A Lost Cause

She knew the influence that as her husband James would have. His ideals were noble and high, his life was pure and worthy. But it was not the life that Christ had made so plain and clear. The path the Church showed was not the path James would follow, or one which as his wife she could well follow.

She believed sincerely, as her brother himself would have told her, that a man like Poyntz was only uneducated in spiritual things, not lost to them for ever.

But she was also sure that he would make no spiritual discoveries in this world.

Marriage with him meant going back. It meant turning away from the Light.

The struggle with the training of years, the earthly ideals of nearly all her life, was acute. But hour by hour, she began to draw nearer and nearer to the inevitable solution.

Now and again, she went into the silent church. Then, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, she saw the path quite clear.

Afterwards, back in her room again, the voices of the material world were heard. But they became weaker and more weak as the hours went on.

On the day that Bernard was to return, she received a long and passionate letter from her lover.

He had the wonderful gift of prose. He understood, as hardly any of us understand, how to treat words (on certain occasions of using them) as if they were almost notes in some musical composition. His letter was beautiful.

She read it page by page, with a heart that had begun to beat with quickened interest, until she came to a passage which jarred and hurt. James had made an end of his most impassioned and intimate passages, and was making his keen satiric comment upon general affairs – quite as he had done in his letters before his actual avowal.

"I saw my father to-day in St. James, and we went to his club and lunched together. I respect him more and more, for his consistency, every time I meet him. And I wonder more and more at his childishness at the same time. It seems he had just left your brother. As you are in the thick of all the mumbo-jumbo, perhaps you will have heard of the business that seems to be agitating my poor dear sire into a fever. It seems that, a day or two ago, an opposition hero who has consecrated his life to the Protestant cause – none other than the notorious Hamlyn himself – purloined a consecrated wafer from some church and has been exhibiting it at public meetings to show that it is just as it ever was – a pinch of flour and no more. My father has made himself utterly miserable over the proceedings of this merry-andrew. As you know, I take but little interest in the squabbles of the creeds, but the spectacle of a sane and able man caught up in the centre of these phantasies makes me pause and makes my contempt sweeten into pity."

As Lucy read the letter, she thought of the scene on the night when Carr had brought the news. She thought of her own quick pain as she heard it, of how her brother was struck down as with a sword. And especially there came to her the vision of the two priests, King and Stephens, praying all night long before the Host.

She pushed the letter away from her, nor did she read it again. It seemed alien, out of tune with her life.

She went into the church to pray.

When she came away, her resolution was nearly taken.

Bernard came home about three in the afternoon. His manner was quiet. He was sad, but he seemed relieved also.

Lucy was walking in the garden with him, soon after his return, when Stephens and Dr. Hibbert came down from the house and walked quickly up to them.

"Vicar," the doctor said, "Miss Pritchett is dying."

Blantyre started. "Oh, I didn't know it was as bad as that," he said. "Is it imminent?"

"A matter of twenty hours I should say," the doctor replied; "I bring you a message from her."

Blantyre's face lighted up. Great tenderness came over it as he heard that the woman who had injured him and sought to harm the Church had sent him a message.

"Poor woman," he said; "what is it – God bless her!"

"She has asked for you and the other clergy to come to her. She wishes me to bring you and such other members of the congregation as will come. She wishes to make a profession of Faith."

"But when, how – " the vicar asked, bewildered.

The doctor explained. "The Hamlyns are with her; she is frightened by them, but not only that, she bitterly repents what she has done. Poor soul! Blantyre, she is very penitent, she remembers the Faith. She asks – " He drew the vicar aside. Lucy could hear no more. But she saw deep sympathy come out upon her brother's face.

The three men – Stephens had remained with the doctor – came near her again.

"My motor is outside," the doctor said hurriedly.

"How long would it take?" asked the vicar.

" – if the Bishop is in – back in an hour and a half – "

The vicar took Stephens aside and spoke earnestly with him for a few moments. The young man listened gravely and then hurried away. Before the vicar and the doctor joined Lucy again – they stood in private talk a moment – she heard the "toot" of the motor-car hum on the other side of the garden wall.

Wondering what all this might mean, she was about to cross the lawn towards the two men, when she saw Father King and Mr. Carr coming out of the house. These two joined the vicar and Dr. Hibbert. The four men stood in a ring. Blantyre seemed to be explaining something to the new-comers. Now and then the doctor broke in with a burst of rapid explanation.

Lucy began to be full of wonder. She felt ignored, she tried not to feel that. Something was afoot that she did not quite understand.

In the middle of her wonder the men came towards her.

Bernard took her arm. "Mavourneen," he said, "will you come with us to poor Miss Pritchett? She's been asking if you'll come and forgive her and part good friends. She may die to-night, the doctor says. You'll come?"

"Of course I'll come, dear."

"She has repented of her hostility to the Church, and desires to make a public statement of her faith before she dies. And she has asked for the Sacrament of Unction… Stephens has gone to the Bishop of Stepney on the doctor's motor-car. In an hour we will go to Malakoff."

The doctor took King by the arm and led him away. They talked earnestly together.

Blantyre turned to Carr.

"Will ye come with us all to the poor soul's bedside?" he asked.

"Yes," Carr answered. "I don't know what you purpose exactly – and I don't care! I trust you as a brother now, Blantyre, I am learning every day. I'm a conservative, you know, new things are distasteful to me. But I am learning that there are medicines, pro salute animæ."

"New things!" Blantyre said; "ye're an old Protestant at heart still. Did they teach ye no history at Cambridge except that the Church of England began at the Reformation? Now, listen while I tell you what the service is. You remember St. James v. 14, 15?"

Carr nodded. He began to quote from memory, for his knowledge of the Scriptures was profound, a knowledge even more accurate and full than perhaps any of the three priests of St. Elwyn's could claim, though they were scholars and students one and all.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of our Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

"Well, I suppose that is fairly explicit?" Blantyre said. "Mr. Hamlyn would tell us that Unction is a conjuring trick invented by the Jesuits. And you have always thought it Popish and superstitious. Now, haven't you, Carr, be honest!"

"Yes."

"Well, you will see the service to-day. We follow the ancient order of the Church of England. Why did you object, Carr? I'd like to get at your mental attitude. What is there unscriptural, bad, or unseemly about Unction? Here's a poor woman who has strayed from the fold. She wishes to die at peace with every one, she wishes that the inward unction of the Holy Spirit may be poured into the wounds of her soul, she wants to be forgiven for the sake of our Lord's most meritorious Cross and Passion! If it is God's will, she may be cured."

He spoke with great fervour and earnestness.

Carr bowed his head and thought. "Yes," he said, "I have been very prejudiced and hard, sometimes. It is so easy to condemn what one does not know about, so hard to have sympathy with what one has not appreciated."

Blantyre caught him by the arm and they walked the lawn for a long time in fraternal intercourse.

Lucy sat down with the doctor, but her eyes often turned to the tall, grave figure, whose lengthening shadow sometimes reached to her feet and touched them.