Chapter XI

Father Algarcife was working like a man spurred by an invisible lash. At the breaking of the cold winter dawns he might be seen on his rounds in the mission districts, which began before the early Mass, to end long after dusk, when the calls of his richer parishioners had been treated and dismissed. During the morning celebrations one of the younger priests often noticed that he appeared faint from exhaustion, and attributed it to the strain of several hours' work without nourishment.

One morning, shortly after New Year, John Ellerslie joined him and went in with him to breakfast. It was then he noticed that Father Algarcife ate only cold bread with his coffee, while he apologized for the scantiness of the fare. "It is lack of appetite with me," he explained, "not injudicious fasting;" and he turned to the maid: "Agnes, will you see that Father Ellerslie has something more substantial?" But when cakes and eggs were brought, he pushed them aside, and crumbled, without eating, his stale roll.

The younger man remonstrated, his face flushing from embarrassment.

"I am concerned for your health," he said. "Will you let me speak to Dr. Salvers?"

Father Algarcife shook his head.

"It is nothing," he answered. "But I expect to see Dr. Salvers later in the day, and I'll mention it to him."

Later in the day he did see Salvers, and as they were parting he alluded to the subject of his health.

"I am under a pledge to tell you," he said, lightly, "that I am suffering from loss of appetite and prolonged sleeplessness. I don't especially object to the absence of appetite, but there is something unpleasant about walking the floor all night. I don't want to become a chloral fiend. Can't you suggest a new opiate?"

"Rest," responded Salvers, shortly. "Take a holiday and cut for Florida."

"Impossible. Too much work on hand."

Salvers regarded him intently.

"The next thing, you'll take to bed," he said, irritably, "and I'll have all the ladies of your congregation besieging my office door." He added: "I am going to send you a prescription immediately."

"All right. Thanks. I stop at Brentano's."

He entered the book-shop, and came out in a few moments with a package under his arm. As he stepped to the sidewalk a lady in a rustling gown descended from her carriage and paused as she was passing him.

"I was just going in for a copy of your sermons," she said. "I am distributing quite a number. By the by, have you ever found out who the _Scientific Weekly_ writer really is?"

He looked at her gravely.

"I have a suspicion," he answered, "but suspicions are unjustifiable things at best."

He walked home rapidly, unlatched his outer door, and entered his study. Going to his desk, he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and, unlocking a drawer, drew out several manuscripts, which he glanced over with a half-humorous expression. One was the manuscript of the volume of addresses he had lately published, the other of the articles which had appeared in the pages of the _Scientific Weekly_. They were both in his handwriting, but one showed the impassioned strokes of a younger pen, and belonged to the time when he had written under the veil of anonymity, that it might not interfere with the plan of his great work. Now the great work lay at the bottom of the last drawer, with its half-finished sheets yellowed and sown with dust, while the lighter articles had risen after a silence of ten years to assault his unstable present with the convictions of his past.

He crossed to the fireplace and laid both manuscripts upon the coals. They caught, and the leaves curled upward like tongues of flame, illuminating the faded text with scrolls of fire. Then they smouldered to gray spectres and floated in slender spirals up the yawning chimney.

The next day a storm set in, and pearl-gray clouds swollen with snow drove from the northwest. The snow fell thickly through the day, as it had fallen through the night, blown before the wind in fluttering curtains of white, and coating the gray sidewalks, to drift in fleecy mounds into the gutters.

In the evening, when he came in to dinner, he received an urgent message from Mrs. Ryder, which had been sent in the morning and which he had missed by being absent from luncheon. Her child had died suddenly during the night from an attack of croup.

Without removing his coat, he turned and started to her at once, his heart torn by the thought of her suffering.

As he ascended the steps the door was opened by Ryder, who came out and grasped his hand, speaking hurriedly, with a slight huskiness in his voice.

"She has been expecting you," he said, leading him into the hall. "Come up to her immediately. I can do nothing with her. My God! I would have given my right hand to have spared her this." The sincerity in his voice rang true, and there were circles of red about his eyes.

They went up-stairs, and Ryder opened the door of the nursery, and, motioning him inside, closed it softly after him. The room was faintly lighted, the chill curtain of falling snow veiling the windows. On the little bed, where he had seen it sleeping several months ago, the child was lying, its flaxen curls massed upon the embroidered pillow; but the flush of health on the little face had given place to a waxen pallor, and the tiny hands that had tossed restlessly in sleep were still beneath white rose-buds. A faint odor of medicine clung about the room, but the disorder of dying had been succeeded by the order of death.

Mrs. Ryder, sitting near the window, her profile dark against the storm, turned her heavy eyes upon him, and then, rising, came towards him. He caught her extended hands and held them firmly in his own. At that instant the past seemed predominant over the present--and the grief more his own than another's.

"You have come at last," she said. "Help me. You must help me. I cannot live unless you do. Give me some comfort--anything!"

His face was almost as haggard as her own.

"What would comfort you?" he asked.

She turned from him towards the little bed, and, falling on her knees beside it, burst into passionate weeping.

"It was all I had!" she cried. "All I had! O God! How cruel!"

He laid his hand upon her shoulder, not to stay her tears, but to suggest sympathy. Beyond her the sweet, grave face of the dead child lay wreathed in rose-buds.

At his touch she rose and faced him.

"Tell me that I shall see him again!" she cried. "Tell me that he is not dead--that he is somewhere--somewhere! Tell me that God is just!"

His lips were blue, and he put up his hand imploring mercy; then he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.

She clung to him, sobbing.

"Pray to God for me," she said.

He staggered for a moment beneath her touch. Then he knelt with her beside the little bed and prayed.

When he walked home through the storm an hour later he reeled like a drunken man, and, despite the cold, his flesh was on fire.

As he entered his door the wind drove a drift of snow into the hall, and the water dripping from his coat made shining pools on the carpet.

He went into his study and slammed the door behind him. The little dog sleeping on the rug came to welcome him, and he patted it mechanically with a nerveless hand. His face was strained and set, and his breath came pantingly. In a sudden revolution the passion which he believed buried forever had risen, reincarnated, to overwhelm him. He lived again, more vitally because of the dead years, the death of a child who was his and the grief of a woman who was his also. He, who had believed himself arbiter of his fate, had awakened to find himself the slave of passion--a passion mighty in its decay, but all victorious in its resurrection. He shivered and looked about him. The room, the fire, the atmosphere seemed thrilled with an emotional essence. He felt it in his blood, and it warmed the falling snow beyond the window. Before the consuming flame the apathy of years was lost in smoke. A memory floated before him. He was sitting again in that silent room, driving the heavy pen, listening to the breathing of his dying child, watching the still droop of Mariana's profile, framed by dusk. He felt her sobbing upon his breast, her hands clinging in pain when he lifted her from beside her dead--and his. He heard again her cry: "Tell me that I shall see her! Tell me that God is just!" The eternal cry of stricken motherhood.

Whatever the present or the future held, these things were locked within the past. He might live them over or live them down, but unlive them he could not. They had been and they would be forever.

* * * * *

The door opened and the servant came in.

"If you please, father, there is a lady to see you."

He looked up, startled.

"A lady? On such a night?"

"She came in a carriage, but she is very wet. Will you see her at once?"

"Yes, at once."

He turned to the door. It opened and closed, and Mariana came towards him.

She came like a ghost, pale and still as he had seen her in his memory, with a veil of snow clinging to her coat and to the feathers in her hat. Her eyes alone were aflame.

He drew back and looked at her.

"You?" he said.

She was silent, holding out her gloved hand with an impulsive gesture. He did not take it. He had made a sudden clutch at self-control, and he clung to it desperately.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked, and his voice rang hollow and without inflection.

She still held out her hand. Flecks of snow lay on her loosened hair, and the snow was hardly whiter than her face.

"You must speak to me," she said. "You promised to come, and I waited--and waited."

"I was busy," he returned, in the same voice.

"We cannot be as strangers," she went on, passionately. "We must be friends. Can you or I undo the past? Can you or I undo our love--or our child?"

"Hush!" he said, harshly.

"I came only to hear that you forgive me," she continued, a brave smile softening the intensity of her face. "Tell me that and I will go away."

He was silent for a moment; then he spoke.

"I forgive you."

She took a step towards the door and came back.

"And is that all?"

"That is all." Beneath the brutal pressure of his teeth a drop of blood rose to his lips. There was a wave of scarlet before his eyes, and he clinched his hands to keep them at his sides. A terrible force was drawing him to her, impelling him to fall upon her as she stood defenceless--to bear her away out of reach.

She looked at him, and a light flamed in her face.

"It is not all," she retorted, triumphantly. "You have not forgotten me."

He looked at her dully.

"I had--until to-night."

Tears rose to her eyes and fell upon her hands, while the snow on her hair melted and rained down until she seemed to weep from head to foot.

"I was never good enough," she said, brokenly. "I have always done wrong, even when I most wanted to be good." Then she raised her head proudly. "But I loved you," she added. "I never loved any one but you. Will you believe it?"

He shook his head, smiling bitterly. As he stood there in his priestly dress he looked like one in a mighty struggle between the calls of the flesh and of the spirit. The last wavering fires of anger flamed within him, and he took a step towards her.

"Do you think," he asked, slowly, forcing his words, "that I would have left you while there remained a crust to live on? Do you think that I would not have starved with you rather than have lived in luxury without you? Bah! It is all over!"

"I was too young," she answered--"too young. I did not know. I have learned since then."

His outburst had exhausted his bitterness, and a passionate tenderness was in his eyes.

"I would to God that you had been spared the knowledge," he said.

She shook her head.

"No," she responded. "Not that--not that."

She swayed, and he caught her in his arms. For an instant he held her--not in passion, but with a gentleness that was almost cold. Then he released her, and she moved away.

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

He followed her into the hall and opened the door. An icy draught blew past him.

"Wait a moment," he said. He took an umbrella from the rack, and, raising it, held it over her until she entered the carriage.

"I hope you will not take cold," he said, as he closed the door.

Then he went back into his study and walked the floor until dawn.