Читать книгу: «John March, Southerner», страница 27

"No more than it is to me," dryly responded John, angered by this new sting from his old knowledge of her ways. It was her policy always to mystify those who had the best right to understand her. "I shall try to solve it," he added.

"I should rather not have you speak of it at once," she replied, almost hurriedly. "You'll know why in a few days." Her blush came again. This time John saw it and marvelled anew. He tossed himself back on his bed, fevered with irritation.

"Mother" – he fiercely shifted his pillows and looked at the ceiling – "the chief mystery to me is that you seem to care so little for the loss of our lands!"

"I thought you told me that Major Garnet considered those sixty acres as almost worthless."

"I believe he does."

Her voice became faint. "I would gladly explain, son, if you were only well enough to hear me – patiently."

He lay rigidly still, with every nerve aching. His hands, locked under his head, grew tight as he heard her rise and draw near. He shut his eyes hard as she laid on his wrinkling forehead a cold kiss moistened with a tear, and melted from the room.

"Mother!" he called, appeasingly, as the door was closing; but it clicked to; she floated down the stairs. He turned his face into the pillow and clenched his hands. By and by he turned again and exclaimed, as from some long train of thought, "'Better off without Widewood than with it,' am I? On my soul! I begin to believe it. But if you can see that so clearly, O! my poor little unsuspicious mother, why can't you even now understand that they were thieves and robbed us? Who – who —what– can have so blinded you?"

He left the bed and moved to his most frequent seat, the north window. Thence, in the western half of the view, he could see the three counties' "mother of learning and useful arts," fair, large-grown Rosemont, glistening on her green hills in each day's setting sun, a lovely frontispiece to the ever-pleasant story of her master's redundant prosperity. Her June fledglings were but just gone and she was in the earliest days of her summer rest. "Enlarged and superbly equipped and embellished," the newspapers said of her in laudatory headlines, and it was true that "no expense had been spared." Not any other institution in Dixie spread such royal feasts of reason and information for her children, at lavish cost to herself, low price to them, and queenly remuneration to the numerous members of the State Legislature who came to discourse on Agriculture, Mining, Banking, Trade, Journalism, Jurisprudence, Taxation, and Government.

How envied was Garnet! Gamble and Bulger were thrifty and successful, but Gamble and Bulger had fled and envy follows not the fleeing. Halliday had attained his ambition; was in the United States Senate; but the boom had sent him there, "regardless of politics," to plead for a deeper channel in the Swanee, a move that was only part of one of Ravenel's amusing "deals," whereby he had procured at last the political extinction of Cornelius Leggett. Moreover, for all the old General's activities he had kept himself poor; almost as poor as he was incorruptible; who could envy him? And Ravenel; Ravenel was still the arbiter of political fortune, but it was part of his unostentatious wisdom never to let himself be envied. But Garnet, amid all this business depression upon which March looked down from his sick-room, wore envy on his broad breast like a decoration. There were spots of tarnish on his heavy gilding; not merely the elder Miss Kinsington, but Martha Salter as well, had refused to say good-by to Mademoiselle Eglantine on the eve of her final return to France; Fanny Ravenel had, with cutting playfulness, asked Mrs. Proudfit, as that sister was extolling the Major's vast public value, if she did not know perfectly well that Rosemont was a political "barrel." And yet it was Garnet who stood popularly as the incarnation of praiseworthy success.

John March, begrudged him none of his triumphs – at their price. Yet it was before this window-picture his heart sunk under the heaviest and cruelest of his exasperations. Other bafflements tormented him; here alone stood the visible, beautiful emblem of absolute discomfiture. For here was the silent, lifted hand which forbade him pursue his defrauders. Follow their man[oe]uvres as he might, always somewhere short of the end of their windings he found this man's fortune and reputation lying square across the way like a smooth, new fortification under a neutral flag. Seven times he had halted before them disarmed and dumb, and turned away with a chagrin that burnt his brain and gnawed his very bones.

There came a footstep, a rap at the door, and Parson Tombs entered, radiant with tidings. "John!" he began, but his countenance and voice fell to an anxious tenderness; "why, Brother March, I – I didn't suspicion you was this po'ly, seh. Why, John, you hadn't ought to try to sit up until yo' betteh!"

"It rests me to get out of bed a little while off and on. How are you, these days, sir? How's Mrs. Tombs?"

"Oh, we keep a-goin', thank the Lawd. Brother March, I've got pow'ful good news."

"Is it something about my mother? She was here about an hour ago."

"Yass, it is! The minute she got back to ow house – and O, John, it jest seems to me like her livin' with us ever since Widewood was divided up has been a plumb providence! – I says, s'I, 'Wha'd John say?' and when she said she hadn't so much as told you, 'cause you wa'n't well enough, we both of us, Mother Tombs and me, we says, s'I, 'Why, the sicker he is the mo' it'll help him! Besides, he's sho' to hear it; the ve'y wind'll carry it; which he oughtn't never to find it out in that hilta-skilta wa-ay! Sister March, s'I, 'let me go tell him!' And s'she, jestingly, 'Go – if you think it's safe.' So here I am!" The old man laughed timorously.

"Well?" John kept his hands in his lap, where each was trying to wrench the fingers off the other. "What is it?"

"Why, John, the Lawd has provided! For one thing and even that the smallest, Sister March's Widewood lands air as good as hers again!"

"What has happened?" cried the pale youth.

"O, John, the best that ever could! What Mother Tombs and I and the Sextons and the Coffins and the Graveses and sco'es o' lovin' friends and relations have been a hopin' faw all this year an' last! Sister March has engaged her hand to Brother Garnet!"

"I think I'll lie down," said John, beginning to rise. The frightened Parson clutched him awkwardly, he reeled a step or two, said, "Don't – trouble" – and fell across the bed with a slam that jarred the floor. The old man moaned a helpless compassion.

"It's nothing," said March, waving him back. "Only my foot slipped." He dragged himself to his pillow. "Good-by, sir. I prefer – good-by!" He waved his visitor to the door. As it closed one of his hands crept under the pillow. There it seemed to find and rest on some small thing, and then a single throe wrenched his frame as of an anguish beyond all tears.

At Rosemont, as night was falling, Doctor Coffin, March's physician, the same who had attended him in boyhood when he was shot, stood up before the new Rose of Rosemont, in the greatly changed reception-room where in former years Bonaparte had tried so persistently to cross the Alps. She had left the room and returned and was speaking of Johanna, as she said, "She'll go with you. Have your seat, Doctor; she's getting ready and will be here in a few minutes."

The Doctor made a glad gesture. "I know how hard it must be for you to do without her," he said, "but if you can get along somehow for three or four days, why – you know she's away yonder the best nurse in the three counties – it'll make a world of difference to my patient."

"I hope he'll like her ways," replied the young mistress. "There's so much in that."

"Don't fear!" laughed the Doctor. "He hasn't looked so pleased since he first took sick as he did when I told him I was going to fetch her. By the bye, how do you sleep since I changed yo' medicine this last time; no better? Ain't yo' appetite improved any? I still think the secret of all yo' trouble is malaria; I haven't a doubt you brought it with you from the North! I wish I could find as good an explanation of yo' father's condition. – I just declare it's an outrage on the rights of a plain old family chills-and-fever doctor, for a lot of you folks to be havin' these here sneakin' nerve and brain things that calomel an' quinine can't – O! here's Johanna."

On his way through town again, with the black maid beside him in his battered top buggy, he paused at the Tombses' gate, hailed by the fond old Parson. "You haven't got her? Why, so you have! – 'Howdy, Johanna, you're a bless'n' here to-night,' as the hymn says. Doctor, I hope an' trust an' pray Sister Proudfit's attack won't turn out serious – ?"

The Doctor was surprised. "I ain't been called to her; didn't know she was sick."

"Well, I say!" exclaimed the Parson. "Why, it's all over town that you wuz, and that you found her so prostrated with relaxation of the nerves that her husband couldn't hold her still! You've heard, of co'se, that he's got back at last? Isn't it pathetic? I've been talkin' about it to Brother Garnet – you passed him just now, didn't you? – and as he says, her husband goes off, a walkin' ruin, to be gone three months, stays twelve, and arrives back totally unexpected on this mawnin's six-o'clock train, a-callin' himself cu'ud! Brother Coffin, you don't believe that, do you? Why, as Brother Garnet says, the drinkin' habit is as much a moral as a physical sickness, and the man that can make common talk of it in his own case to ev'y Tom, Dick, and Harry, evm down to the niggehs, ain't so much as tetched the deepest root uv his trouble, much less cu'ud! Why, Doctor, Brother Garnet see him, himself! – a-tellin' that C'nelius Leggett! – and pulled him away! Po' Brother Garnet! Johanna, I wish, betwixt the Doctor an' you, you could make him look betteh. His load of usefulness is too great. I declare, Brother Coffin, he was that tiud this evenin' that evm here, where you'd expect him to seem fresh and happy in his new joy, he looked as if, if it wa'n't faw the wrong of the thing, he'd almost be willin' to call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall on him and hide him. – But I mustn't detain you!"

The physician drove on, and by and by was leaving directions with Johanna and her protectors, Tom Hersey and his wife. "And, Tom, mind you, no visitors. It's his own wish. Good-night. – O! – that young Mr. Fair. March tells me he's expecting him any time within the next few days, to help lay the corner-stone of this new building up at the colored college; Fair Hall, yes. Whenever he comes take him right up to see March. I promised John you would!"

LXXVII.
"LINES OF LIGHT ON A SULLEN SEA"

From the first hour of Johanna's attendance March began to mend. Whence she came, whither she went, as she moved in and out so pleasantly, he never thought to ask, and never found out that her bed was a pallet laid on the stair-landing just at his door.

The young bloods down in the street were keenly amused. "Doctor, if he was anybody but John March aw she anybody but Johanna" – the rest was too funny for words. "How is he to-day, anyhow? Improving rap' – well! good fo' that! Come, gentlemen, let's – Come, Shot. Doctor, won't you – " And as they went they all agreed that the dark maiden's invincible modesty was like some "subtle emana-ation," as Shotwell expressed it, which charmed all evil out of the grossest eye.

True it was in the convalescent's case, that while Johanna's mere doings had their curative value, her simple presence had more. Yet her greatest healing was in her words; in what she told him. She only answered questions; but these he lightly plied on any and every trivial matter that promised to lead up – or around – to one subject which seemed to allure him without cessation. Yet always at her first pause after entering upon any phase of this topic, he would say, "But that's not what – hem! – I was speaking of," and starting once more, at any distance away, would begin to steal yet another approach toward the same enticing theme.

So the brief time of her appointed service came to its end, neither the Doctor, nor the convalescent, nor even her young mistress, for one moment imagining what dear delight, yet withal what saintly martyrdom to Johanna, this three days' task had been.

In its last hour, when she, to end all well, prepared and brought up the captive's evening meal, she found him sitting up in bed talking to Henry Fair.

"Doctor thinks I can go down to my office Monday. Yes, I knew what ailed me better than he did. I began to recover the moment I quit trying to convince the Lord that He ought to run this world in my private interest. Ah! Johanna, so this is the last, is it? I'm pow'ful sorry! Mr. Fair, you remember Johanna, don't you?"

Mr. Fair remembered, the maid courtesied, and March, a trifle unduly animated, ran on – "Johanna's the salt of the earth, Mr. Fair. Don't often see best salt that color, do you?" Then dropping his tone – "O! you know, if my chief concern were still, as it was at first, to recover my fortunes, or even to vindicate my abilities, I reckon I could make out to accept defeat – almost. For, really, I'm just about the only sufferer – outwardly, at least. Of course, there's an awful shrinkage here, but all our home people have made net gains – unless it is Proudfit; I – eh – Johanna, you needn't stay in here; only don't go beyond call."

The maid closed the door after her, took her accustomed rocking-chair and needle on the stair-landing, and being quite as human as if she had been white, listened. Fair's words were very indistinct, but March's came through the thin door-panels as clean as rifle-balls. "O! yes," was one of his replies, "I know that with even nothing left but the experiences, I'm a whole world richer, in things that make a real manhood and life, than when I was land-poor with my hundred thousand acres. As far as I am concerned, I can afford to deny myself all the reprisals, and revenges too, that litigations could ever give me. I've got sixty acres of Widewood to begin over with – By Jo'! Garnet, himself, began with less!" He let go a feverish laugh.

"If I come to that," he added, "I've got, besides, a love of study and a talent for teaching, two things he never had." Fair asked a question and he laughed again. "O! no, it was only a passing thought. If anybody 'busts Rosemont wide open' it'll have to be Leggett. O! no, I – " He played with his spoon.

Fair's response must have been complimentary. "Thank you," said March; "why, thank you!" Then the visitor spoke again and the convalescent replied:

"Ah! a 'diligent and vigilant patience' – yes, I don't doubt it would serve me best – provided, my dear sir, it didn't turn out simply a virtue of impotency; or, worse yet, what I once heard called 'the thrifty discretion of a short-winded courage!'"

When Fair responded this time March let him speak long. Johanna bent her ear anxiously. Her patient seemed to be neglecting his food; but as he began to reply she resumed her needle.

"Fair," she heard him say, " – why – why, Fair, that's a mighty handsome offer to come from such a prudent business man as you. My George! sir, men don't often put such valuable freight into a boat that's aground. Why – why, you spoil my talk; I positively don't know what – what to say!" There was a choke in his voice. Fair made some answer which March gratefully cut short.

"O! I wish I could! It hurts me all over and through to decline it. But I must; I've got to! 'Think it over' – O! I've thought it over probably before you ever thought of it at all! I know my capabilities. I'm not in such a fierce hurry for things as I used to be, but I've got what brains I ever had – and spine, too – and I know that even without your offer there's a better chance for me North than here. But – O! it's no use, Fair, I just can't go! I mustn't! Yes. Yes. O! yes, I know all that, but, my dear sir, I can't afford – You know, this Suez soil isn't something I can shake off my shoes as you might. George! I'm part of it! I'm not Quixotic – not a bit! I'm only choosing between two sorts of selfishness, one not quite so narrow as the other; but – I've got to stay here."

Fair, after a short silence, asked if this was his only reason.

"Only reason? Why – why, yes, that's my only reason! To be sure, there's a sense in which – why, conscience! isn't it enough? O! of course, I could think up other considerations, but they're not reasons – I don't allow them to bias me at all! Fact is, I was never before quite so foot-free. Why did you ask? Did you fancy I might be contemplating marriage? O, go 'long! why, my good gracious, Fair, I – it's an honest fact – I haven't even been to see one marriageable girl since I came back from Europe! No, the reason I give is the reason. It covers everything else.

"O! if you are thinking of debts, I could cancel them at least as fast if I went as if I stayed. They're not large, the money debts. O! no; it's – Fair – I spent a year in Europe coaxing men to leave their mother-country for better wages in this. Of course, that was all right. But it brought one thing to my notice: that when our value is not mere wages, it isn't every man who's got the unqualified right to pick up and put out just whenever he gets ready. Look out that window. There's the college where for five years I got my education – at half price! – and with money borrowed here in Suez! Look out this one. Mr. Fair, right down there in those streets truth and justice are lying wounded and half-dead, and the public conscience is being drugged! We Southerners, Fair, don't believe one man's as good as another; we think one man in his right place is worth a thousand who can't fill it. My place is here! – No! let me finish; I'm not fatigued at all! How I'm to meet this issue God only knows, but who'll even try to do it if I don't? Halliday's too far off. Ravenel looks on as silent as a gallows! Proudfit – poor old Proudfit hasn't been sober since the day he got home. Father Tombs has grown timid and slow-sighted, and the whole people, Fair, the whole people! have let themselves be seduced in the purse and are this day betrayed as foully in their fortunes as in their souls!" The speaker ended in a high key. He was trembling with nervous exhaustion. In an effort to jerk higher in the pillow his knee struck the tray, the crockery slid and crashed, and Johanna found him in the middle of the room, fiercely shaking the skirt of his dressing-gown.

"O! never mind me; get the milk out of the bed!"

She saw how overwrought he was, yet turned to obey. Fair, to aid her, snatched away the pillows. A small thing from under them fluttered out upon the carpet and lay before the three. With a despairing murmur the invalid picked it up, and the two men stood facing each other. Fair colored slightly, March slowly crimsoned. Then Fair smiled. March smiled too, but foolishly. Johanna made herself very busy with the bed, but she saw all. Fair pushed forward a rocking-chair, into which March sank. Then with gentle insistence he drew from March's hand the worn photograph – for such it was – leaned against a window and gazed on it, while March turned his brow into the cushioned back of his chair and wept as comfortably as any girl.

Johanna took out the tray and its wreck, and in a moment was back with fresh sheets. March had lain down on the bare mattress and, with his cheek on a pillow, was smiling in mild amusement at Fair's account of a brief talk he had had with Leggett while the train waited at Pulaski City.

"Yes," said March, moving enough to let the bed be made, "he pretends to keep a restaurant there now; but where he gets all the money he spends is more than I can make out, unless it's from men who can't afford to let him tell what he knows."

A servant of the house tapped at the door and said Major Garnet was in the office, waiting for Johanna. March rose to his elbow and gave her a hand.

"Why, I shan't ever know how to be sick without you any mo'!" he said, as her dark fingers slipped timidly from his friendly hold. "Johanna! – now – now, don't you go tellin' things you'd oughtn't to; will you?"

"No, seh," came from the maid slowly, yet with a suspicious readiness quite out of keeping with the limp diffidence of her attitude.

"Hold on a moment, Johanna," he called, as she turned to go. "Just wait an instant – sounds like – " He rose higher. Fair stepped to the west window. Loud words were coming from the sidewalk under it. March started eagerly. "That's Proudfit's – " Before he could finish the bang of a pistol rang, evidently in the office door, another, farther within, roared up through the house, and a third and fourth re-echoed it amid the wailings of Johanna as she flew down the stairs crying:

"Mahs John Wesley! O Lawdy, Lawdy! Mahs John Wesley! Mahs John Wesley!"

At the same instant came Tom Hersey's voice, remote, but clear:

"Stop! Great God! Stop! Don't you see he's dying?"

Fair was already on the staircase and March was whipping on his boots, when Shotwell, coming up by leaps, waved them back into the room. "It's all ova, Mr. Fair. Po' Proudy's gone, John. He fi-ud an' missed, and got Garnet's first bullet in his heart an' the othe's close to it. Garnet's locked himself into Tom Hersey's private room an' sent for Fatheh Tombs, to – "

"Fair!" interrupted March, "go! Go tell her he's safe and will not be – interfered with! I'll make your word good; go, Fair, go!"

But Fair answered with hardly less emotion, "I cannot, March! It isn't a man's errand! It isn't a man's errand!"

"Take Mrs. Ravenel!" cried March, and read quick assent in his friend's face. "But make her go dressed as she is; you've got to outrun rumor! Captain, go tell Tom to give him Firefly, won't you? She's mine, Fair," he continued, following to the stairs; "she's the mare I cured for Bulger; perfectly gentle, only – Fair! – don't touch her with the whip!"

"If you do," drawled Shotwell to Fair, as they hurried down into the lamplight, "you'll think the devil's inside of her with the jimjams. Still, she's lovely as long as you don't. Ah me! this is no time to jest! Po' Proudfit! He leaves a spotless characteh!"

Through the unnatural bustle, amid which Crickwater at the door of the closed office stood answering or ignoring questions and showing his intimates where Proudfit's wild shot had chopped out a large lock of his hair, they went to Hersey's door and so on to the stable. "Garnet's the man to pity, Mr. Fair. I couldn't say it befo' March, who's got family reasons – through his motheh – faw savin' Garnet whateveh he can of his splendid reputaation, but I'm mighty 'fraid they won't be a rag of it left, seh, big enough for a gun-wad! Mr. Fair, you've got a hahd drive befo' you, seh, an' if you'll allow me to suggest it, seh, I think it would be only wise, befo' you staht, faw us to take a drink, seh."

"Thank you," said the Northerner, "I hardly think – Do you suppose Major Garnet's firing those last two shots after – "

"Will ruin him? O Lawd, not that! We all know, and always have, that he's perfectly cra-azy when he's enra-aged. No, my deah seh, Miz Proudfit has confessed! She says – "

"Are you not surprised that Major Garnet was armed?" Fair interrupted.

"O! no, seh, Colonel Proudfit was too much of a gentleman to be lookin' faw a man, with a gun, an' not send him word! And, besides, Miz Proudfit's revela-a-tions – "

But the horse and buggy were ready, and at last March – to whom, as he stood at his window fully dressed, the few moments had seemed an hour – saw Fair drive swiftly by and fade into the gloom. Charlie Champion came toward the hotel, bringing Parson Tombs. March put on his hat, but for many minutes only paced the darkening room. Finally he started for the stairs, and half way down them met the Doctor.

"Why, bless my soul, John," he good-naturedly cried, "this is quite too fast."

"I reckon not, Doctor; I believe I'm well. I don't understand it, but it's so." He endured the Doctor's hand for a moment on his wrist and temples.

"Why, I declare!" laughed the physician with noisy pleasure, "I believe yo' right!" As they descended he explained how such recoveries are possible and why they are so rare, citing from medical annals a case or two whose mention John thought very unflattering.

"I should like to know what's become of Johanna," said March at the foot of the stairs.

"Johanna? O they say she ran all the way to Fannie Ravenel's, and they harnessed up the fast colt and put off for Rosemont, Johanna driving!"

"Why, of course! I might have known it! But" – John stopped – "Why, then, where's Fair?"

"O I saw him. He drove on to overtake 'em. He'll have a job of it!"

"Firefly can do it," said March, picturing the chase to himself. "But I – I wonder what – This is no time – Why – why, what did he want to do it for?"

"O he may have had the best of reasons," said the amiable Doctor, and departed.

Outside a certain door – "Why, John March!" murmured Tom Hersey. The voices of Garnet and Parson Tombs could be heard within. They ceased as the landlord modestly rattled the knob, and when he gave the visitor's name Garnet's voice said:

"Ask him in."

As March entered, only Parson Tombs rose to meet him. He had a large handkerchief in his fingers, his eyes were very red, and he gave his hand in silence. Garnet, too, had been weeping. He shaded his downcast eyes from the lamp. March had determined to give himself no time for feelings, but his voice was suddenly not his own as he began, "Major Garnet," and stopped, while Garnet slowly lifted his face until the light shone on it. March stood still and felt his heart heave between loathing and compassion; for on that lamp-lit face one hour of public shame had written more guilt than years of secret perfidy and sin, and the question rushed upon the young man's mind, Can this be the author of all my misfortunes and the father of? – he quenched the thought and driving back a host of memories said:

"Major, Doctor Coffin has just pronounced me well. I am at your disposal, sir, for anything that ought to be done."

Garnet shaded his eyes again. "Thank you, John," was his subdued reply. "It's such a clear case of self-defence – I hear there will be no arrest. Still, I shall remain here to-night. Johanna's gone home, I believe. There's only one thing, the deepest yearning of my heart, John; but before I ask that boon, I want you to know, John, that I acknowledge my sin! my awful, awful sin of years! O my God! my God! why did I do it?"

Parson Tombs wept again. "He's confessed everything, John," he said with eager tenderness.

"God knows," responded Garnet, "God knows I never concealed it but to save others from misery! and while I concealed it I could not master it! Now I have purged my sin-blackened soul of all its hideous secret and evil purpose! The thorn in my flesh is plucked out and I cast myself on the mercy of God and the charity of his people!"

"Pra-aise Gawd!" murmured Parson Tombs, "no sinneh eveh done that in va-ain!"

"O John," moaned Garnet, "God only knows what I've suffered and must suffer! But it's all right! all right! I pray He may lop off every unfruitful branch of my life – honors, possessions – till nothing is left but Rosemont, the lowly work He called me to, Himself! Let Him make me as one of his hired servants! But, John," he continued while March stood dumb with wonder at his swift loss of subtlety, "I want you to know also that I feel no resentment – I cannot – O I cannot – against her who shares my guilt and shame!"

"Great Heaven!" murmured March, with a start as if to turn away.

"No, thank God! her vanity and jealousy can drive me to no more misdeeds! She made me send Mademoiselle Eglantine to Europe, when she knew I had to sell her husband's stock in both companies to bribe the woman to go! John, the cause of her betraying me to him at last was my faithful refusal to break off my engagement with your mother!"

"Major Garnet, I prefer – "

"Will you tell your mother that, John? It's the one thing you can do for me! Tell her I beseech her in the name of a love – "

"Stop!" murmured March in a voice that quivered with repulsion.

" – A love that has dared all, and lost all, for hers – "

"Stop!" said John again, and Garnet turned a beseeching eye upon the pastor.

"John," tearfully said the old man, "let us not yield to ow feelings when the cry of a soul in shipwreck" – he stopped to swallow his emotions. "Ow penitent brother on'y asks you to bear his message. It's natu'al he should cling to the one pyo tie that holds him to us. O John, 'in wrath remembeh mercy!' An' yet you may be the nearest right, God knows! O brethren, let's kneel and ask Him faw equal love an' wisdom!"

Garnet rose to kneel, but March put out a protesting hand. "I wouldn't do that, sir." The tone was gentle, almost compassionate. "I don't suppose God would strike you dead, but – I wouldn't do it, sir." He turned to go, and, glancing back unexpectedly, saw on Garnet's face a look so evil that it haunted him for years.