"Let her speak to you, and then she will be done with things of this
earth."
It was the safety of her husband for which the poor creature was
concerned. It was on her mind that Ashe and Mrs. Fenton could save him
from punishment if they chose. She pleaded piteously with Philip to
have the prisoner set free.
"He'll be all alone of me," she moaned. "That'll be more punishment
than you're thinking, your riverince. He'll come out of jail sober, and
he'll remember how he had me to do for him night and day these long
years. He'll not be liking that, your riverince; and he'll be uneasy to
think maybe he had some small thing to do with it himself. Not that I
say he did," she added hastily. "His little fun wouldn't be the cause
of harm to me as is used to his ways, but maybe he'll be after thinking
so. It's the fever I have, from poor living, and maybe from being so
long without Tim and worrying the heart out of my body for him, and he
there in jail. Only if you'll promise to let him go, you and the sweet
lady that very likely didn't know his pleasant ways when he had a drop
too much, you'd make it easier dying without him."
She gasped out her words as if every syllable were an effort, her eyes
appealing with a wildness which touched his heart. The girl went to the
bed and leaned over, taking in hers the thin, withered hand.
"There, there, Mrs. Murphy," she said, "of course the gentleman'll do
it. He couldn't have the heart to resist your dying prayer."
"I am ready to do all I can, Mrs. Murphy," Philip stammered, struggling
with his conscience to promise as much as he could; "and I'll see Mrs.
Fenton. I'm sure she won't wish to have anything done that you would
not like."
The sick woman burst into weak tears, stammering half inarticulate
blessings.
"I don't know," Philip began, feeling that it was not honest to give
her the impression that he could set her husband free, "how much"--
The priest crossed to him and laid a hand quickly on his shoulder.
"Whist!" he said in Philip's ear. "There's no need of troubling her
with that. You'll do what you can, and the rest's with heaven that is
good to the poor."
Mrs. Murphy had not heard or heeded what Ashe said, and still mumbled
her thanks while the Father prepared to administer the viaticum. The
acolyte and the girl looked at Ashe as if expecting him to withdraw.
"May I remain?" Philip asked, looking at the priest with deep feeling.
The other regarded him benignly.
"Remain, my brother; and may the Holy Virgin bless the sacrament to
your soul as well as to hers."
Ashe could not have told why he had yielded to the impulse to stay. He
had for months been coming more and more to feel that the church of
Rome was his true refuge, yet he hardly now dared confess this to
himself. He had been deeply affected by the discovery that Maurice had
been to confession at St. Eulalia, and he longed himself to follow the
example of his friend. To Ashe, however, it seemed like trifling with
sacred things, and he could not do it. Now as he knelt on the unclean
and uneven floor of that sordid chamber he experienced a peace and a
security such as he had never before known. He was moved almost to
tears; yet he would not yield.
"It is not Rome," he insisted to himself. "It is the simple faith of
these poor souls. That is beautiful and holy. It would be easy for me
to think that I was becoming a Catholic."
He left as soon as the rite was concluded, but the memory of it
remained.
He saw Mrs. Fenton on the afternoon following. He had not been alone
with her since his mad declaration of love. He wished now to meet her
calmly, yet the moment he entered her house his heart quickened its
beating. He was no longer a priest bent on an errand of mercy; he was
an ardent lover, acutely conscious that he was in the rooms through
which she passed day by day, that in a moment he should see her, hear
her voice, perhaps touch her hand. He was shown into the library where
she was sitting, and she rose to greet him frankly and simply.
"She was not touched by what happened in the carriage," Philip said to
himself, with the woeful wisdom of love, "or she could not so
completely ignore it."
"How do you do, Mr. Ashe?" she said with perfect calmness. "You are
just in time for a cup of tea. I am having mine early, because I came
in a little chilled."
He was too confused with the joy of her presence to decline.
"I have come on an errand which is not over pleasant," he remarked,
watching her handling the cups, "and I am afraid that it is useless
too."
"Does that mean that it is something you wish me to do but think I'm
too hard-hearted or selfish to agree to?"
"It is not a question of willingness so much as of power. Mrs. Murphy
is dying,--very likely by this time she is not living,--and she begs us
to save her husband from being punished."
"But how could that be done?"
"I doubt if it could be done; but I promised her that I would speak to
you. I suppose that if we did not give evidence there would not be much
that could be told; but I hardly think that we have the right not to."
Mrs. Fenton thoughtfully regarded the fire a moment; then seemed to be
recalled to the present by the active boiling of the little silver
teakettle.
"I'm afraid women would drive justice out of the world if they had
their way," she said with a smile.
He smiled in reply, full of delight in her mere presence. They talked
the matter over, arriving at some sort of a compromise between their
sympathy for the dying woman and their feeling that a man like Murphy
should be dealt with by the law. They came for the moment to seem to be
on the old footing of simple friendliness, while she made the tea and
they discussed the situation.
"One lump or two?" Mrs. Fenton asked, pausing with tongs suspended over
the sugar.
"Two," answered he. "I am afraid I am self-indulgent in my tea, but
then I very seldom take it."
"So small an indulgence," she said, handing him his cup, "does not seem
to me to indicate any great moral laxity."
"It is the principle of the thing," Philip returned, smiling because
she smiled.
Mrs. Fenton shook her head.
"Come," she said, "this is a good time for me to say something that has
been in my mind for a long time. You may think that it isn't my affair,
but I can't help saying that it seems to me you have allowed yourself
to get into a frame of mind that is rather--well, that isn't entirely
healthy. I hope you don't think me too presuming."
"You could not be," was his reply; "but I do not understand what you
mean."
She had grown graver, and leaned back in her chair with downcast eyes.
"I hardly know how to say it," she began slowly, "but you seem to me to
be feeling rather morbidly about the virtue of personal discomfort. If
you will pardon me, I can't think that you really believe it to be any
merit in the sight of heaven that a man should make himself needlessly
uncomfortable."
"But if the mortification of the flesh helps us to"--
She put up her hand and interrupted him.
"I am a good churchwoman, but I am not able to believe in scoring off
the sins of the soul by abusing the body. The old monks scourging
themselves and the Hindus swinging by hooks in their backs seem to me
both pathetically mistaken, and both to be moved by the same feelings."
"Then you do not believe in asceticism at all?"
"Mr. Fenton used to say that asceticism was the most insolent insult to
Heaven that human vanity ever invented."
"But if we are to follow the devices and desires of our own hearts,"
Ashe broke out, his inner excitement bursting forth through his
calmness, "if we are to give way to the joys of this life, if--Do you
not see, Mrs. Fenton, that this covers so much? It goes down into the
depths of a man's heart. It comes almost at once, for instance, to the
question of the marriage of priests."
She flushed, and her manner grew perceptibly colder.
"That is naturally not a subject that I care to go into," she said;
"but I have no scruple against saying that I do not believe in a
celibate priesthood. In our church and our time, it is out of place."
"But it is the supreme test whether a man is willing to give up all his
earthly joy for the service of Heaven."
She frowned slightly, and he realized how significant his manner must
have been.
"The marriage of the clergy is not a subject that it seems to me
necessary for us to discuss," she said.
"Mrs. Fenton," Philip said, "I have given you too good a right to be
offended with me once, but I must say something that I fear may offend
you again. It is not about myself. It is about a better man."
She looked at him in evident surprise and disquiet.
"I asked what you think of the marriage of the clergy," he went on,
"because it seems to me right to tell you that Mr. Candish loves you."
She flushed to her temples, starting impulsively in her seat.
"Mr. Ashe," she said vehemently, "what right have you to talk to me of
such subjects at all?"
"None," he answered, "none at all,--unless--None that you would
recognize; but I wish to atone for the wrong I did in speaking to you,
and to say what he would never say. If it were possible that you cared
for him, I should perhaps help you both."
"You forget, I think, that I have been married."
"I do not forget anything," Philip returned desperately. "It is only
that he is a good man, a noble man, a man that would never have fallen
under his weakness as I did, and if you cared for him, he is too fine
to be allowed to suffer. He loved you long before I ever saw you."
"He has never given me any sign of it."
Her flushed cheeks and something in the way in which she said this
seemed to him to indicate that she did love Candish. He had been moved
by the most sincere desire to sacrifice his own will and happiness to
the well-being of the woman he loved, and if it were that she loved his
rival he had been ready to forget everything but that. Now by a quick
revulsion it seemed to him that he could not endure the success of this
man whose cause he had been pleading.
"Ah!" he cried, bending toward her, "you love him!"
She rose indignantly to her feet.
"Your impertinence is amazing!" she exclaimed. "It is time that
somebody told you the truth. It is hard for me to say unkind things to
one who has saved my life, but you ought to know how you appear. You
have got yourself into a thoroughly unwholesome state of mind and body;
and unless you get out of it you will ruin your whole career. Does it
seem to you that a man who has so little control over himself is a fit
leader for others? Can't you see that you have brooded over this
question of celibacy until you are completely morbid? Find some
wholesome, right-minded woman, Mr. Ashe; love her and marry her, and be
done with all this wretched, unwholesome mawkishness. As for me, when I
married once, I married for life. My son will never be given a second
father."
He had risen also, and his self-possession had returned to him.
"I have annoyed you," he said with a new dignity. "You are perhaps
right in saying that I am morbid, but in what I said to-day I was
trying to put self entirely out of the question. There is only one
thing more that I want to say; and that is that it is not fair to judge
our order by me. I know only too well how natural it is that you should
think all the men at the Clergy House weak and despicable like me; but
that is not so. They are sincere, self-forgetful fellows. You have seen
my friend Wynne. He, for instance, is as manly and fine and honest as
any man alive."
"I do not misjudge them or you, Mr. Ashe. I only feel that in these
past weeks you have not been yourself. We will forget it all, and I
hope that you will forgive me if I have hurt you."
"I have nothing to forgive. It is you who must do that. Good-by."
He went away with the remembrance of her beautiful eyes looking in pity
into his, and once more the phrase of the Persian came into his mind
like a refrain: "O thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a
slave!"