"This is no evil thing that has come into my life, you need not dread or
fear it." Then, more eagerly: "Oh, Maurice, can you not see that it has
restored my health, taken away my infirmities, blessed my life and made
me whole?" The flood-gates were opened and the fullness of her soul
poured forth. "It is the Truth that has made me free; there is no real
power in the world save God's power. There is a better conception of
life than that which admits sickness and disease to be real and
powerful. Have not we to-day the same Savior who walked the Galilean
shore healing all forms of sin and sickness? God is the same yesterday,
to-day and forever. Is not our Christ just as tender, as compassionate,
as able, now as then?" She stopped at the sight of her husband's face.
The light had gone out of it; it was grim and set.
"That which I feared has come upon me," he said. "I had hoped that this
folly of yours might pass; I have prayed daily that you might be
delivered from this fallacy, and restored to the fold; but I see that
you have gone from me--gone from me, from my church and my God."
Mrs. Thorpe had felt sure that her husband would not approve of her new
belief, and in her darkest moments she had feared that by confessing to
him the change that had come into her life, the perfect trust and
confidence between them might be broken. But what was this that his
words portended? Gone from his church--his God--_from him_! Was there
anything--anything on earth or in Heaven that could compensate her for
this? Yet with the question still passionate in her soul she realized
that were it possible, for the sake of the mortal love her soul so
craved, for her to deny her conception of the Infinite, she could never
retrace her steps. With her own free hand she had torn down the old
relationship between herself and her husband. For the moment she felt
that she had plucked from its stem the fairest flower that ever
blossomed; now it must wither and die, no power on earth could prevent
it.
The glistening sunlight radiated sparks of living fire, then reeled in
darkness. Suddenly she found herself as one who departs on a strange,
new road, and finds all other paths barred and blocked. A tremor shook
her form and her breath came with a sob. Even though she find that the
night awaits her in Gethsemane and Calvary looms on before, she must go
on--but not alone--she has beside her One whose feet had passed that way
before.
Her husband sat before her with bowed head.
"Maurice," she said gently, yet with the keenness of her heart's pain in
her voice, "the sternest judge does not condemn without a hearing, much
less should you who have always been kind and just condemn me before you
have investigated the views I hold."
"I have no desire to investigate your views, Evelyn. This assertion that
you have made, that a weak and sinful human being has power to overcome
sickness and disease, is placing mortals on a level with the Son of God
and is a defamation of the very character of God Himself. I would have
given my life for you rather than that you should have embraced so
heretical and blasphemous a doctrine. Yet even though this cup prove
more bitter than I can bear; even though it blights my life and destroys
my affection, I will not ask you to spare me now. I desire to know how
far you have gone--I would like to know how far you are from me."
Mrs. Thorpe felt herself alone; her isolation closing in about her.
Never before had her husband thrust her from him, never before had he
been unsympathetic and unkind. Then the thought came to her that in all
the years of her married life she had never before arrayed herself in
open opposition to him; and she realized now, for the first time, that
although she had loved this man she had also feared him with an awful,
shrinking fear. Now she felt that he had not only thrust her from him,
but that he had aimed deliberately to pain and wound her, and with this
thought a new element sprang to life within her--a dauntless,
unflinching courage.