A Gamble with Life

"Oh! I don't know, but it's something bad, you bet. I heard the vicar talking about it last time I was at home, and he was pretty sick, I can assure you. If Sterne were to die to-morrow I question if the vicar would allow him to be buried in consecrated ground."

"And what would happen then?" she asked, wonderingly.

"Oh! don't ask me. I am not up in those things, but I just mention the matter to show you he's a pretty bad sort, and not the sort of person for any one like you to be on speaking terms with."

"But what I want to know is, has he ever done anyone any wrong. Ever cheated people, or told lies about them, or stolen their property. Or has he ever been known to get drunk, or to behave in any way unworthy of a gentleman?"

"My dear Madeline, I hate saying anything unpleasant about anyone. But a man who never goes to church, who doesn't believe in the Church, who has no respect for the clergy or the bishops, who has been heard to denounce some of our most sacred institutions, such as the land laws, who has even said that patriotism was a curse, and war an iniquity – what can you expect of such a man? He may not have actually stolen his neighbour's property, but he would very much like to."

"I don't think that necessarily follows," she said, seriously. "I think it is possible for a man to have very small respect for the clergy, and for what is called the Church, and yet for him to have a profound sense of honour, and an unquenchable love for righteousness."

"Then you don't think staying away from church is as bad as getting drunk?"

"I should think not, indeed," she answered, quickly. "A man who gets drunk, I mean an educated man, a gentleman – sinks beneath contempt."

"Sterne may get drunk for all I know," he said, uneasily. "You see, I have been out of England for a long time."

She closed her book with a sudden movement, and rose to her feet.

"No, you must not go yet," he said, in alarm. "We have not settled the matter which I wish particularly to have settled to-day."

"We have talked quite long enough for one afternoon," she answered, coolly.

"But, Madeline, have you no pity?" he said, pleadingly.

"It would be folly to rush into such a matter hastily," she answered, in the same tone.

"But – but, Madeline, answer me one question," he entreated. "Have you – have you seen this man Sterne since I came back?"

"You have no right to ask that question," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "Nevertheless, I will answer it. I have not," and without another word she swept out of the room.

Her heart was in a tumult of conflicting emotions. She was less satisfied with Gervase than she had ever been before, and less satisfied with herself. And yet she saw no way out of the position in which she found herself. It was next to impossible, situated as she was, to upset what had been taken for granted so long, particularly as she had acquiesced from the first in the unspoken arrangement. She felt as if in coming to England she had been lured into a trap, and yet it was a trap she had been eager to fall into. She had hoped when she saw Gervase, that all her old reverence and admiration and hero worship would flame into life again, instead of which his coming had been as cold water on the faggots. Whether he had lost some of the qualities she had so much admired or whether all the change was in herself, she did not know, but the glamour had all passed away, and her eyes ached with looking at the common-place.

She wondered if it were always so; if maturity always destroyed the illusions of youth, if the poetry of eighteen became feeble prose at twenty-one.

She went to her own room, and donned her hat and jacket, and then stole unobserved out of the house. "I must get a little fresh air," she said to herself, "and, perhaps, a long walk will put an end to this restlessness."

She turned her back upon St. Gaved, and made for the "downs" that skirted the cliffs. The wind was keen and searching, and the wintry sun was already disappearing behind the sea. "I suppose I shall have to say yes sooner or later," she went on, as she walked briskly forward. "I don't see how I can get out of it very well. All his people seem to be expecting it, and he is evidently very much in love with me. I am afraid there won't be very much romance on my side, but, after all, we may be very happy together."

Then she looked up with a start as a step sounded directly in front of her, and she found herself face to face with Rufus Sterne.

CHAPTER XXII

A HUMAN DOCUMENT

Rufus returned from Tregannon in a condition of mental unrest, such as he had not known before. It was Madeline Grover in the first instance who set him thinking along certain lines, and once started it was impossible to turn back. During all the time he remained a prisoner in the house, his brain had been unusually active. Unconsciously his fierce antagonisms subsided, his revolt against accepted creeds took new shapes, his belief in German philosophy began to waver.

The process of mental evolution went on so quietly and silently, that he was almost startled when he discovered that his philosophic watchwords no longer represented his real beliefs. He felt as though while he slept all his beliefs had been thrown into the melting-pot to be cast afresh, and were now being poured out into new moulds. What the result would be when the process was complete it was impossible to say, but already one thing was certain, the blank negatives in which he once found refuge, would never again satisfy him. He might never evolve into an orthodox believer. The religiosity of the Churches appealed to him as little as ever it did. He despised the smug hypocrisy that on all hands usurped the place of Christianity, and defiled its name. He loathed the pretensions of priests and clerics of all sects. But out of the fog and darkness and uncertainty, certain great truths and principles loomed faintly and fitfully.

The fog was no longer an empty void. The silence was now and then broken by a sound of words, though the language was strange to his ears. There appeared to be a moral order which answered to his own need, and a moral order implied the existence of what he had so long denied.

His visit to his grandparents quickened his thoughts in the direction they had been travelling. Everything tended to serious reflection. The awful mystery and solemnity of life were forced upon him at all points. The old people walked and talked "as seeing Him who is invisible."

He was quietly amused when he returned from his long walk on Christmas day to find his grandfather and the young minister engaged in a heated argument on the barren and thorny subject of verbal inspiration. He would have stopped the discussion if he could, for he discovered that his grandfather was getting much the worst of the argument, and was losing his temper in consequence. But the old man refused to be silenced. Getting his chance of reply he poured out a torrent of words that swept everything before it, and to which there seemed to be no end.

Fortunately, tea was announced just as the young minister was about to reply, and over the tea-table conversation drifted into an entirely different channel. After tea the Rev. Reuben retired to his study accompanied by his wife, and Rufus and Mr. Brook were left in possession of the sitting-room.

As there was no evening service on Christmas Day the young minister felt free to relax himself. Conversation tripped lightly from point to point, from general to particular, from gay to grave, from serious to solemn.

They talked till supper time, and after supper Rufus walked with the young minister to his lodgings, and remained with him till long after midnight. The conversation was a revelation to Rufus in many ways. Marshall Brook was a scholar as well as a thinker. He was as familiar with the German writers as with the English. He was alive to all modern questions, conversant with all the work of the higher critics, alive to all that was fundamental in the creeds of the Churches, contemptuous of the narrowness and bigotry that brought religion into contempt, tolerant of all fresh light, patient and even sympathetic with every form of human doubt, and large-hearted and clear-eyed enough to see that there was good in everything.

Marshall Brook had often heard of his predecessor's sceptical grandson, and was glad of the opportunity of meeting him, and was charmed with him when they did meet. It was easy to discover where the shoe pinched, easy to see how and when the revolt began, easy to trace the successive steps from doubt to denial, from unbelief to blank negation.

Rufus talked freely and well. He knew that the young minister regarded him as an infidel, and he thought he might as well live up to the description. Marshall Brook led him on by easy and almost imperceptible steps. His first business was to diagnose the case, and if possible to find out the cause. For the first hour he allowed all Rufus's arguments to go by default.

But when they got to close grips Rufus felt helpless. This young scholar could state his case better than he could state it himself. He had traversed all the barren and thorny waste, and much more carefully than Rufus had ever done. He knew the whole case by heart; knew every argument and every objection. He tore the flimsy fabric of Rufus's philosophy to shreds and left him with scarcely a rag to cover himself with.

Rufus remained three days at Tregannon and spent the major portion of the time with Marshall Brook. Apart from the interest raised by the questions discussed, it was a delight to be brought into contact with a mind so fresh and well disciplined. They hammered out the pros and cons of materialistic philosophy with infinite zest. They wrestled with the joy of striplings at a village fair. They fought for supremacy with all their might, but in every encounter Rufus went under.

When he returned to St. Gaved he was in a condition of mental chaos. Nearly every prop on which he supported himself had been knocked away. He was certain of nothing, not even of his own existence.

It was not an uncommon experience; most thinking men have passed through it at one time or another. Destruction has often to precede construction. The old has to be demolished even to the foundations before the new building can arise.

Yet none save those who have passed through it can conceive the utter desolation and darkness of soul, during what may be called the interregnum. The old has been destroyed, the new has not yet taken shape. The ark has been sunk and the mountain peaks have not yet begun to appear above the flood. The frightened soul flits hither and thither across the waste of waters, seeking some place on which to rest its feet, and finding none; and unlike Noah's dove there is no ark to which it can return. It must remain poised on wing till the floods have assuaged and the foundations of things have been discovered.

In the last resort every man writes his own creed. No man, even mentally, can remain in a state of suspended animation for very long. A philosophy of negations is as abhorrent to the sensitive soul as a vacuum is to Nature. After destruction there is bound to be construction. Like beavers we are ever building, and when one dam has been swept away by the flood, we straightway set to work to build another.

Rufus was trying to evolve some kind of cosmos out of chaos when he met Madeline on the downs. She came upon him suddenly and unexpectedly and his heart leaped like a startled hare. How beautiful she was. How lissom and graceful and strong.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, in her bright, frank, ingenuous way. "I am glad we have met."

"Yes?" he replied, not knowing what else to say.

"I have heard something about you recently and I would like to know if it is true."

"What have you heard?" he questioned, with a puzzled look on his face.

"That you are an infidel."

"Who told you that?"

"That is a matter of no consequence since it is common gossip."

For a moment he was silent, and turned his eyes seaward as if to watch the sun go down. "Are you pressed for time?" he asked without turning his eyes.

"No, I am quite free for the next hour," she answered, with a smile, though she wondered what the Tregonys would think if they knew.

"I owe a good deal to you," he began, slowly and thoughtfully.