第67章

When the lingering dusk finally settled down upon this long summer evening, the train bearing the Soulsbys homeward was already some score of miles on its way, and the Methodists of Octavius had nearly finished their weekly prayer-meeting.

After the stirring events of the revival, it was only to be expected that this routine, home-made affair should suffer from a reaction.The attendance was larger than usual, perhaps, but the proceedings were spiritless and tame.Neither the pastor nor his wife was present at the beginning, and the class-leader upon whom control devolved made but feeble headway against the spell of inertia which the hot night-air laid upon the gathering.

Long pauses intervened between the perfunctory praise-offerings and supplications, and the hymns weariedly raised from time to time fell again in languor by the wayside.

Alice came in just as people were beginning to hope that some one would start the Doxology, and bring matters to a close.Her appearance apparently suggested this to the class-leader, for in a few moments the meeting had been dismissed, and some of the members, on their way out, were shaking hands with their minister's wife, and expressing the polite hope that he was better.

The worried look in her face, and the obvious stains of recent tears upon her cheeks imparted an added point and fervor to these inquiries, but she replied to all in tones of studied tranquillity that, although not feeling well enough to attend prayer-meeting, Brother Ware was steadily recovering strength, and confidently expected to be in complete health by Sunday.They left her, and could hardly wait to get into the vestibule to ask one another in whispers what on earth she could have been crying about.

Meanwhile Brother Ware improved his convalescent state by pacing slowly up and down under the elms on the side of the street opposite the Catholic church.There were no houses here for a block and more; the sidewalk was broken in many places, so that passers-by avoided it;the overhanging boughs shrouded it all in obscurity;it was preeminently a place to be alone in.

Theron had driven to the depot with his guests an hour before, and after a period of pleasant waiting on the platform, had said good-bye to them as the train moved away.

Then he turned to Alice, who had also accompanied them in the carriage, and was conscious of a certain annoyance at her having come.That long familiar talk of the afternoon had given him the feeling that he was entitled to bid farewell to Sister Soulsby--to both the Soulsbys--by himself.

"I am afraid folks will think it strange--neither of us attending the prayer-meeting," he said, with a suggestion of reproof in his tone, as they left the station-yard.

"If we get back in time, I'll run in for a minute,"answered Alice, with docility.

"No--no," he broke in."I'm not equal to walking so fast.

You run on ahead, and explain matters, and I will come along slowly.""The hack we came in is still there in the yard,"the wife suggested."We could drive home in that.

I don't believe it would cost more than a quarter--and if you're feeling badly--"

"But I am NOT feeling badly," Theron replied, with frank impatience."Only I feel--I feel that being alone with my thoughts would be good for me.""Oh, certainly--by all means!" Alice had said, and turned sharply on her heel.

Being alone with these thoughts, Theron strolled aimlessly about, and did not think at all.The shadows gathered, and fireflies began to disclose their tiny gleams among the shrubbery in the gardens.A lamp-lighter came along, and passed him, leaving in his wake a straggling double line of lights, glowing radiantly against the black-green of the trees.

This recalled to Theron that he had heard that the town council lit the street lamps by the almanac, and economized gas when moonshine was due.The idea struck him as droll, and he dwelt upon it in various aspects, smiling at some of its comic possibilities.Looking up in the middle of one of these whimsical conceits, the sportive impulse died suddenly within him.He realized that it was dark, and that the massive black bulk reared against the sky on the other side of the road was the Catholic church.

The other fact, that he had been there walking to and fro for some time, was borne in upon him more slowly.

He turned, and resumed the pacing up and down with a still more leisurely step, musing upon the curious way in which people's minds all unconsciously follow about where instincts and intuitions lead.

No doubt it was what Sister Soulsby had said about Catholics which had insensibly guided his purposeless stroll in this direction.What a woman that was!

Somehow the purport of her talk--striking, and even astonishing as he had found it--did not stand out so clearly in his memory as did the image of the woman herself.

She must have been extremely pretty once.For that matter she still was a most attractive-looking woman.

It had been a genuine pleasure to have her in the house--to see her intelligent responsive face at the table--to have it in one's power to make drafts at will upon the fund of sympathy and appreciation, of facile mirth and ready tenderness in those big eyes of hers.He liked that phrase she had used about herself--"a good fellow."It seemed to fit her to a "t." And Soulsby was a good fellow too.All at once it occurred to him to wonder whether they were married or not.

But really that was no affair of his, he reflected.

A citizen of the intellectual world should be above soiling his thoughts with mean curiosities of that sort, and he drove the impertinent query down again under the surface of his mind.He refused to tolerate, as well, sundry vagrant imaginings which rose to cluster about and literalize the romance of her youth which Sister Soulsby had so frankly outlined.He would think upon nothing but her as he knew her,--the kindly, quick-witted, capable and charming woman who had made such a brilliant break in the monotony of life at that dull parsonage of his.