"Rights? My rights to rule my life according to my own beliefs. My
rights to seek the Universal Truth. I have my way to go, as you say you
have yours. The two ways can never be the same. I have tried my best to
make them so; but it is no use."
Again the murmur.
"And my best to live up to my share of a bad bargain," came the brutal
answer. "My best to--" The voice choked with its own emotions.
"Tut! Tut!" Dolph remarked softly, at the invisible owner of the voice.
"Steady, now; or you'll be crying, next thing you know."
His warning, though, was needless. No trace of tears came into the
militant reply to the next low words.
"Yes, a bad, bad bargain. When we came together, I dreamed of a perfect
union, a life of mutual opportunity. Oh, yes, I know. You say it's all
on account of my beliefs, all because I have strayed away from the
chalkline you marked out for me. But who else has strayed? Who else has
thrown over his earlier creed? And you have thrown with it all belief
in anything, tossed it aside as if it had been a worn-out rag. I have
laid it aside, unharmed, and chosen out another creed of finer texture.
And now you think I am going to stay here, inert, supine, and watch you
tear that creed apart. Never!"
"Grand language, that," Dolph soliloquized, as he mounted the steps and
came into hearing of the words. "Evidently, it's not the cook; she
wouldn't be up to that level."
"Your fault? Whose fault, else? Who first took pains to teach me that
the old creed of our parents was unbelievable? Who put the first
questionings into my young mind? Who waked me from my mental sleep? It
was you, yourself. Without you, I never should have known the peace
which now I feel. For so much, I am grateful to you, Scott Brenton."
On the final sentences, the angry voice had lowered its pitch a little,
as if to come into some slight consonance with the peace of which it
boasted. The different cadence, coupled with the unexpected use of
Brenton's given name, brought light to Dolph Dennison.
"Damn!" he remarked succinctly, letting go the knocker with which he
had been hoping to put an end to the discussion. "It's Mrs. Brenton!"
And then, obedient to the town-wide impulse which never failed to come
in times of trouble, Dolph bolted down the Brenton doorsteps on his
tiptoes, and dashed away in search of Doctor Keltridge.
The pause which followed his departure, as a matter of course, had no
connection with it. Rather, it was of two-fold purpose. Katharine
needed time to catch her breath; Brenton needed time to rally his mind
to meet the sudden strain. In the end, it was Brenton who spoke.
"Then, Katharine, what is it your plan to do?"
"My plan!" her voice bespoke her scorn. "At least, then, you are
beginning to consider me a little."
"I always have meant to consider you, Katharine."
"When? In what way?" But she waited for no answer, except the one which
she herself was ready to give. "None. You lived your life. You went
your way. You gave me the crumbs of your time, of your mind. My share
in your life came out of what your other friends left over. Did you
consult me, when you turned into an Episcopalian? No! Did you consult
me, when you threw it all aside, all your pretty broken toy that, once
on a time, you had called religion, and went to teaching chemistry to a
pack of girls? No! A thousand times, no! You made your life the way you
wanted it. You say it was your right to do so. Then, in the same way, I
claim it is my right, in searching for the truth, to make my life over
into anything I choose."
"But, if your choice is not a wise one?"
She turned upon him fiercely.
"Who are you to judge? And is your own choice so wise? Your own
choices, rather, for, if I remember clearly, there have been a number
of them. And what good have they done to any man?"
"Too little good, Katharine," Brenton assented humbly. "At least,
though, they have done no harm."
"How do you know that?" she taunted him defiantly. "How is any man to
know the harm he can do by a wrong belief? No; I don't mean the harm
you may have done to yourself. That is superficial. You can cure it
easily; there are dozens of mental plasters that you can apply." Her
voice grew yet more scornful on the phrase. "But what about the harm to
other people? What about the harm to me from all your theological
shilly-shally? The only wonder of it all is that I was given the
strength to come out of it and into something better. And now--"
Brenton stayed her torrent of words by the very quiet of his brief
question.
"Now, Katharine?"
"Now I demand my right to go out and make what I can of the little you
have left me of my life."
"In what way?"
His quiet interrogations pierced her excitement as no opposition could
have done. Her next reply, when it came, was almost devoid of passion.
"I wish to study. I must have my time for that, not fritter it away on
managing servants and going to faculty dinners."
"To study what?"
Again she flung up her head, and her eyes glittered. Her voice, though,
was now under perfect control.
"To study my religion, to learn to know it through and through."
"I thought you knew it now."
She looked at him as from a measureless height of wisdom and
experience.
"Does one ever know the Infinite? Our belief can not be packed into a
neat bundle and tied up in the Apostles Creed. It is deeper than that,
and far, far wider. And then," and, to Brenton's astonishment, her face
lighted with a smile which was curiously akin to one of happy peace;
"and, in time, I shall do my best to prepare myself to be a Healer."
"Katharine!" Despite the peaceful smile which had heralded the
announcement, Brenton felt his whole nature recoiling from the thought.
"Why not?" she asked him swiftly. "You mean I am not worthy? Of course
not--yet. In time, though, it will come; in time, I shall be free from
thoughts such as have dragged me down into to-day's discussion. Not,
though, while I live with you as you are now. Not while I have the
daily friction of your unbelief and opposition. While these confront
me, I am tied down to the lower level; the hour has come when I know it
is my higher duty to go free. For that reason, I have told you this,
to-day. One has to make practical plans, even if it is to carry out
spiritual endeavours. There are things to arrange, before I go."