Charred Wood Part 7

Finally Mark broke it.

"You told me, Father," he said, "that what I called 'Mrs. O'Leary's philosophy' was religion. I now know better what you meant, for I have been gossiping about you. The best point you make is--yourself. I know what you have been, what you have done, and how sadly you have suffered. Doesn't your religion demand too much--resignation? Does a G.o.d of Justice demand that we tamely submit to injustice? I am not saying this to be personal, or to pain you, but everyone seems to wonder at your resignation to injustice. Why should such a fault be in the Church you think so perfect?"

The priest looked at Mark with kindly and almost merry eyes. "I can answer you better, my friend, by sticking to my own case. I have never talked of it before; but, if it helps you, I can't very well refuse to talk of it now. I came to the Church with empty hands, having pa.s.sed through the crisis that seems to be upon you. She filled those empty hands, for she honored me and gave me power. She set me in high places, and I honestly tried to be worthy. I worked for her, and I seemed to succeed. Then--and very suddenly and quietly--she pulled me down, and tore my robe of honor from me. My fellow priests, my old friends, criticised me and judged me harshly. They came no more to see me, though I had been generous with them. In the college I built and directed, one of my old friends sits in my place and forgets who put him there. Another is the Bishop who disgraced me. Now, have I a right to feel angry and rebel?"

"To me," said Mark, "it seems as if you have."

"I have not," and the priest spoke very earnestly. "I have no such right. I never knew--for I did not ask--the reason of my disgrace.

But one thing I did know; I knew it was for my good. I knew that, though it was a trial given me by men, there was in it, too, something given by G.o.d. You judge as I should have judged ten years ago--by the standards of the world. I judge now by other standards. It took adversity to open my eyes. We are not here, my dear Mark, for the little, but for the big things. I had the little and I thought they were big. My fall from a place of honor has taught me that they were really little, and that it is only now that I have the big. What is religion for but to enlighten and to save--enlighten here that the future may hold salvation? What were my purple, power and t.i.tle?

Nothing, unless I could make them help to enlighten and to save myself and others. I ought to have fought them, but I was not big enough to see that they hindered where I could have made them help. Like a bolt out of the sunlight came the stripping. My shame was the best offering I have made during all the days of my life. In my misery I went to G.o.d as naturally as the poor prodigal son went to his father when he was reduced to eating husks from the trough of the swine. I asked nothing as to the cause of my fall. I knew that, according to man's standard--even according to the laws that she herself had made--that the Church had been unjust; but I did not ask to know anything about it, for the acceptance of the injustice was worth more to my soul than was the great cathedral I had been instrumental in building. I was grieved that my friends had left me, but I knew at last that I had cultivated them at the expense of greater friends--sacrifice and humility. Shorn of my honors, in the rags and tatters left of my greatness, I lay before my Master--and I gained more in peace than I had ever known was in life."

"G.o.d!" Mark's very soul seemed to be speaking, and the single word held the solemnity of a prayer. "This, then, is religion! Was it this that I lost?"

"No one has lost, Mark, what he sincerely wishes to find."

CHAPTER VI

WHO IS RUTH?

Leaving Father Murray at the rectory, Mark went on to the hotel.

Entering the lobby, he gave vent to a savage objurgation as he recognized the man speaking to the clerk. Mark's thoughts were no longer of holy things, for the man was no other than Saunders, from whom, for the past two weeks, Siha.s.set had been most pleasantly free.

"d.a.m.n!" he muttered. "I might have known he'd return to spoil it all."

Then, mustering what grace he could, Mark shook hands with the detective, greeting him with a fair amount of cordiality, for, personally, he rather liked the man. "You here!" he exclaimed. "I scarcely expected ever to see you again."

Saunders grinned pleasantly, but still suspiciously, as he answered.

"I can't say the same of you, Mr. Griffin. I knew you would be here when I returned; fact is, I came back to see you."

"Me? How could I cart books all over the world with me? What do you want to see me for? No, no. I am bad material for you to work on.

Better go back to the Padre. He's what you call an 'easy mark,' isn't he?"

"Oh, he's not so easy as you think, Griffin. By the way, have you lunched?"

"No."

"You will join me then?"

"Thanks; I will."

"We can get into a corner and talk undisturbed."

But lunch was disposed of before Saunders began. When he did, it was right in the middle of things.

"Griffin," he said, leaning over the table and looking straight at Mark, "Griffin, what's your game? Let's have this thing out."

"I am afraid, Saunders," replied Mark, "that I must take refuge again in the picturesque slang which the Padre thinks so expressive: I really don't get you."

"Oh, yes, you do. What are you doing here?"

"Honestly, my good fellow," Mark began to show a little pique, "you have remarkable curiosity about what isn't your business."

"But it _is_ my business, Griffin. I am not a book agent, and never was."

It was Mark's turn to smile.

"Which fact," he said, "is not information to me. I knew it long ago.

You are a detective."

"I am. Does that tell you nothing?"

"Nothing," replied Mark, "except that you make up splendidly as a really decent sort of fellow."

"Perhaps I am a decent sort, decent enough, anyhow; and perhaps I don't particularly like my business, but it _is_ my business. Now, look here, Griffin, I want you to help instead of hindering me. I have to ask this question of you: What do you know about Ruth Atheson? You see her every day."

"So," said Mark, annoyed, "the constable has not been around for nothing."

"You have seen him then?"

"Everywhere."

"Which proves he is a reliable constable, even if he is not a good detective." Saunders looked pleased. "But what about Ruth Atheson?"

But Mark would have his innings now. He knew well how to keep Saunders anxious.

"I am quite--well, interested in Miss Atheson."

"What!" Saunders half arose.

"Sit down, Saunders," said Mark quietly, "sit down. What's so astonis.h.i.+ng about that?"

"You--you--are engaged to Miss Atheson? You can't mean it!"

"I didn't say _that_."

Saunders sat down again. "You know nothing about her," he gasped.

"The Padre's friends are good enough to appeal to me."

"But does the Padre know?"

Mark's eyes began to steel and glitter. He fixed them on Saunders, and his voice came very steady and quiet.

"Know what, Saunders? Know what?"

"Know what? Why, that Ruth Atheson is _not_ Ruth Atheson."