When Harkness found that he was always defied by Eliza he grew gloomy,
and was quiet for a time. One day, however, he recovered his former
cheerfulness. He seemed, indeed, to be in high spirits. When he saw his
time, he sought talk with Eliza. He did not now affect to be lively, but
rather wore a manner of marked solemnity.
"Can you read the French language?" he asked.
"No," she answered.
"That's unfortunate, for I'm not a good hand at it myself; but I've
found a bit of news in a French paper here that is real interesting and
important."
He unfurled a crushed copy of a Quebec journal a few days old. "It
says," he began translating, that "there's a man called Cameron, who's
been nicknamed Lazarus Cameron, because he seemed to be dead and came to
life again."
He looked hard at the paper, as if needing a few moments to formulate
further translation.
"Do go on," said Eliza, with manifest impatience.
"Why now, you're _real_ interested, Miss White."
"Anybody would want to know what you're at."
"Well, but, considering it's any one so composed as you, Miss White,
it's real pleasant to see you so keen."
"I'm keen for my work. I haven't time, like you, to stand here all day."
All this time he had been looking at the paper. "What I've read so far,
you see, is what I've told you before as having happened to my knowledge
at a place called Turrifs Station."
"Is that all?"
"No," and he went on translating. "'Whether this man was dead or not, he
is now alive, but partially deaf and blind; and whether he has ever seen
anything of the next world or not, he has now no interest in this one,
but spends his whole time praying or preaching, living on crusts, and
walking great distances in solitary places. He has lately appeared in
the suburbs of this city' (that is Quebec) 'and seems to be a
street-preacher of no ordinary power.'"
Harkness stopped with an air of importance.
"Is that all?" asked Eliza.
He gave her another paper, in English, to read. This contained a longer
and more sensational account of the same tale, and with this difference,
that instead of giving the simple and sentimental view of the French
writer, the English journalist jeered greatly, and also stated that the
nickname Lazarus had been given in derision, and that the man, who was
either mad or an imposter, had been hooted, pelted, and even beaten in
the streets.
"Is that all?" she asked.
"Unless you can tell me any more." He did not say this lightly.
"Is that all?" she asked again, as if his words had been unmeaning.
"Well now, I think that's enough. 'Tisn't every day this poor earth of
ours is favoured by hearing sermons from one as has been t'other side of
dying. I think it would be more worth while to hear him than to go to
church, I do."
"Do you mean to say," she asked, with some asperity, "that you really
believe it?"
"I tell you I saw the first part of it myself, and unless you can give
me a good reason for not believing the second, I'm inclined to swallow
it down whole, Miss Cameron--I beg your pardon, White, I mean. One gets
real confused in names, occasionally."
"Well," said Eliza, composedly, preparing to leave him, "I can't say I
understand it, Mr. Harkness, but I must say it sounds too hard for me to
believe."
He looked after her with intense curiosity in his eyes, and in the next
few days returned to the subject in her presence again and again,
repeating to her all the comments that were made on the story in the
bar-room, but he could not rouse her from an appearance of cheerful
unconcern.
Another item appeared in the papers; the old man called Cameron had been
brought before the magistrates at Quebec for some street disturbance of
which he appeared to have been the innocent cause.
Upon this Cyril Harkness took a whim into his head, which he made known
to all his friends in the place, and then to Eliza--a most extraordinary
whim, for it was nothing less than to go down to Quebec, and take the
street preacher under his own protection.
"I feel as if I had a sort of responsibility," said he, "for I was at
the very beginning of this whole affair, and saw the house where he had
lived, and I got real well acquainted with his partner, who no doubt had
ill-treated him. I saw the place where a daughter of his perished too,
and now he's got so near up here as this, I can't bear to think of that
old man being ill-treated and having no one to look after him. I'm going
right down to Quebec by the Saturday-night train, an' I'll be back
Monday morning if I can persuade the old gentleman to come right here
where I can look after him. I reckon there's room in the Harmon house
for both him and me, an' I reckon, if he's got anything particularly
powerful to say in the way of religion, it won't do this little town any
harm to hear it."
He had said all this to Eliza.
"Don't!" she cried in great surprise, but with determined opposition. "I
shall never think you have any sense again if you do such a foolish and
wicked thing."
"Why now, Miss White, as to losing your good opinion, I didn't know as
I'd been fortunate enough to get it yet; and as to its being wicked, I
don't see how you make _that_ out."
"It's meddling with what you have nothing to do with."
"Well now, what will you give me not to go?" He said these words, as he
said most of his words, in a languid, lingering way, but he turned and
faced her with an abrupt glance.
He and she were standing at the head of the first staircase in the
unfurnished corridor. It was the middle of the afternoon; no one chanced
to be passing. He, light-moving, pretty fellow as he was, leaned on the
wall and glanced at her sharply. She stood erect, massive, not only in
her form, but in the strength of will that she opposed to his, and a red
flush slowly mantled her pale, immobile face.
"I don't know what you want of me," she said. "Money's the thing you
love, and I haven't any money; but whether I had or not, I would give
you _nothing_." She turned at the last word.
Then Harkness, taking the chiding and jeers of all his companions
good-naturedly, and giving them precisely the same excuses that he had
given to Eliza, started for Quebec.
What was more remarkable, he actually brought back the old preacher with
him--brought him, or rather led him, to the Harmon house, for the old
man was seemingly quite passive. This was an accomplished fact when
Eliza and Harkness met again.