For a little while the study remained silent, except for the excited
panting of the minister, whose face was a mask of fury. The passion in
Conscience's eyes was gradually fading into an expression of deep
misery. The issue of cruel dilemma had come in spite of every defensive
effort and every possible care. It had come of her father's forcing and
she knew that he would make no concession. When Williams spoke his voice
came chokingly.
"Conscience, leave us alone. What I have to say to this man is a matter
between the two of us."
But instead of obeying the girl took her place at Stuart's side and laid
her hand on his arm.
"What you have to say to him, Father, is very much my affair," she
replied steadily. "My action for the rest of my life depends upon it."
"Dear," suggested the Virginian in a lowered voice, "you can trust me.
I'm not going to lose my temper if it's humanly possible to keep it.
There's no reason why you should have to listen to things which it will
be hard to forget."
"No," she declared with a decisiveness that could not be shaken, "I stay
here as long as you stay. When you go, I go, too."
Farquaharson turned to the minister, "I believe you called for me, sir,"
he repeated, in a tone of even politeness. "You have something to say to
me?"
The old man raised a hand that was palsied with rage and his voice
shook.
"I fancy you heard what I said of you. I said that you had abused my
hospitality and that you are a coward and a sneak. You are worse than
that; you are an infamous scoundrel."
Conscience felt the muscles in the forearm upon which her fingers rested
grow tense and hard as cables. She saw the face pale to lividness and
the lips stiffen, but except for that, the man made no movement, and for
some ten seconds he did not speak. They were ten seconds of struggle
against an anger as fierce as it was just, but at the end of that time
he inquired quietly, "Is that all you meant to say to me?"
"No! There's much more, but for most men that would be enough. To let it
go unanswered is a confession of its truth."
"My invariable answer to such words," said Stuart Farquaharson slowly,
"is made with a clenched fist. The triple immunity of your cloth, your
age and your infirmity denies me even that reply."
"And what immunity makes a denial unnecessary?"
"A denial would dignify a charge which I can afford to ignore as I
ignore vulgar talk that I hear in an alley."
The old man bent forward, glaring like a gargoyle, and his first
attempts to speak were choked into inarticulate rumblings by his rage.
His face reddened with a fever of passion which threw the veins on his
temples into purple traceries.
"I repeat with a full responsibility--with the knowledge that the God
whom I have tried to serve is listening, that you _are_ what I have
called you, because you have come into my house and practiced a
continuous and protracted deceit. You have abused the freedom granted
you as a guest to try to win my daughter away from everything worth
holding to and everything she has been taught. I was a blind fool. I was
a watchman fallen asleep at the gate--a sentry unfaithful at his post."
The voice of the minister settled into a clearer coherence as he went on
in deep bitterness. "You say I have accused you sternly. I am also
accusing myself sternly--but now the scales have fallen from my eyes and
I recognize my remissness. God grant I am not too late."
He paused for breath and his fingers clenched rigidly at the carvings of
his chair arms. "You know that my daughter is young and
inexperienced--an impressionable child not sufficiently seasoned in
wisdom to repudiate the gauzy lure of dangerous modernisms."
"Father," broke in Conscience during his accusing pause, "you are
starting out with statements that are unjust and untrue. I am not a
child and no one has corrupted my righteousness. We simply have
different ideas of life."
The minister did not take his eyes from the face of the young man and he
ignored the interruption of his daughter.
"I could not blame her: it was the natural spirit of unthinking youth.
You, however, did know the consequences. Here in my house--which you
must never reënter--you have incited my family against me to serve your
own covetous and lustful interests." Again he halted while the young
man, still standing as rigid as a bronze figure, his flushed face set
and his eyes holding those of his accuser with unblinking steadiness,
made no attempt to interrupt him.
"What, indeed, to you were mere questions of right or wrong? You had a
world of light and frivolous women to choose from, your own kind of
women who could dance and fritter life away in following fads that make
for license--but you must come into the household of a man who has tried
to fight God's battles; standing against these encroachments of Satan
which you advocate--and beguile my only daughter into telling me that I
must choose between surrender or the wretchedness of ending my life in
deserted loneliness."
Farquaharson, despite the storm which raged in his heart, answered with
every outward show of calmness, even with dignity.
"You accuse me of having made love to your daughter. For that I have no
denial. I have loved her since she was a child. I have told her so at
every opportunity, but that love has been honorable and free of deceit
and I know of no law which forbids a man of decent character to plead
his cause. That I should win her love is a marvelous thing, but, thank
God, I have it and hope to hold it till death."
"You have filched it! You have it as a thief has another man's purse or
another man's wife. You have gained favor by arousing discontent for a
Godly home: a home where she is sheltered and where she belongs."
There was a tense silence and Farquaharson's voice was almost gentle
when he next spoke.
"There is more than one way of looking at life--and more than one may be
right. Conscience wanted the wider scope which college would have given
her. She wanted it with all the splendid eagerness of a soul that wishes
to grow and fulfill itself. That rightful privilege you denied her--and
she has not complained. Why shouldn't she want life's fullness instead
of life's meagerness and its breadth instead of its bigotries? Is there
greater nobility in the dull existence of a barnacle that hangs to one
spot than in the flight of a bird? I have sought no quarrel and I have
cruelly set a curb upon my temper, but I have no apologies to make and
no intention of giving her up. I should be glad of your consent, but
with it or without it I shall continue to urge my love. It would be a
pity for you to force a breach."
"There is no question of my forcing a breach." The first words wore
spoken sharply, but as they continued they began again to rush and mount
into an access of passion. "You are as insolent as your words prove you
to be reckless. You have tried to corrupt every idea of righteousness
in my daughter's heart. It would almost appear that you have succeeded.
But I believe God is stronger than Satan. I believe my prayers and the
heritage of Godfearing forefathers will yet save her. As for you, you
are to leave my house and henceforth never to cross my threshold."
"Very well," answered Stuart quietly; then he added: "To what extent am
I indebted to Mr. Eben Tollman for your sudden discovery that I am a
sneak and a coward?"
"That," shouted the invalid, "proves your meanness of spirit. Had Mr.
Tollman held a brief for you he could not have defended you more
stoutly. He, too, was deceived in you, it seems."
"Stuart," suggested the girl, "it's no use. You can't change him now.
Perhaps when he's less angry--"
"Less angry!" screamed the old man. "For almost seventy years my wrath
against the machinations of hell has burned hot. If God grants me
strength to the end, it will never cool. You, too, have turned to my
enemies in my last days. You would leave me for a young wastrel who has
sung in your ears the song of a male siren. But before I will surrender
my fight for the dictates of the conscience God has given me to be my
mentor, I will see you go!"
"Father!" cried the girl. "You don't know what you're saying."
His face had become frenzied and purpled, his hands were shaking. His
voice was a thunder, rumbling with its agitation. "I must have sinned
deeply--but if the Almighty sees fit to take from me my health, my
child, my last days of peace on earth--if He chooses to chastise me as
He chastised Job--I shall still fight for His righteous will, and war on
the iniquitous chil--"
The last word broke with a choke in his throat. The white head rocked
from side to side and the hands clawed the air. Then William Williams
hunched forward and lurched from his chair to the floor.
In an instant Farquaharson was at his side and bending over the
unconscious form and a few minutes later, still insensible, the figure
had been laid on a couch and the roadster was racing for a physician.
When Conscience came out into the yard later, where her lover was
awaiting her, her lips were pale and her eyes tortured. She went
straight into his outstretched arms and with her head on his shoulder
sobbed out a misery that shook her. At last the man asked softly, "What
did the doctor say?" And she answered brokenly.
"It seems that--besides the paralysis he has a weak--heart."
The man held her close. "I wish to God it could have been averted. I
tried."
"You did all you could," she declared. "But, Stuart, when he came back
to consciousness, his eyes were awful! I've never seen such terror in a
human face. He couldn't speak at first and when he could ... he
whispered in absolute agony, 'Has she gone?' He thought I'd left him
lying there--and gone with you."
"Great God!" It was more a groan than an exclamation.
"And when he saw me he stretched out his hands like a child and began
crying over me, but even then he said bitterly, 'That man's name must
never be mentioned in this house.'... What are we to do?"
"There is only one thing to do," he told her. "We are young enough to
wait. You can't desert a dying father."
While they talked the physician came out of the door.
"The patient will pull through this attack," he said briskly. "It's a
leaky valve. There is only one rule that I have to lay upon you. It is
absolutely vital that he shall not be excited. A blow with an ax would
be no more fatal than another such stroke."
Conscience looked desperately about her, as Stuart with the doctor
beside him started the car again down the drive. In a front window her
eyes lighted on a flaming branch of maple leaves. Only two hours ago she
and her lover had been watching the sunlight spill through the gorgeous
filter of the painted foliage. They had carried in their hearts the
spirit of carnival. Now the storm had broken and swept them.
She walked unsteadily to the veranda of the house and dropped down on
the steps. Her head was swimming and her life was in a vortex.