Part 36

Father Damon started up. “Why didn't you call me? I am late for the mission.”

“Oh, Bendes has gone down long ago. You must take it easy; rest today. You'll be all right. You haven't a bit of fever.”

“But,” still declining the coffee, “before I break my fast, I have something to say to you. I--”

“Get some strength first. Besides, I have an engagement. I cannot wait. Pull yourself together; I may not be back before evening.”

So it was fated that he should be left still with himself. After his coffee he dressed slowly, as if it were not he, but some one else going through this familiar duty, as if it were scarcely worth while to do anything any more. And then, before attempting his breakfast, he went into the little oratory, and remained long in the attitude of prayer, trying to realize what he was and what he had done. He prayed for himself, for help, for humility, and he prayed for her; he had been used of late to pray for her guidance, now he prayed that she might be sustained.

When he came forth it was in a calmer frame of mind. It was all clear now. When Father Monies returned he would confess, and take his penance, and resolutely resume his life. He understood life better now. Perhaps this blow was needed for his spiritual pride.

It was a mild winter day, bright, and with a touch of summer, such as sometimes gets shuffled into our winter calendar. The book that he took up did not interest him; he was in no mood for the quiet meditation that it usually suggested to him, and he put it down and strolled out, directing his steps farther up the height, and away from the suburban stir. As he went on there was something consonant with his feelings in the bare wintry landscape, and when he passed the ridge and walked along the top of the river slope, he saw, as it seemed to him he had not seen it before, that lovely reach of river, the opposite wooded heights, the noble pass above, the peacefulness and invitation of nature. Had he a new sense to see all this? There was a softness in the distant outline, villas peeped out here and there, carriages were passing in the road below, there was a cheerful life in the stream--there was a harmony in the aspect of nature and humanity from this height. Was not the world beautiful? and human emotion, affection, love, were they alien to the Divine intention?

She loved beauty; she was fond of flowers; often she had spoken to him of her childish delight in her little excursions, rarely made, into the country. He could see her now standing just there and feasting her eyes on this noble panorama, and he could see her face all aglow, as she might turn to him and say, “Isn't it beautiful, Father Damon?” And she was down in those reeking streets, climbing about in the foul tenement-houses, taking a sick child in her arms, speaking a word of cheer--a good physician going about doing good!

And it might have been! Why was it that this peace of nature should bring up her image, and that they should seem in harmony? Was not the love of beauty and of goodness the same thing? Did God require in His service the atrophy of the affections? As long as he was in the world was it right that he should isolate himself from any of its sympathies and trials? Why was it not a higher life to enter into the common lot, and suffer, if need be, in the struggle to purify and ennoble all? He remembered the days he had once passed in the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane. The perfect peace of mind of the monks was purchased at the expense of the extirpation of every want, all will, every human interest. Were these men anything but specimens in a Museum of Failures? And yet, for the time being, it had seemed attractive to him, this simple vegetable existence, whose only object was preparation for death by the extinction of all passion and desire. No, these were not soldiers of the Lord, but the fainthearted, who had slunk into the hospital.

All this afternoon he was drifting in thought, arraigning his past life, excusing it, condemning it, and trying to forecast its future. Was this a trial of his constancy and faith, or had he made a mistake, entered upon a slavish career, from which he ought to extricate himself at any cost of the world's opinion? But presently he was aware that in all these debates with himself her image appeared. He was trying to fit his life to the thought of her. And when this became clearer in his tortured mind, the woman appeared as a temptation. It was not, then, the love of beauty, not even the love of humanity, and very far from being the service of his Master, that he was discussing, but only his desire for one person. It was that, then, that made him, for that fatal instant, forget his vow, and yield to the impulse of human passion. The thought of that moment stung him with confusion and shame. There had been moments in this afternoon wandering--when it had seemed possible for him to ask for release, and to take up a human, sympathetic life with her, in mutual consecration in the service of the Lord's poor. Yes, and by love to lead her into a higher conception of the Divine love. But this breaking a solemn vow at the dictates of passion was a mortal sin--there was no other name for it--a sin demanding repentance and expiation.

As he at last turned homeward, facing the great city and his life there, this became more clear to him. He walked rapidly. The lines of his face became set in a hard judgment of himself. He thought no more of escaping from himself, but of subduing himself, stamping out the appeals of his lower nature. It was in this mood that he returned.

Father Monies was awaiting him, and welcomed him with that look of affection, of more than brotherly love, which the good man had for the younger priest.

“I hope your walk has done you good.”

“Perhaps,” Father Damon replied, without any leniency in his face; “but that does not matter. I must tell you what I could not last night. Can you hear me?”

They went together into the oratory. Father Damon did not spare himself. He kept nothing back that could heighten the enormity of his offense.

And Father Monies did not attempt to lessen the impression upon himself of the seriousness of the scandal. He was shocked. He was exceedingly grave, but he was even more pitiful. His experience of life had been longer than that of the penitent. He better knew its temptations. His own peace had only been won by long crucifixion of the natural desires.

“I have nothing to say as to your own discipline. That you know. But there is one thing. You must face this temptation, and subdue it.”

“You mean that I must go back to my labor in the city?”

“Yes. You can rest here a few days if you feel too weak physically.”

“No; I am well enough.” He hesitated. “I thought perhaps some other field, for a time?”

“There is no other field for you. It is not for the moment the question of where you can do most good. You are to reinstate yourself. You are a soldier of the Lord Jesus, and you are to go where the battle is most dangerous.”

That was the substance of it all. There was much affectionate counsel and loving sympathy mingled with all the inflexible orders of obedience, but the sin must be faced and extirpated in presence of the enemy.

On the morrow Father Damon went back to his solitary rooms, to his chapel, to the round of visitations, to his work with the poor, the sinful, the hopeless. He did not seek her; he tried not to seem to avoid her, or to seem to shun the streets where he was most likely to meet her, and the neighborhoods she frequented. Perhaps he did avoid them a little, and he despised himself for doing it. Almost involuntarily he looked to the bench by the chapel door which she occasionally occupied at vespers. She was never there, and he condemned himself for thinking that she might be; but yet wherever he walked there was always the expectation that he might encounter her. As the days went by and she did not appear, his expectation became a kind of torture. Was she ill, perhaps? It could not be that she had deserted her work.

And then he began to examine himself with a morbid introspection. Had the hope that he should see her occasionally influenced him at all in his obedience to Father Monies? Had he, in fact, a longing to be in the streets where she had walked, among the scenes that had witnessed her beautiful devotion? Had his willingness to take up this work again been because it brought him nearer to her in spirit?

No, she could not be ill. He heard her spoken of, here and there, in his calls and ministrations to the sick and dying. Evidently she was going about her work as usual. Perhaps she was avoiding him. Or perhaps she did not care, after all, and had lost her respect for him when he discovered to her his weakness. And he had put himself on a plane so high above her.

There was no conscious wavering in his purpose. But from much dwelling upon the thought, from much effort rather to put it away, his desire only to see her grew stronger day by day. He had no fear. He longed to test himself. He was sure that he would be impassive, and be all the stronger for the test. He was more devoted than ever in his Work. He was more severe with himself, more charitable to others, and he could not doubt that he was gaining a hold-yes, a real hold-upon the lives of many about him. The attendance was better at the chapel; more of the penitent and forlorn came to him for help. And how alone he was! My God, never even to see her!

In fact, Ruth Leigh was avoiding him. It was partly from a womanly reserve--called into expression in this form for the first time--and partly from a wish to spare him pain. She had been under no illusion from the first about the hopelessness of the attachment. She comprehended his character so thoroughly that she knew that for him any fall from his ideal would mean his ruin. He was one of the rare spirits of faith astray in a skeptical age. For a time she had studied curiously his efforts to adapt himself to his surroundings. One of these was joining a Knights of Labor lodge. Another was his approach to the ethical-culture movement of some of the leaders in the Neighborhood Guild. Another was his interest in the philanthropic work of agnostics like herself. She could see that he, burning with zeal to save the souls of men, and believing that there was no hope for the world except in the renunciation of the world, instinctively shrank from these contacts, which, nevertheless, he sought in the spirit of a Jesuit missionary to a barbarous tribe.

It was possible for such a man to be for a time overmastered by human passion; it was possible even that he might reason himself temporarily into conduct that this natural passion seemed to justify; yet she never doubted that there would follow an awakening from that state of mind as from a horrible delusion. It was simply because Ruth Leigh was guided by the exercise of reason, and had built up her scheme of life upon facts that she believed she could demonstrate, that she saw so clearly their relations, and felt that the faith, which was to her only a vagary of the material brain, was to him an integral part of his life.