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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8a46a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68590 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68590) diff --git a/old/68590-0.txt b/old/68590-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d73fed2..0000000 --- a/old/68590-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3649 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Christmas Bishop, by Winifred -Kirkland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Christmas Bishop - -Author: Winifred Kirkland - -Illustrator: Louise G. Morrison - -Release Date: July 22, 2022 [eBook #68590] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP *** - - - - - - THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP - - [Illustration: - - Sometimes, against the dark faces of the housefronts, window shades - were rolled up, like eyelids opening, on home-pictures that reminded - the Bishop it was Christmas night - - _See page 140_] - - - - - The Christmas Bishop - - BY - - WINIFRED KIRKLAND - - _Author of “Introducing Corinna,” “The - Home-Comers,” etc._ - - ILLUSTRATED BY - - LOUISE G. MORRISON - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - - SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY - - PUBLISHERS - - - - - Copyright, 1913 - - By SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY - - (Incorporated) - - - THE VAIL-BALLOU CO., - BINGHAMTON, N. Y. - - - - -THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP - - - - -PART I - - -Christmas morning, blue-black, pricked with stars against the Bishop’s -window panes. Westbury lay asleep beside its curving river, the great -old houses with gardens that ran terraced to the bank, the churches, -the college, even the new teeming tenements at the bending of the -water, all lay asleep in the Christmas dawning. The Bishop alone was -awake, and against the darkness before his eyes pictures raced. He had -been a poet once, so long ago that when sometimes they sang his hymns -in church he had forgotten they were his, but he still kept the poet’s -trick of thinking in pictures during those strangely alert moments -between sleep and full awakening. The pictures fell into the march of a -poem. - -It was a storied city built upon two hills cleft by a valley. -On the twin crests towered great palaces and a temple. Where the -hills sank toward the north, there were terraced streets and narrow -climbing byways. There were markets and booths and all the signs of -multitudinous life, but throughout all the place one heard no sound, -saw nothing that moved, yet one knew that the whole city throbbed with -the pulse-beats of innumerable homes. A gray pall hung low, as if the -abrupt Oriental dawn had been arrested; the gray dimmed the marble of -the palaces, and dulled the temple gold. In the silent gloom one waited. - -One did not know whence he had come, the Child who was suddenly there, -in the streets of that city without stars, a sacred city once; but -wherever he knocked upon the portal, quickly all within woke to life, -and became a teeming, bustling household; again, when he withdrew, all -was once more silence and darkness. - -He was a tiny child, barefoot and pale, some little lost waif from the -mountains who had come seeking his kinsfolk among the homes. So fast -he pattered over the pavement that his pale hair and his white tunic -streamed upon the wind. His little yearning hands stretched out showed -fair as a baby’s in that wintry twilight. Ever and again he knocked and -entered, and always, entering, his face flamed with hope, and always, -coming forth, he was sobbing, for he found no welcome. - -On and on he went, while each black street along which he hurried was -stabbed ever and again by the opening and shutting of a ruddy door. -In the silence one heard it plain, the heavy sound of a door that -closed because it did not know him. At length he had passed the city -portals and was mounting the hill-slope that is Golgotha, a form all -pale upon the dark, blown hair and robe and pattering feet. There the -Child turned, for it seemed he was the little Prince of that city, -and all the folk his kin. Rising a-tiptoe he stretched out his hands, -cross-wise, to them in love, and suddenly the sun, withheld, leaped -kingly above the hills beyond Jordan, and the silent air was full of -wings and of voices, the chant of the Christmas angels singing home the -Homeless One, and in that flood of light and song all that city knew -the Child they had lost their own, forever. - -Slowly, before the Bishop’s eyes, that gold radiance dimmed into the -bleak gray twilight that was stealing over his room. Sharp as life -shall strike at visions came a sound from below that struck the dreamy -smile from his lips, leaving a twitching pain; certain sounds had that -power of intolerable renewal. A homely enough sound, merely the thud -of a lid dropped upon a flour bin, but it seemed now to be a flour bin -in a doll-house pantry in their first Rectory, his and Annie’s. He -would seek her there before going out to his parish calls. She would be -standing with her back to him, hands deep in dough, and would turn to -him her cheek, olive that always went rose beneath his kiss. He could -still hear the catch of her breath as she whispered good-by, for Annie, -deeply joyous, had yet always treated joy a little apprehensively, -as if knowing it would not last so very long. Looking back over many -years, the Bishop thought how young Annie had been when she died, and -Nan had been younger still. Nan! There it was again! That flash of hot -pain through his head, followed by a numbing dullness, even stranger -to bear. He had felt this several times of late. The Bishop ran a hand -over his forehead. He seemed to be floating far, without thought, yet -this was not sleep. Slowly, slowly, he drew back, but his thoughts -were heavy, not clear. He seemed to lie there waiting, waiting for -something. Surely thus he had always waited on Christmas morning. He -listened. It would come in a moment. There! A scurry along the hall, -the clatter of the door-handle, a rush, a jump, curls, lips, bubbling -chuckles, little cold toes to be warmed in his hand! Hear the shouts -and the singing of her, feel the pummelling of her little hands! - -“Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!” shrilling straight up to the angels! -Was she not Christmas joy turned mad, his little girl! - -He was full awake now. His lips formed a word. We are very weary of old -pain repeated when we whisper out to God like that. - -The Bishop wondered why people say that one grows used to loss, and -that old age grows dull in feeling. Still he had got used to it, of -course. This was Christmas, too; it was quite natural that he should -feel it more on Christmas. He must be a little patient then with -himself about it, perhaps, on Christmas. Yet when had there been a day -when he had not missed them, his own! - -The Bishop turned toward the eastward window, and on his gray and -beautiful face fell the gray and beautiful morning, for the Bishop was -one who had made God a habit, so that he turned to Him instinctively -without thinking about it at all. And since also he was a man of quick -visual imagination he thought of God quite simply: he saw Him standing -there, between the bed and the brightening window, in the form of a -young Jewish rabbi. He always stood there, to greet the Bishop’s day. -Together they always went about, step matching step, so that the Bishop -was never a lonely man. To himself he always thought of the Nazarene as -the Friend, because, so he thought, it was by loneliness that Jesus had -learned how to love. Since the Bishop always thought in words and in -pictures, it seemed to him that the Friend said to him now, “Rise. Let -us go forth into the morning. It is Christmas. It is the day of giving.” - -While he dressed, the Bishop still knew God standing there, but felt -rather than seen, being lost sometimes in mist and dizziness. The -spaces in the room were strange; it was a very long journey to the -washstand, and the white window squares seemed to advance and then -recede. The Bishop could see his brush plainly enough on the bureau -scarf, but it was a long time before he could make his hand reach it. -He had to smile quaintly at himself at last, for he was sitting on -the bed mechanically counting the flower baskets in the worn Brussels -carpet, flower baskets that ran diagonally to the chair holding his -coat. Groping a little, the Bishop achieved the coat, then stood -trembling. Undoubtedly he was ill that morning, but Mrs. Graham should -not know it! For he must go out, he must go to church, there was no -service in all the year so dear to him as the Christmas communion at -St. John’s. He would force his blurring head to go through with it, -and Mrs. Graham should not keep him in! Keep him in! A frown twitched -on his forehead, an old man’s helplessness at the thought of coddling. -Why should a woman he had known but three years be so solicitous over -his health, dictating about his rubbers and his socks--he was not ill, -nor was he so very old! At that his brow cleared in a sunny flash of -amusement, for of course, he was very old, eighty-one, and besides -Mrs. Graham was very good to him. Still to-day she must not keep him -at home, for to stand once more within the rail offering the chalice -to his people had become a deep and blind desire, overmastering all -sense of weakness. Besides, there were other matters and grave ones to -be seen to, to-day. Somehow--he looked toward the eastward window--the -strength would come for the day, as it always came. - -Slowly, while he stood looking out into the morning grown rosy now with -the coming sun, his head cleared more and more, as he thought about his -Westbury as it brightened beneath the Christmas sunrise. Few towns, the -Bishop thought, had changed so little in sixty years. He looked out on -the same Westbury he had first seen when he had come to St. John’s -college as a boy. Stately old River Street with its twin rows of elms -still curved to the curve of the river. Each quiet old house had in the -rear a terraced wintry garden sloping to the wide and sparkling water. -The Bishop knew each of these houses, even as far as Lucy Hollister’s, -which was beyond his sight. Lucy still kept the house of her girlhood -where the Bishop had first known her, known Lucy and her cousin, Annie. -Far beyond Lucy’s house, River Street changed to towering tenements and -grimed factories, the place of the strangers, where the Bishop often -walked, but wistful and puzzled, for it was this part of Westbury alone -that had changed since his boyhood, although even then it had been the -place of work-people, for whom St. John’s Southside Mission had been -founded. The Bishop stood thinking of the mission. - -Well in sight, breaking the row of houses set among their wintry trees, -sprang the spire of St. John’s, and beyond its Rectory lay the brown, -cube-like buildings of the college above the sweeping river, a small -college of mighty men. It was there that the Bishop and his roommate, -Barty Judd, had learned to dream dreams. It was the glory of Westbury, -the kindly old city, remote, unworldly, that it had set so many young -men dreaming. The Bishop smiled to think how proudly Westbury still -pointed to its seven bishops, for the spirit of Westbury had not -changed in all the sixty years since the founding of the mission. -Westbury had given the Bishop, he thought, the most beautiful thing in -his life; it was this that brought the light to his face as he thought -of the gift he wished to give Westbury in return, to-day, if--if he -could! At that “if” his eyes deepened with a sharp and subtle change, -then cleared as the passing thought of the day before him yielded -to memories, and he saw the afternoon of the laying of the mission -corner-stone. As they had walked home together, the Bishop, after long -silence, had broken into boyish fire of words, seeing all his life -before him. Lucy had listened and answered, but Annie had been silent. - -Dreamer as the boy had been, he had never dreamed of coming back one -day, long afterwards, and living to be an old, old man in the bishop’s -house in Westbury. - -The sun was climbing to a golden blaze now, filling with hope the -day before the Bishop. He was always a good deal of a child in his -Christmas feeling. There was work before him on this Christmas day, in -his own house and out of it. Quite simply he closed his eyes a moment, -with bowed head, thinking of the Westbury he loved and of three within -it, whom he should see that day. - -The Bishop’s tall figure swayed a little as he grasped the stair -rail, and for an instant his gaze was vague upon the dusky hall, upon -the gloomy wall-paper, the threadbare carpet. It was a gray and worn -old house in which the Bishop’s soul was harbored. A succession of -housekeepers, under the oversight of Mrs. Hollister, kept it in order, -but it needs the authority of kinship to change a wall-paper or a -carpet. Thus it was that the Bishop’s long hallway was hardly more his -own than the pavement outside, or his own dining-room door before which -he paused, hardly more his own than the doors along his familiar River -Street. His hand lingered on the knob, for, thinking of Mrs. Graham -within, and of the testing now of his three years’ hope, he had grown -apprehensive and wistful. Then his face flashed firm in a smile, as he -looked toward Someone beside him there in the dim hall. That little way -of looking toward the Friend with a quick upward smile was one of the -Bishop’s habits engendered by solitude. He never meant to betray his -thought publicly, yet sometimes wayfarers in the train, on the street, -were startled at the sudden passing of strange light across the gray -face, making it, as now in the opening doorway, the face of a little -child. The Bishop bent toward the black-clad little woman before him -the bow that belonged to the days of his youth. Age had stooped his -shoulders, but never stiffened their grace, nor that of the sweep of -his extended hand. His face--lean, clear-chiselled, blue-eyed, and -heavily thatched with white--was ashine with Christmas greeting. - -“I wish you a beautiful Christmas!” he said. - -Mrs. Graham’s glance met the Bishop’s furtively. She had restless brown -eyes beneath a tranquil parting of brown hair, curling and lightly -silvered. Her mouth looked as if locked upon discontent. She was a -stout, rosy little woman who moved in a heavy, bustling manner. She put -her hand into the Bishop’s awkwardly, never having become accustomed to -one who shook hands as a morning greeting. - -“Merry Christmas,” she murmured perfunctorily, as, in the holiday -absence of a maid, she turned toward the business of the Bishop’s -breakfast. The raised slide of the dumb-waiter made a gap in the -solid paneling of dark cupboards occupying one wall. Like other -dining-rooms on River Street, the room had two long windows looking -toward the water. There was a wide piazza beyond them, hung with the -gnarly ropes of leafless Virginia creeper. It was a dark-wainscoted -room, but now the level eastern sun flooded it, and there was a great -crimson spot of roses at the Bishop’s plate. The table was set for -one, he noticed; when Maria was away, Mrs. Graham insisted on serving -him with her own hands, instead of settling comfortably into her usual -seat. In the silent room, only the sound of the dumb waiter that -creaked and rattled, but the Bishop was waiting to speak, after the -long patience of three years. When his breakfast had been set forth to -her satisfaction, Mrs. Graham sank upon the edge of a chair near the -window, keeping an alert eye on the Bishop’s needs, but having also an -air of absence. - -“Well,” she burst out at last, “so it’s Christmas again!” - -“Yes,” the Bishop smiled, “‘again.’ It comes around pretty often, -doesn’t it? This is your third Christmas in Westbury.” - -“I wonder how many more I’ll have, in Westbury.” - -“Is it such a bad place to spend Christmas in then, Westbury?” - -“Bad for me, yes! After Fair Orchard!” - -“But I had hoped you had begun to feel at home in Westbury.” - -“Me! At home! In Westbury! No, I’ve no place here and never can have. -I see that plain enough,--just a housekeeper, anyway! I’ve no place -in the place, I mean, like at home! Oh, there’s no harm in Westbury! -It’s not as bad as some towns. There’s show here, but it’s not showy; -there’s money, but there’s manners, too! Only there’s no _heart_ in the -place! How could there be, with Dr. Newbold running the church and Mrs. -Hollister running society?” - -“They both have hearts, I am sure, Mrs. Graham.” - -“Maybe. Not for plain people, or poor people, though. Maybe for you. -Although Dr. Newbold--” she broke off sharply, teeth on lip, while her -eyes, too full and bright with meaning, changed before the Bishop’s -gaze, and she altered her unspoken sentence, concluding, “Dr. Newbold -suits the place all right. He don’t suit me, that’s all. It’s kind of -spoiled church for me, going to St. John’s, and church in Fair Orchard -was such a lot to me. It’s queer when you always hear about Westbury -being such a strong church place that it should have spoiled church -for me. It’s all right when you preach, of course, Bishop, but it’s -something else I’m talking about. It was different at home--oh,” her -rosy face darkened savagely, “sometimes it seems as if my church was -just another of the things she’s taken from me along with my home and -my boy!” - -The Bishop closed his eyes an instant, seeking counsel. - -“It’s Christmas that upsets me so! Christmas that brings it all back on -me so. And then to-day she sent, Florence herself, she sent the baby’s -picture on a post-card. It’s signed ‘From Florence.’ You’d think after -all that’s happened, she’d have let Dan send it, the first word I’ve -had from either of them for three years!” - -She rose and filled the coffee cup abruptly. “Well,” she jerked the -words out, “Christmas and other days, I’ve got to grin and bear it, -being turned out by my son’s wife. But it’s been worse since there was -a baby.” - -“It’s the baby’s first Christmas,” mused the Bishop. - -“Yes, he’s seven months and sixteen days old.” - -The Bishop smiled up at her, “May I see him? Where is the picture?” - -She laid it before him. The Bishop adjusted his glasses, then removed -them to look from the picture to a keen scrutiny of the grandmother’s -face. - -“Yes,” she answered his look. “You see it then? The baby looks like us, -like Dan and me. And I can see Dan’s father in him, too. There’s not a -hair of him that looks like the Reynoldses,--that lot!” - -The Bishop was examining the photograph minutely. Mrs. Graham looked -over his shoulder, but at his next word she moved away again. “That’s -his mother’s hand holding him, isn’t it, that shadow under his arm?” - -“Yes! His mother’s hand! He looks like us, but he don’t belong to us! -He’s hers!” - -The Bishop glanced up, “And I suppose he’s also the other -grandmother’s.” - -“No! Florence has no mother. I’m all the grandmother that baby’s got!” - -“I think you never told me that before,” he paused thoughtfully, then -looking over to her standing by the window, he said, feeling slowly for -words, “So the baby’s mother, that girl out at Fair-Orchard, has had no -mother--to go with her--on that way--a woman goes, to bring home, a -little child?” - -The Bishop’s voice was soft with the awe of many years ago. The -grandmother flushed, muttering, “She would not have wanted _me_. She -had Dan.” - -The Bishop’s eyelids had fallen, quivering, over his eyes. He was far -away; again he watched with Annie, with Nan, as he said, “But men -cannot understand. God does not mean them to. Such things are a secret -between God and women, like the coming of Mary’s little child. Each -mother needs a mother then. It was not--it was not till then that I -understood how much my Nan had lost when she lost her mother.” - -“It did not live, did it, at all, your daughter’s child?” whispered -Mrs. Graham. - -The Bishop shook his head, not speaking, thinking of the little waxen -loveliness they had laid to sleep with Nan in the hollow of her -arm. His lips showed their rare palsied trembling, murmuring, “Both -together, Nan and the little one. She had been so well! I was not -prepared--” the eyelids of his quiet gray face trembled, then opened -on the blue eyes, as he said, “Of course, we know they do not die. -They are alive, somewhere where the dreams come true that we dream -for our children.” He smiled into her eyes, “For we are great old -dreamers, aren’t we, we grandparents?” He raised his hand from the -chair-arm, as if it would have pleaded, “But I think each mother needs -the grandmother to help her dream. I think she is wanting you now, that -Florence out there.” - -She faced sharp about, “Florence! Want me!” She looked at him in grim -pity at his simplicity. “No, Bishop, Florence don’t want me! No more -than I want her! We’re misfits, Florence and me,--worse luck for Dan, -and for me, and for the baby, too, now!” - -The blue eyes a-twinkle, “And worse luck for Florence, too,” he -persisted. “She sent you the picture. Wasn’t it perhaps to say that she -wants to show you the baby himself?” - -“It’s like you to think that, Bishop, but it’s not like Florence to -mean that. I understand Florence! I can still see her face plain, that -last morning!” - -“You have not seen her face since there was a baby. Perhaps she -understands you, too, now. Perhaps she understands, now, what it costs, -to give up an only child to anyone.” - -“That’s it, of course, that’s what finished me up, her getting Dan, the -way she has. I guess I seem pretty mean to you, but Dan was all I had.” - -“I think I understand,” the Bishop said quietly. - -Arrested by his tone she turned, “Was he good, your daughter’s husband? -Did you get on with him?” - -“No one is good enough for an only child. Yes, he was good. He--he has -been remarried for a long time, you know.” He spoke with long pauses, -remembering, “Yes, I got on with him. I should have lost my daughter if -I hadn’t. We had one happy year, together. Getting on is hard. But not -getting on is harder.” - -She did not speak, turned from him again toward the window, intent, -musing. - -“Isn’t it,” he pleaded, “harder?” - -“You didn’t have to,” she spoke chokily, “get on with Florence! Maybe -you could, though, you, Bishop. But I couldn’t! You couldn’t maybe -understand how I can’t forgive her for all that she’s taken from me,--a -man couldn’t maybe understand, even you. It’s the mother working in -me. They used to laugh at me over home, and say I mothered all the -village. Yet now I can’t get at Dan, nor at the baby. I haven’t anyone -to mother, and it seems as if it makes me sort of,” she struck away a -tear with an awkward gesture, “sort of smothery!” - -His eyes bent on her in sharp intentness, “There is someone for you to -mother!” he said. - -“Who?” - -“Florence!” - -“Florence!” her voice hissed. - -“Yes!” - -Her trembling lips turned hard, “I guess I’d have to forgive her first!” - -“Couldn’t you?” he questioned, while the blue eyes grew softly a-shine. -“Couldn’t you, to-day? Couldn’t you, for instance, go out to them to -spend Christmas, to-day?” His plan, long suppressed, came hurrying -forth. “It’s so near, and so easy! Only thirty miles to that baby! -The train leaves at ten, you have time. There’s another train back at -seven-two. And you needn’t mind about me. I shall be out all day, first -a visit I must make, then the service, and afterward I dine with Mrs. -Hollister. You are quite free, you see, to go!” - -“I’m free enough, yes,” she admitted, “but I haven’t the will to go, -that’s all.” - -“To the baby?” - -“To Florence! It would mean making up with Florence!” - -Lips and eyes showed a quick pleading smile as he said, “Isn’t that -perhaps what Christmas and babies are for, for making up?” - -She was silent, her breast in its tightly hooked black rose and -fell. “But people!” she broke forth at length. “Everybody knowing! -The village knows I was turned out, and that there’s not been a word -between us for three years. I can’t go crawling back now, just because -there’s a baby come,--everybody looking on, everybody knowing!” - -“It isn’t everybody’s baby. It’s yours, and hers,” then gravely, “I -was not thinking of other people. I was just thinking how much she -needs her mother, that girl!” - -“Florence!” she said, and there were many thoughts in her tone, slow, -incredulous. - -The Bishop’s eyes grew remote and bright, seeing Florence. He spoke -a little dreamily, “She needs you now, and she knows she needs you! -She may have been hard once, being young and without a mother. She -may have been cruel. It is different now. She does not feel so secure -now. They are so afraid for their babies, don’t you remember, always, -these little new mothers. There are so many dangers lying in wait for -the little men before they’ve got their armor on. There must be advice -to give, and care to give--oh, Florence knows how much he needs his -grandmother! Go and see. Can’t you? Couldn’t you? I--I’m in such a -hurry to have you go!” - -“If I could only hold him once, Dan’s baby!” - -“Florence’s baby, too,” he corrected gently. - -The brief light swept from her face. Her plump comfortable hands were -knotted, and her round face drawn into dignity by pain. Her words were -grave and final, “The way to that baby is only through Florence, so I -can never go. I can never have him.” - -Involuntarily the Bishop’s hand went to his temple in a gesture of -pain, then instantly was forced down. He hesitated, then at length, -“‘Never’ is such a long word,” he said. “Sometimes God says it for us, -but don’t--don’t let us ever say it for ourselves! You know,” a passing -tremor ran along his lips, “He didn’t let me have the grandchild -I hoped for, but don’t--don’t lose having yours. It seems as if I -couldn’t let you go on losing,--that. I am in such a hurry somehow -to-day. Can’t you go out there to-day, now? Take the baby the Christmas -present his mother most wants for him, take him his grandmother!” - -She turned on him, intense, “Bishop, do you know what it’s like to make -up with a person who’s done you wrong? Do you know what it feels like -to forgive? A person who’d hurt you? Where you care most?” - -A moment he groped in past experience for the answer, then in a rush of -realization it came upon him. He rose a little unsteadily, that he, -too, might stand to face her, as she stood by the curtained recess of -the window, where the searchlight of the Christmas sun fell relentless -on the drawn intensity of her plump face. The Bishop’s lean, corded -hands rested on the two ebony knobs of the chair back. He did not -notice, nor did she, that he swayed slightly with a passing dizziness. - -“Yes,” he answered slowly, thinking of one he soon must see to-day, “I -know how it feels. Yes, I have had to learn, how to forgive--where I -cared most!” - -“How did you make yourself do it? How?” - -He would have evaded if he could. “I only know the old way,” he said -humbly, for the Bishop was shy in speaking of some things, as one is -shy in speaking about any friend in his presence. - -“Tell me how!” - -“I only know one way,” he repeated simply. “We all get at the truth -from different angles, so there may be many ways to learn to forgive, -but I can only tell you about the way that I have tried.” The Bishop -was so old that often, as now, his eyes showed the reflection of the -harbor-lights in view. As always in his sermons, he had now lost, in -his very consciousness of their needs, the presence of his audience in -the overwhelming Presence of which he forced himself to speak, “The -way I have found is to try always to see through His eyes. I think He -is always very near us, trying always to lift us to the level of His -eyes, so that we can look forth from that point of view. I think He is -always trying and trying to say things to us to excuse--the people who -have hurt us. If only we could clear our ears to hear Him! If only we -could stand at the level of His outlook into souls! Then we should see -so much that’s pitiable and excusable, so many handicaps and mistakes, -so much to make us sorry for them that we couldn’t help forgiving. He -always saw enough in every soul to make Him patient, and if we don’t -see enough to make us patient, too, we have to trust His vision and -insight, and forgive because He does. - -“Yet it is hardest,” the Bishop’s face showed a passing shadow, as he -looked inward upon past struggles and forward to that next interview -of his Christmas Day, “to forgive those who hurt _Him_, His work. Yet -he forgave even that, upon His cross. When we remember that, I do -not know how I--how we--_dare_ not to forgive.” He paused, while his -fingers on the black knobs tightened, then the shadow of his face was -struck away by the quick sunshine of reassurance. He looked toward -Mrs. Graham, “You see,” he said, “it seems to me that if God in all -His eternity has no time to be stern, then perhaps we--who have such -a little while! have no time for anything but loving. Don’t you,” he -pleaded, “don’t you think so, too?” - -The ruddiness had paled from her cheeks. She was looking at him with -wide, intense eyes. - -“That’s your way, Bishop. But it’s what I couldn’t--ever climb up -to,--I guess.” She had to fight to speak, against her choking breath, -“I’m one of those you’ll have to forgive, I’m afraid, for not doing -what you want. I wish I could, on your account. But it don’t seem as if -I could make up with Florence. But I can’t bear that you should look -like that, Bishop,--disappointed! Don’t, please don’t, mind! It’s just -that I’m a mother who’s lost her boy, and wants him back and can’t get -him, him and his baby!” - -“And yet,” he answered, “they are all there, all ready for you, -waiting, wanting you, all there! It is, it is, too bad!” - -“Florence!” she whispered. - -“Needing and wanting you most of all. Seeing, by the way her little one -needs her, how much she needs a mother. Perhaps mothering is your way -of forgiving. Couldn’t you try it? Florence has never had a chance, has -she, to learn many things, if she has been a motherless girl? Perhaps -she did hate you once. I don’t believe she hates anyone now. It’s very -hard to hate when there’s a baby in the house. She sent the picture. -She needs you. She knows she needs you, for she knows now what a child -can miss who has no mother. Let us think of all she has missed, and not -be too hard on her, you and I, any more.” - -She was silent, one hand tense upon the curtain cord. - -“It’s such a good day to go,” he urged, “such a good day to do the -unexpected, Christmas! Everyone expects the unexpected, on Christmas.” - -A comical smile worked on her set face, “You do, anyway, Bishop!” she -said with a catch in the throat. - -“I think I did allow myself to expect this,” he answered, “this -making-up. Perhaps I expected it because I wanted it so, for I’ve been -in such a hurry somehow, about that baby. Why, he’ll be growing up, -while we’re still talking. You have three-quarters of an hour,” he -glanced at the clock in quick remembrance of the visit to Dr. Newbold -before church-time, “and you’ll go?” - -He waited. - -She was silent still, until she burst out, “I can’t! I’d say ‘yes’ if -I could, when you beg me so. But I can’t say it, and I’ve got to be -honest with you. I can’t say it!” - -Her face, working with sobs she forced down, was too painful to look -at, yet it gave no hope. - -“I am very sorry,” he said quietly and turning went into the great -study adjoining, which faced, like the dining-room, on the veranda and -river. Suddenly very tired, he sank into his desk chair, pressing the -tips of his fingers to his temples, which had such a painful way of -throbbing every little while this morning. - -“I did want it very much,” he acknowledged to himself, “very much.” He -sat thinking, for some moments, then remembering, rose and went into -the hall to put on his overcoat, whispering, “But it happened to Him -like this always--always!” - -About to go out into the street, he turned back. The dining-room door -was shut. He opened it. Mrs. Graham was still standing in the window -recess, her forehead pressed to the cooling pane. There was no one -to see her face. Common-place, coarse, ugly with tears, lights were -trembling across it. “If she needs me,” she was whispering, “if she -needs me,--” for a holy thing was being born. - -In the doorway, wearing his old cape overcoat, his face like a wistful -child’s beneath his silver hair, the Bishop waited. - -“You will go?” - -She did not hear, nor know. She did not move until she started at a -sound, the heavy closing of the outer door. - - - - -PART II - - -The river was a splendor of Christmas sunshine. A flurry of snow had -lightly powdered the brown sod beneath the double rows of elms. Few -people were abroad. Sometimes a little group of children, eyes and feet -a-dance, and cheeks nipped red, went tripping past the Bishop. Older -folk passed with hearty, careless greeting, for the stooping figure -in the cape overcoat was as familiar and unnoted as the river itself -with all its mystery of light. The Bishop had known Westbury so long -and so well that he felt that the homes by which he was passing, all -bright with holly, were his homes, that he might have stopped anywhere -to share the Christmasing. His slowly pacing feet, however, were bent -on the old way toward St. John’s Rectory. In the old days the Bishop -had always called at the Rectory to greet Barty Judd and his household -before church-time, and he still kept to the habit, even though it was -so different now at the Rectory. - -A flock of sparrows came swooping down through the wintry silence -with much chatter, and at the same time there came scudding across -the street a little Italian newsboy as shrill and brown as the birds. -The Bishop bought a paper, and made the youngster’s smile flash as he -paused for a few words in his own tongue. Presently, as he went on, the -newspaper dropped from the Bishop’s fingers, as he fell to thinking of -that alien colony down below there, where the river curved, Westbury’s -strangers. They had come so recently, the factories had sprung up so -quickly, that the workers were still the strangers. It is true that the -Bishop was well known to those teeming streets as the old man who spoke -Italian and who loved babies, but he felt that he had done nothing for -these others, really. Eighty years! How barren of accomplishment they -looked beneath the searchlight of Christmas! But perhaps there was -still time! His step quickened. - -As the Bishop passed beneath the shadow of St. John’s church, the -chimes clanged forth the ten o’clock hour. He glanced toward the door, -thinking how calm and gentle and familiar everything was within. After -all, his headache had melted away and nothing was to prevent his -presence by the altar on this morning. The quiet of the chancel was -restful to his fancy, lying beyond the visit immediately before him. - -As he turned up the Rectory steps, tugging slightly on the handrail, -the door was flung open, and a tall boy came hurrying out. His thin, -fine face was set and black, but a smile played across its frown when -he saw the Bishop. - -“Good morning, Harry,” said the visitor, “and good Christmas.” - -“There’ll be no good Christmas here,” answered the low taut voice, -“unless you’ve brought it, Bishop!” - -“No trouble here to-day, I hope?” - -“Trouble every day, now!” Then remembering dignity, Harry shut his -lips, adding more calmly, “Father is not well this morning, Bishop. I -am just going out to tell Mr. Edgerton that he does not feel able to be -at church.” - -“I am very sorry.” - -“I’m sorry, too,--sorry for mother and Lois! I am glad you’ve come. It -will do them good to see you.” - -“And may I see your father, too?” - -“I think so, if you wish it. I shouldn’t wish it!” Harry murmured -darkly, as he turned about to unlock the door he had slammed, calling -in a low note of warning to his mother, and then leaving the Bishop -with her in the drawing-room. The shades had been pulled down, the -holly wreaths looked dull. A little mouse of a girl came out of a -shadowy corner, and the mother’s arm went about the child’s shoulders -as the two greeted the Bishop. They both had thin dark faces and -intense brown eyes. The girl’s hair was dusky and the mother’s silver, -above a forehead worn but unwrinkled. The girl’s dress was white and -the mother’s clinging gray, and both wore sprays of blood-red holly. - -“Christmas joy to you both,” smiled the Bishop. - -“And happy Christmas to you, too, Bishop,” said the mother, while Lois -took his hat and cane. He tugged helplessly at his overcoat so that -they each sprang to pull at a sleeve. - -“Thank you. There! Don’t let yourself be eighty, Lois. It’s a sad thing -to be older than your overcoat.” Then, seating himself, he continued, -“Harry tells me his father is not well to-day. I am very sorry. I have -been worried lately about him.” - -“We have all been worried. It is hard to understand. I suppose,” Mrs. -Newbold smiled wanly, “it is just another case of ministerial nerves, -but he suffers very much at times. I wish I could shield him from all -worry, but I cannot always anticipate what is going to disturb him. We -try, the children and I, but I fear we are very stupid. This morning, -for instance--” she broke off, “this morning he felt quite unequal to -the Christmas service, yet he is worried at not being there.” - -“Edgerton and I will manage the service. Dr. Newbold may be quite at -ease about that. I hope--” - -A summoning bell from above rang sharply. - -Mrs. Newbold started, “Oh, Katie is at church,” she exclaimed. “Run, -Lois! No, I’ll go myself!” With fingers upon the portière, however, she -paused. - -The Bishop rose, an odd little flicker in his eyes. “Suppose I go,” he -said, moving toward the hall. - -The wife looked at him, fighting for a tremulous smile. “There is -nothing the matter really, of course. I shouldn’t let you go up. I know -I ought to go. But--” she drew quick breath, concluding, “he’s in the -study, Bishop.” - -Once again as earlier in the day, the Bishop paused before a closed -door. An instant he stood there, hesitant, with bowed head, deeply -thoughtful, then he knocked with firm hand. - -“Come in, of course,” a voice thundered. “Why else should I ring except -for you to come in!” - -The Bishop was standing quietly in the doorway. At sight of him, the -bulky form flung upon the couch sprang up. - -“I--I--beg your pardon. I thought it was the maid, or my wife.” - -“It is merely your bishop.” - -The Bishop’s quiet length sank into a deep chair. His long slim hands -rested calmly upon the leather arms. - -Dr. Newbold sat bolt upright upon the couch, darting furtive glances at -the Bishop from eyes too blue for his reddened face. His right hand, -strong and square, clutched a cushion tensely. The nervous twitching of -his lips redeemed from heaviness a face clean-shaven but always bearing -the blue-black shadow of a heavy growth of beard. There was a pleasant -sweep of brow beneath jet hair. - -“I am sorry you find me so upset this morning, Bishop. They perhaps -told you downstairs--” then he paused, remembering what they might well -have told the Bishop downstairs! - -“Harry told me you were ill. I met him going out.” - -“I judged that he had gone out. Harry’s sole comment on his father’s -headaches is slamming the front door!” - -“The youngsters know so little about headaches,” answered the Bishop; -“that is the trouble, then, this morning, headache?” - -“The headache is constant, back here, incessant. But this morning the -trouble is,--a case of everything, as the doctor says.” - -“What does the doctor say? We must find some way of setting straight -this case of everything.” - -“What they all say--nerves, rest, less work, less worry, fewer diocesan -committees, fewer dinner parties--in Westbury where dining is a cult, -and as venerable and as sacred as the church steeple! I might as well -toss over one as the other! Suppose I did turn heretic, and refuse -Mrs. Hollister’s invitation for Thursday! Could I preach beneath her -withering glances next Sunday? - -“Or suppose I gave up my bridge with my Senior Warden. The Church needs -more card-playing clergy, he says quite frankly. And I’m inclined to -think, Bishop, that it does. A little more humoring of men of our good -warden’s type, and perhaps Dr. Judd’s experiences would be less often -repeated. Doctors and dinners be what they will--” mockery and worry -both played about the heavy flexible lips, “I have the unfortunate -close of that rectorate ever before me.” - -“You forget!” said the Bishop’s voice, low and keen. There was a tiny -fleck of red upon his cheek bones. Dr. Judd’s forced resignation had -been a matter of disagreement between the congregation of St. John’s -and the Bishop. There was perhaps no connection between the action -of the vestry and the fact that Dr. Newbold, immediately called to -the parish, had been for years a friend of the Senior Warden, and a -prominent co-worker with him in diocesan affairs; the wires of diocesan -politics sometimes presented a strange network for feet like the -Bishop’s. - -The Bishop was silent a moment, for the Rector’s hand, lying square -upon the cushion, had recalled to him the days when he had sometimes -involuntarily closed his eyes against the sight of his young -secretary’s finger nails. It was an exquisitely kept hand nowadays, yet -one that looked unhealthily inactive rather than sleek. - -“Well,” mused the Bishop, at last, “if one can’t cut out any of these -social obligations, how about the committees?” - -Pity for the quick start and the flush of hurt pride, made him add -instantly, “Not that the committees can spare _you_. The church needs -you, and we should only be sparing you for a little while to save you -for bigger service afterwards.” - -“I should regret,” replied Dr. Newbold firmly, while glancing down in -some embarrassment, “withdrawing from any service to the diocese,--just -now.” - -“Why just now?” - -The Rector lifted his lids for a quick glance, then dropped his eyes -again to his uneasy foot, “The affairs of the diocese, as well as those -of the church at large, are passing through a critical period.” - -“Sufficient to justify the loss of your health?” - -“I feel that the diocese needs me, Bishop.” - -“It needs us all.” - -“Particularly now,” repeated the Rector. - -A curious subtlety crossed the cameo clearness of the Bishop’s face, -“But do you not feel that perhaps the need for your activity might be -even greater later on?” - -“You mean--,” Newbold faltered, for simple folk like the Bishop were -hard to fathom sometimes, even after twenty years of study. - -The Bishop’s smile showed, disarming, “I mean simply, lad--if I may -call you that sometimes, on Christmas, say,--that the diocese can’t -afford to have you break down. It needs, and will need you, too much -for that. Therefore,--let the diocese take care of itself a little -while.” - -“It’s been doing that too long,” the other broke forth, with the -brutality of overwrought nerves. - -A shadow passed over the Bishop’s clear, gray face. Quick words caught -with odd puckering upon his lips. He leaned his silver head against the -high, dark chairback, long silent. - -“Is it really so bad as that, Newbold?” he asked at last. “What is it -that is wrong?” - -“Our finances, for one thing. The treasurer’s last report--” - -“There must be finances, I suppose.” - -The other smiled his cynical, twitching smile, “If there’s to be a -church at all there must be finances.” He spoke with the irritation -belonging to many a former discussion. - -The Bishop’s inscrutable gaze rested long upon the Rector. “You are -thinking, and rightly, that I am saved much because I have good -laborers in the field to count the sheaves and the shekels? Believe me, -Newbold, I know the value of your work to the diocese and I am sorry -for the weariness of it.” - -The other’s face cleared in still uneasy relief. “I do not feel that -I can withdraw from any office in the diocese, in the church, however -small my service.” - -“It is not small. You are the most prominent man in the diocese. The -most active. The most influential.” - -The other flushed with pleasure, yet regarded his guest enigmatically. -“Those are cheering words, Bishop, for a day like this, of -discouragement and--of pain.” His hand went to the throbbing disc at -the back of his neck, as he added abruptly, “If what you say is true, -Bishop, I am perhaps paying the price.” - -“I am afraid,” answered the Bishop gently, “that you are.” - -“One doesn’t expect the strings to snap at forty-five!” Newbold said -querulously. “I could have swung a sledge once! I could still! Yet--it -makes me wonder--I have wondered lately--what is the secret of your -vitality, Bishop.” - -The flicker of a smile on the Bishop’s lips, “Yet I had thought, -Newbold, that you did not think so highly of my vitality--that you -thought it an ebbing flood, a year or two ago.” - -The other flushed to the brow. - -“It was for your own sake, Bishop, to save you the wear and tear of -constant travel, constant work, that I urged upon the convention the -election of a coadjutor.” - -“I wish you had done it not merely for my sake, but for the sake of the -diocese and of the church.” - -“It was for that, too,” Newbold murmured. - -“It was at any rate not for my own sake that I refused to have an -assistant,” the Bishop went on. “If I could have trusted the choice of -my clergy! It is easy and natural, to choose the most popular, the most -prominent. A bishop’s diocese is dearer than perhaps any one of his -clergy can understand. It is my little piece of God’s world, it is my -Westbury in large. - -“And my ways are the old ways. My assistant’s might have been the new.” -He paused a moment chin on hand, then looked up quickly, “What are the -new ways?” he asked. “For I suppose my successor will introduce them.” - -Newbold warmed instantly, moistening his twitching lips, “The ways -first of all of economical administration. The church must show itself -a good business if we want business men to respect it.” - -“Do we?” - -“Do we _not_?” Nervous lightnings leaped to Newbold’s eyes. “These are -not days of sentimental idealism, of faiths that float in air. To-day a -man wants to see his money’s worth in the church as well as out of it. -The church,” he brought a tense fist down upon the cushion, “has become -a business proposition!” - -The Bishop’s face was intent on Newbold, yet inward and remote. Then -the blue eyes smiled, “Oh, but not in Westbury!” he pleaded. “We are -not money-mad in Westbury!” - -“Because you have so much money! Have always had! Yet the purse-strings -are the heart-strings in Westbury as elsewhere. Instance my vestry and -the Southside Mission. Closed, three weeks ago. Westbury is wealthy but -not wasteful. The mission was unsuccessful, therefore to be eliminated -from the items of our expenditure. The need of St. John’s, economical -organization, is merely an example of the needs of the diocese, and of -the church at large.” - -“I think I was not, was I, officially told of the action of the church, -in closing the mission?” - -The Rector stirred uneasily, then looked up with boyish directness, “I -was remiss, Bishop, and I acknowledge it. But I knew the matter would -need full explanation for you, and to be frank, I’ve postponed a good -many things of late, simply because I felt paralysed before them. I’m -all out of sorts, not myself at all. I can’t tell what’s the matter -with me.” - -The Bishop, noting the sudden hysterical flabbiness of the whole face, -recalled the man to firm thought. - -“The mission is permanently closed, then? That seems to me sad news for -Christmas morning.” - -“Believe me, Bishop, I understand your feeling about it. I, too, regret -the closing of the mission. I’ve positively enjoyed my work down there.” - -“I should think that you might have found the mission work almost -restful after the other sort.” - -“It was restful. Strangely! They speak out down there, act out, too. -The Southside caused me no night-long guessing, like my neighbors here. -Yet I had no time for the mission, and lately no money either, for the -work has become unpopular, quite naturally.” - -“Naturally?” - -“I mean the factories and the foreigners have obscured the native -population for whom the mission was organized. Social conditions were -different a few years ago. It was perfectly possible then for prominent -members of St. John’s to work at the mission and yet preserve all the -decencies of class distinction. The church would hardly expect a man -of my Senior Warden’s type to organize clubs and classes for his own -factory hands!” - -“Yet might not Christianity expect it?” - -“In these days, Bishop, I fear, Christianity and the church are two -totally different propositions!” - -“You have not lost your power of frankness, Newbold!” - -A sudden shadow dropped over Newbold’s face. “Have I not?” he -questioned himself darkly, then louder, “With you, Bishop, it is always -curiously hard not to say what one thinks. Yet I don’t wish you to -misunderstand me. I seem to want to be understood this morning. And -you’re the only person in the universe, I believe, who’d take the -trouble. It’s not, then, that I don’t myself believe the principles of -the Christian religion.” - -A smile, infinitely sad and subtle, passed over the Bishop’s lips. -“Since you are a minister of the Gospel,” he said gently, “one might -hope that you believe it.” - -“I have come to believe a good bit of it.” - -“To believe enough, lad?” - -The Christmas bells had begun again. The voices of the churchgoers -sounded on the clear air, but the Christmas visitor sat unheeding. - -The Rector’s voice was rasped with the tension of self-defense. -“Unfortunately for his health and happiness, a minister of the Gospel -has much more to think about than what he believes. He has to think -what his own congregation is going to allow him to say and to do; he -has to think what the church at large is going to allow him to say and -to do. He has to think of the success of his own parish, and of the -church, and of himself. All three must please the public or fail. Now -my policy--” - -“Yes,” the Bishop commented quietly, “your policy? A man of growing -influence, like yours, would naturally have outlined for himself his -creed and his conduct.” - -“My conduct, assuredly, yes. It has been my endeavor ever since I -entered the priesthood, and will always be my aim, to establish respect -for the church, and its clergy, in the community, and in the world at -large.” - -“And by what methods?” - -“The same that prevail in other organizations, sound business system, -and the establishment of social dignity. We can’t expect our young men -to be attracted to the ministry unless we can show them something in -it worth getting,--they naturally want to get out of it reputation, -success, social recognition, as in other professions.” - -“You have found those things yourself,” the Bishop’s tone was half -comment, half question. - -“Yes,” answered Newbold, straightening, “I believe I can say that I -have found those things. I started at least without them, as you must -well remember--I was a raw enough youngster when I first came to you in -Westbury--it is humorous to recall--” he laughed a sharp nervous laugh, -then grew instantly grave, “I didn’t have much in those days, but I did -have health.” - -“Yes,” the Bishop answered, “you did have,” he paused oddly--“health!” - -“I suppose, if the term had not been so much abused that I might -truthfully call myself a self-made man. The church has done much for -me. I am grateful,--with reservations! That is why I feel that in spite -of these diabolic nerves of mine I must go on, must serve the church, -the diocese, in its need.” - -“Yet you feel,” asked the Bishop wistfully, “that you cannot serve the -Southside Mission?” - -Sharp sagacity instantly controlled Newbold’s garrulous nerves, “That -was a principle of simple common sense, such as might well be applied -to other die-away mission chapels in many a parish.” - -Very low the other voice, and far away, “Yet the poor are to have the -Gospel preached to them.” - -“The parent church is open to them,” Newbold answered almost with -petulance, “here as elsewhere.” - -“You mean,” the tone was strange, “that it would be your policy to -close other missions, in other churches, throughout the diocese?” - -“It would be my policy,” replied Newbold, setting his heavy jaw, “to -cut off all waste until we get our diocesan treasury out of debt. The -church’s one foundation,” he added with that daring cynicism that -delighted St. John’s in his sermons, “is at present sound finance.” - -It was a buffet across the Bishop’s face, making Newbold instantly -protest, “It is not the mere money. It is the deep unpopularity of such -missions as the Southside with such congregations as St. John’s. Am I -to go against my vestry and retain my position? Am I to be a Dr. Judd?” - -“You are afraid?” - -“Afraid! Impossible! For a man of my make-up,” he smiled in honest -amusement, wetting his lips, “I merely have the sense not to become -voluntarily unpopular. What can a man do in the face of unpopularity? -His hands are tied. He is helpless.” - -The room and the man before him sank like a picture curtained from -the Bishop’s sight. With wide strange eyes he saw another picture. He -was unconscious of his words, “_His_ hands were tied, in the face of -unpopularity! Yet He preached the Gospel to the poor,--and to the rich, -to the poor rich!” - -There was a long uncomfortable silence, during which the Bishop rested -his head against the chair-back, waxen eyelids closed. Newbold studied -the silent, sculptured face so long that at last for pure uneasiness he -faltered, “I own, Bishop, that I’m no idealist.” - -The Bishop opened far, clear eyes, “What are you?” - -There was a long pause, then still in that far, clear voice, speaking -quite to himself the Bishop said, “Yet you will be--” - -The room, embrowned, closed against the Christmas sun, dusky with many -books, held the two men, who faced each other as once in a lifetime men -may. - -The Bishop completed his own sentence, “You will be--my successor!” - -It was quite silent now, for the bells had ceased and the chat of -church-goers. The chancel of St. John’s was only a stone’s throw from -the chair where the Bishop sat, yet it was far from him, the chancel -with its peace. But he could still get to church, although late, in -time for the communion. One more Christmas sacrament was before him, if -only he could hold his brain clear and his body taut, through one short -hour more, against the sudden blurring pain in his head. - -The silence of the study still quivered with the Bishop’s last words, -“My successor!” - -Newbold sat facing the fact never before so clearly stated by anyone, -not even by himself, but clear to him now as the goal of his clumsy, -forceful youth, of his anxious, successful ministry, a goal almost -near enough now to touch, perhaps. He could not take his eyes from -the Bishop’s face, transparent as porcelain, now turned into a mask, -impenetrable. - -“I would not be your choice, Bishop?” - -The straight line of the Bishop’s lips formed a quiet, “No!” - -“And likely enough, I may be nobody else’s choice either--in spite -of--services rendered!” Then querulous before that intent, gray face -that gave no sign, “It’s small odds what happens, with this head of -mine! Yet I have served and would gladly serve--” - -“God?” the Bishop lifted level eyes. - -Newbold’s thick lips formed for a quick reply, worked oddly, then were -oddly dumb a moment before they twisted into a cynic curve from the -large teeth. “Harry spoke to me with some frankness this morning. He -had just left me when you came, Bishop, a different visitor, it seemed -to me. A curious Christmas, verily, if you, too, like all the rest, -think strange things of me!” - -“Strange things! Are they not true?” - -A rush of anger had swept the color to the Bishop’s cheeks and shot -lightnings to his eyes. The years had fallen from his face like a -veil snatched aside. Yet with a torrent of words upon his tongue, the -Bishop, looking at Newbold, turned silent. There are some men to whom -the sight of one who cringes before a blow deserved is humiliating -to their own inmost manhood. The sight of Newbold seated there, from -his bowed, brute head, with its too-blue, watching eyes, to his big -foot that never ceased to tap the rug raspingly, had caused the -Bishop a recoil for which he hated himself. Yet his anger was just, -just! The Christ Himself had cried out against the hypocrite, against -commercialism in spiritual places. The Bishop, of fine frail fiber as -he was himself, remembered the charm for him of the youthful Newbold’s -provincial crudity and heartiness,--but now, the Bishop thought -bitterly, if one wished to make a minister of the gospel, one had -better take a gentleman to start with! - -He had trusted Newbold at the first, as he might have trusted a son; -he had forced himself to trust him afterwards, until this very day. -Yet the Bishop now acknowledged that he had known well enough whose -influence was at work in the diocese against his own, why certain -motions he had desired were tabled in the convention, or if passed, -only half-heartedly carried out. How hard the Bishop had fought not to -be aware of a growing evil undercurrent in the spirit of diocesan work! -He was far too sensitive not to have felt, as he talked with some of -his prominent clergy and laity, his own great simple enthusiasm fall -like a baffled flood against a politely concealed embarrassment he -refused to understand! But he had understood! He knew now that he had. - -Oh, there were powers of evil militant against the faith, the work, to -which he had given his life! He had tried not to see them, to believe -each man good, especially this man. Yet in this moment it seemed to -him that this Newbold, seated there, was the very cause of it all, of -this dark Judas spirit that everywhere throughout the diocese mocked -the loveliness of Christ within His very church! Again denunciation -trembled like a lash, then again was restrained because of a certain -dignity in the soul gazing so grimly from the bright-blue eyes, testing -the Bishop. It was a face the Bishop had loved and it was haggard as a -face in a fever picture. - -With all the power of vision innate in him the Bishop saw the facts of -his failure. This was the man with whom, more than with any other, he -had sought to share his service and his soul. They wore both of them -the badge of God’s ministry, they were both of them the stewards of -Christ’s mysteries; they sat now, after twenty years of friendship, -two men girt in by four brief walls, yet far apart as two who do not -speak each other’s tongue. - -The Bishop’s brow grew tense at the hard thought that it must have -been all his own fault! He had walked, as he had thought, beside the -Christ, the Friend, yet a man close to him as Newbold had perceived in -the Bishop himself no reflection of that Beauty! Oh, it could not be! -Newbold must understand! For the very loneliness of it, the Bishop’s -face grew all wistfulness, as if a child, lost on a city street, should -lift its face to a stranger, hungry for kinship. But for all his -seeking the Bishop could not find the lad Newbold in the face before -him, grown steel-tense with scrutiny. - -There was worse than this, too, as the Bishop looked, clear-eyed, on -his failure. He must one day leave to this man his Westbury, if not, as -chance and choice might direct, his diocese. It had been the Bishop’s -comfort to believe, sensitive as he had been to the great currents -of unrest and indifference in the world at large, that Westbury -had remained exquisitely old-fashioned. Yet it was by the will of -the congregation of St. John’s that the Southside Mission had been -closed, the mission the Bishop had seen their fathers found, with free -outpouring of themselves and their purses. Had the Westbury of to-day -grown Judas-jealous of squandering both self and money? The Bishop must -one day go forth from Westbury leaving it--nothing! And whose could be -the fault but his own? - -And his failure with Newbold, his failure with Westbury, they were -but typical of the failure of his work at large. Of all the gifts of -mystery that God gives to man, surely the greatest is the mystery of -failure! Wisdom inscrutable that commands work, yet enjoins failure! -Mystery of mysteries, that a burning love for that Love Incarnate born -at Bethlehem, could not break through the flesh to solace a world -a-thirst! The Bishop had loved, yet he had failed to serve. He did not -even know how to give peace, as from a chalice, to this harried soul -before him. - -The worn gray face, intent, gave small clue to the thoughts within. -Always Newbold watched, watched, waiting for a word. Which way would -it swing, that word? His soul also was poised, waiting. - -The Bishop bowed his head upon his hand. He had never felt so utterly -alone. Involuntarily, from sheer force of habit belonging to all his -moments of unbearable solitude, the Bishop’s thought turned to the -Friend. He had always understood, would He understand now, despair at -failure to God’s trust? - -Suddenly the Bishop’s eyes opened wide and strange. He saw a -storm-scourged hill, a mob. Understand failure? What man had ever -loved like the Nazarene? What man had ever failed in such transcendent -loneliness? - -The room fell quiet as a sanctuary. Awed with understanding, the Bishop -closed his eyes, to be alone. His thought said, “All other things He -has shared with me. He shares also this.” - -Quiet, long quiet, that at last grew a-throb with pulses. So many the -mountains of Transfiguration, and at the bottom always the tumult and -the faithlessness. The mental habit of many years steadied the Bishop -as he drew slowly back to the actual: when some sorrow of his own grew -too poignant to be borne, he always forced himself to go forth to the -person nearest at hand, compelling his mind to the other’s affairs. -Such effort, although at first it might be so perfunctory that he was -ashamed, ended in full sincerity. Too tired to speak now, he smiled -over to Newbold his old sunny smile, meaning that all was well between -them. - -The tension of Newbold’s watching snapped like a spent cord. There was -a change upon his face, a change in his voice, “Bishop, why did you -come to me this morning? They must have told you downstairs that I did -not wish to see anyone. Yet you came.” - -“I had a gift to bring.” - -“For me?” - -“Not now, I am afraid. Still I have no one else, lad, to leave it with. -It is for Westbury.” - -“What gift?” - -“One I have been thinking of for a long time. You see Christmas always -sets me dreaming, and in these last weeks I’ve been much shut in, so -that I’ve had a good deal of time to look out of my window and to -send my thoughts up and down the streets. I suppose it is because I -have been about so little of late that I failed to hear of the closing -of the mission, although I knew you were worried about the funds. So -I’ve been happy with my plan. You’ve listened to my dreams before,” -the Bishop smiled his little quick, appealing smile, “even though you -haven’t always--” he broke off, a wistful twinkle of remembrance in -his eyes. “I’m still an incorrigible visionary, you think, lad?” The -twinkle died. “Perhaps I am!” - -“No!” cried Newbold, “No! I--I would have helped to carry out all -your dreams, Bishop, if I could, if they’d been practical. Why, -Bishop,” Newbold smiled the first real smile of the morning, “you’re -irresistible as my Lois when you want things. Even Mrs. Hollister has -to do what you want!” - -“Even Mrs. Hollister!” repeated the Bishop wonderingly. “But, of -course, for she is my friend.” - -“You understand Mrs. Hollister better than I do, Bishop,” Newbold -murmured darkly, then could have bitten his lip, for he saw on the -Bishop’s face the fine, controlled recoil that told Newbold he had once -again said something no real Westburian would have said. Clumsy again, -when he was watching himself all the time! Oh, if there was one thing -Newbold envied the Bishop, it was his inalienable social grace! - -The Bishop’s smile was strangely wrought of sun and sadness. “To go -back to my dream,” he suggested, “so far from being prepared for the -closing of the mission, I had actually been planning its enlargement.” -He grew a little hesitant and shy, “You see I have a small private -fortune, not very much, some sixty thousand. I have, as you know, no -near relatives. I’m not much of a business man, as you are well aware, -and I have also perhaps a foolish reluctance to leaving anything in -the shape of a memorial, anything bearing my name,--yet it was here -in Westbury, in St. John’s, and at the founding of the mission in the -Southside sixty years ago, that there first came to me--the meaning of -the Christian ministry.” A moment his eyes grew dream-bright, as he -continued, “I’m so in the habit of trusting all money matters to you -that I have simply had my will made out to you, without any stipulation -as to the object--” - -“To me?” - -“In trust,” said the Bishop, “for Westbury.” - -“To me!” - -“I _must_ trust you, lad!” - -Newbold’s eyes, round with amazement, dropped before the pure flame of -the Bishop’s. - -“I had thought,” the clear voice went on, “that you would be glad to -have the management of this money for Westbury, because it was here in -Westbury, and in St. John’s, and in work for the Southside, that you, -too, twenty years ago, came to your first thoughts of the Christian -ministry.” - -“Yes,” muttered Newbold, “twenty years ago!” His foot ceased to tap -the floor. He sat straight, motionless, “What, Bishop, was your idea, -exactly, for the use of this sixty thousand?” - -“My idea--I--I suppose it’s impractical now--was what I called it in my -mind, the House of Friendship. Not, of course, that I want it called -that in reality. That’s, of course,” he said in quick deprecation, -“sentimental in sound, but that’s what I mean.” - -“Exactly what?” probed Newbold. - -“You know,” the other appealed whimsically, “I left all the details -to you even in my plans. I thought I’d just explain the spirit of it. -A House of Friendship, that is a settlement house, in connection with -the chapel in the Southside, a house open to everybody, to the mothers -and fathers and the babies and the little girls and the newsboys, and -open--still more open--to the members of St. John’s over here, on River -Street, so that the mission and the church might learn, from each -other, to be friends. I haven’t gone into the details, although I want -to, one of these days, when my head gets a little clearer. The main -thing was that you should understand.” - -“And I am to understand that your will is made out to me, with no -instructions as to the use of the money?” - -“Yes.” - -“Does anyone know of your desire for the settlement house?” - -“No one. You were the only one who needed to know.” - -Newbold looked straight at his visitor. “Has it occurred to you, -Bishop, that you are taking a great risk?” - -“What do you mean, lad?” asked the Bishop wonderingly. - -Newbold laughed, a laugh that rang true with honest amusement. “Well, -hardly, as we both know, that I should make way with the money for my -own ends, or that one cent of it shall be spent except for the object -of your desire, but,--” his face grew grave and dark, “you imply, I -think, something more. It is not merely the money that you leave in my -charge, Bishop, but the work itself?” - -“I had always hoped, lad, to leave my work in your charge. In spirit, -if not in actuality.” - -“Do you hope so this morning?” - -“May I hope so, Murray?” Once before, on the night of his ordination, -the Bishop had called Newbold by his first name. - -Newbold’s answer was as direct to the soul as the Bishop’s question, “I -don’t know!” Then sharp and querulous, “How could I? How can I?” - -The kindled hope on the Bishop’s face died like a quenched flame. In -its stead slowly there grew in his eyes their great and brooding pity. -“Lad, you’re tired to the depths this morning, and I am fretting you -with the thought of new responsibilities. Forgive me. I hope that in -eighty-one years I’ve learned to listen. Suppose you do the talking -now. What are some of the bothers back of this headache?” - -“My head is the chief bother, back of all bothers! It won’t let me go -on and I can’t stop!” Newbold sprang up and then reseated himself at -his desk, sweeping a fret of papers aside so that some fell on the -floor, then taking up a flexible paper cutter that he kept snapping in -his hands while he swung the revolving chair slowly from side to side. -“The truth is, I’ve been going down hill ever since I came here eight -years ago. The air of Westbury is knocking me to pieces.” - -“Yet it agreed with you during your other stay here, twenty odd years -ago.” - -“I was a boy then; I had a different body.” - -“And perhaps,” mused the Bishop, “a different soul.” - -“Oh, that!” cried Newbold with a shrug, then, “Do you suppose if I’d -had my health, I’d ever have let the vestry bully me into giving up the -Southside Mission!” - -“Yet I used to think sometimes that opposition was the breath of life -to you. I wonder,” a flicker of whimsical humor in the blue eyes, “if -perhaps it would still be the breath of life to you,--if you tried it!” - -“Can I fight a spirit in the air? Can I fight, of all things, mere -amusement at enthusiasm? Can I fight the impenetrable self-satisfaction -of Westbury?” - -“Yet I thought you were one who loved Westbury!” - -“I love it, yes! And I hate it!” - -“Yet Westbury has loved you and taken you in, as it once took me, also -a stranger.” - -“It has never taken me in! Has Mrs. Hollister ever taken me in?” - -“Newbold, may I ask,” the Bishop sought to be patient with a resentful -child, “whether Mrs. Hollister has ever shown you the slightest -incivility?” - -“Never!” Newbold pressed his lips together in a curious grim smile. He -studied the paper-knife in his hands intently, “Oh, no, I should not -find fault with Westbury. It has given me what I wanted when I came -here as a boy, to be rector of St. John’s. I did not perceive then the -price a man pays to be rector of--a St. John’s.” - -“What price?” - -“The price of his freedom! There’s no way to please the congregation of -St. John’s, except to _please_ them! I’ve learned the trick of that! -Ah, commend me to the clergy as latter-day courtiers!” It was sentences -such as these, applied in the chancel to his congregation, not to -himself, that his people so enjoyed in his sermons, feeling him at one -with them in a comfortable, workaday cynicism. Newbold’s words were -pressed through closed teeth as he concluded, “But I despise my people!” - -“Your people of the Southside, too?” - -“They! Oh, no! Poor wretches! They are honest! I understand them! But -it is the strain of trying to understand St. John’s that is killing -me!” his hand went impatiently to his head. - -Serene and low the Bishop’s words, “Then why not go to your people of -the Southside?” - -“And _leave St. John’s_?” - -“If you do not understand the people of St. John’s. If it is killing -you.” - -“They would think me a madman!” - -“Does it matter, what they think?” - -“It has mattered,” Newbold replied grimly, “a good bit, for eight -years!” - -“And where has that road brought us, lad?” - -Silence. - -Low, incisive against the stillness, the Bishop’s voice, “Verily you -have _had_ your reward.” - -Newbold’s hands dropped to the desk motionless. - -“Yet even so, amid the praise of men, there was one man whose praise -you never had.” - -Newbold lifted his eyes in interrogation. - -“Yourself!” the Bishop concluded. - -Suddenly Newbold’s face, set as marble, puckered unbearably. “There’s -someone else, too!” Forcing the words out, he quoted, “‘I don’t care if -you are a minister. I’m your son, and I know you’re a hypocrite!’ How’s -that,” he was furious at the catch in his throat, “how’s that--for a -speech--from an only son--on Christmas morning!” - -“It is not true, Murray!” - -“You are perhaps the only man who believes in me, Bishop.” - -“It is because I have known you longest.” - -“I am afraid the truth is that your namesake, my son, has the sharper -eyes, as well as the sharper tongue. A son’s estimate of his father -is doubtless the correct one. Yet it’s an ugly word--hypocrite! I -confess it drew blood, and knocked me out for the day.” He looked oddly -sheepish, boyish, in his confession, in spite of all the signs of -torturing nerves upon a body too vigorous to take ill-health with any -poise or patience. “You see I got up this morning feeling rather out -of sorts. I hadn’t slept since twelve. I’ve been dreading the services -more and more lately. I’m haunted by the idea of collapsing suddenly -before the eyes of my congregation--those eyes! - -“Then breakfast was late. If only, only, only,” his heavy fist came -down lightly but tensely upon the blotter, “the women would not look as -if they expected a scene under such circumstances. I had meant to hold -my tongue. But I didn’t. Nobody said anything, so I fancy I continued -to fill in the pauses. Harry sat with a face that made me want to knock -him down. It was afterwards that he spoke, a full hour afterwards, when -I had managed to pull myself together and was on my way to church. He -stopped me in the hall with ‘Going to the communion, father? After -making mother and Lois feel like that?’ Then he added that little -remark about hypocrisy, I came back upstairs, here. Presently you came. -A highly successful Christmas! A merry family group, do you not think -so, Bishop?” - -The Bishop had closed his eyes. This was the kind of thing that hurt -his head, and he must keep his head clear, must! “Christmas is not half -over,” he said, starting at the thought of the morning slipping by, and -the church, so near, calling to him, “There is half of Christmas left!” - -“Half a day in which to teach my son to respect me!” - -“But this son is Harry. So it will not take so long.” - -“Harry is hard!” - -“He is generous!” - -“He never forgives!” - -“Have you ever asked him to forgive?” - -“My boy! No! I know him! He knows me!” - -“I think perhaps,” the Bishop said slowly, “you will never know Harry, -nor he you, until you have asked of him forgiveness. It’s one of the -test things, forgiveness. The boy will meet it. He has nobility, Harry, -by inheritance.” - -“From his mother, yes.” - -“From his father, no less.” - -“They are their mother’s children, both of them,” Newbold murmured -wearily. - -The Bishop’s face flashed radiant. His right hand lifted in a quick -gesture. “Can any man say anything more beautiful than that?” - -“You mean,” stammered Newbold, “what?” - -“I think I only meant,” hesitated the Bishop, “that I felt just that -way about my child, and her mother. They belonged to each other, not to -me. I was only fit to try to take care of them.” - -“I have not taken,” said Newbold heavily, “much care of mine!” - -“Oh, lad, lad,” said the Bishop, “don’t waste that privilege. It -never--it never has grown easy--for me to live without it.” - -Newbold’s words came in a whisper, to himself, “She does not expect it -now. Perhaps she does not even wish it!” - -The Bishop leaned slightly forward in his chair. “Newbold,” he said -firmly, “between you and Harry there must be words, as between men. -But, for Lois and the mother, downstairs, have you anything to do but -to stretch out your hand? It is one of their mysteries, that women -always understand better without words.” - -Newbold dropped his forehead on interlaced fingers that concealed -his face. He was long silent. His hands dropped at last from a face -haggard, but a-shine with boyishness. - -“Bishop,” he said, “you’ve made me feel a whole lot better!” - -“I am glad!” For the first time in their talk the Bishop’s lip showed -its slight palsied trembling. - -“You always did make me feel better. It is your secret.” Then a shadow -fell, “But how? Why?” the shadow darkened. “I don’t deserve it!” - -The Bishop studied the darkened face with a sad keenness. “You have not -told me all the worries this morning, have you? What else?” - -Newbold stirred uneasily, then brightened a little with reminiscence, -“Odd, how little things take one back sometimes. The mere way we are -sitting at this moment,--you, Bishop, in that deep chair with your -hands on the arms, and I here at the desk,--it makes me feel as if you -might take up the dictating and I my shorthand at any instant.” - -“It does not seem to me so very long ago.” - -“It strikes me now, that you were pretty patient. I was a raw enough -youth when I first came to Westbury.” - -“A bit truculent in argument sometimes,” admitted the other, smiling. -“You bowled over some of our best doctors in theology. There wasn’t -much you were afraid of.” - -“On the contrary, I was afraid of everything. It was the first time I -had ever been afraid, too. Westbury frightened me.” - -“Yet I knew then that you would live to make Westbury proud of you. I -believe I never had such hopes for any young man as I had for you.” - -“And now?” - -“And now?” The Bishop turned the question back upon the man. - -“And now,” said Newbold bitterly, “where are the hopes?” - -“Exactly where they were before. Don’t you know, lad, that we old men -are incorrigible in hopes?” - -“I know that you are, Bishop, incorrigible in hope,--and in patience.” - -The Bishop’s eyes narrowed to fine scrutiny, “Have I then, do you feel, -something to be patient about?” - -Newbold shot a sharp glance, searching the Bishop’s meaning. They both -waited. At last Newbold, leaning back in his chair lifted steady eyes. -“Since we’re talking this morning, Bishop, about the things on my mind, -there are, as you seem to guess, more things. I’d be glad to get them -all clear with you this morning. It’s a relief to talk, no matter where -we come out. I’m afraid, that perhaps you haven’t always understood, -Bishop, my apparent opposition to your wishes on some occasions that -perhaps we both remember.” - -“We both remember, yes!” - -At the tone Newbold started, grew more vehement, “Oh, if you could -but understand, Bishop! Why, sometimes, as I have stood between your -desires on the one hand and what I knew to be those of the majority of -the clergy and laity on the other, what I knew to be necessary to the -prosperity of the diocese and the church, I have verily felt myself -between two fires.” - -“Or between two masters?” - -Nervous irritation fretted Newbold’s forehead. “Yes, I suppose, that, -too, in a way, from your point of view, Bishop. The point of view -of--well--of the apostles, perhaps!” He hesitated, but then grew -defensive, “In practical application, Bishop, it is impossible that the -policies of primitive Christianity should prevail in their pristine -simplicity in the church to-day!” - -The Bishop was long silent, the white profile of his far-away face -clear before Newbold’s watching eyes. Newbold spoke at last in anxious -apology. “You understand, therefore, I hope, Bishop, my policy, as I -understand yours? I wanted you to understand.” - -“Why do you want me to understand?” - -There was something very strange in those far, far blue eyes, so old, -so ageless. Newbold gazed into them, curiously compelled. “Perhaps you -know best the answer to that, Bishop.” - -A wistful smile touched the Bishop’s lips, “Perhaps I do, lad. For it -has been a long while that we have been friends.” - -“You know, Bishop, surely,” the man cried out, “how I feel toward -you,--in spite of--mere policies?” - -The Bishop nodded slightly, “Yes, yes,” then looked at the other with a -larger thought. “But, Newbold, I have no policy, I have found only one -reading to the riddle of life, and I preach it. There is no policy in -that, I think, is there?” - -“I think,” said Newbold, quietly, “that you are the only man I have -ever seen solve that riddle.” - -“I have not solved it, Murray, if I have not given you the clew.” - -At that unbearable sadness Murray Newbold cried out, “No, Bishop, no! -If I have failed, it is not your failure! Faith such as yours, life -such as yours,--it is impossible to men like me. It is not for us.” - -“I always thought it was for all.” There was a long pause. “And it is. -I have not known how to show you, that is all.” The Bishop bowed his -head in silence, murmuring, “But I wanted you,” again a long pause, “as -you would want peace for your boy!” - -The next words were not to Newbold, but Newbold knew to Whom they -were spoken, “Yet I ask so much! We can never share with Him, we who -ask fulfillment!” Then the Bishop started sharply from revery, “The -service! I must go. It is too late, perhaps, already for the communion.” - -“There is just time. But, Bishop, will you go? There is so much still -to say. Stay a little while!” - -“What I have failed to say in twenty years, can I say now? In a little -while?” - -“Say it!” pleaded Newbold, “say it!” - -Like a physical need, like hunger, the Bishop felt the blind desire to -feel the chancel quiet about him, to offer once more to his people the -cup of Christ. Yet before him here and now, in this silent room, a soul -a-thirst. - -“What is it, lad, that you want from me?” - -“You believe it, Bishop?” Newbold burst forth. - -“What?” - -“What we preach. I never knew any man to believe it as you do. How?” - -“How otherwise?” - -“I never knew any other man who had found peace. _How?_” - -“It is hard,” hesitated the Bishop, “for me to talk about these -things--with you. It is hard for me to understand,” his tired eyes -widened with the effort to understand. “You mean with the Story ever -before you, that yet you cannot see--Him?” - -“I see nothing. I’ve come to a pretty dark place in my career, -successful, I suppose it would be called.” - -“Since I’ve come to be old, I find I don’t always call things by their -right names. Success and failure, I don’t always know how to name them.” - -“But you have success!” - -“No--no, you have showed me clearly to-day that I have failure.” - -“_I_ have shown you?” - -“Don’t you remember that I came here with a hope?” - -“Which I have destroyed? But, Bishop, the work you describe is -impossible to me. You know, no one better, what I am. The amazing -thing is that knowing, you still chose me. Why, such a work requires a -courage, a conviction, a vision such as--” - -“You have not courage?” - -“Not, not courage of your sort, now.” - -“I believe it is courage of your sort, not my sort, that Westbury -needs, now.” - -“It would mean a complete facing about. That would surprise,” he -smiled grimly, “a few people! I don’t know that I should really mind -surprising them.” Then his face again clouded. “The Southside would -find me out, Bishop. I have not the vision. I don’t know that I -thought it necessary, originally. It’s been, however, of late years, -a bit persistent, the advantage, say, of believing what one says one -believes.” The caustic tone changed to intensity, “If I were capable, -Bishop, of your faith!” - -The Bishop studied him wistfully, “And yet,” he mused, “it seems to me -so simple, faith, so unavoidable, like sunshine. No man could have -made the sun. Just so, it seems as if no man could have invented--that -Beauty!” - -“Unfortunately most people don’t see things quite so readily. As for -me, I believe I’m incapable of religious vision.” - -The Bishop hesitated, thoughtful, then quick words came, “But not -incapable of action. I’ve always believed that there is need perhaps -for soldiers as well as seers. There’s the fighter somewhere within -you, isn’t there?” - -“I sometimes feel,” Newbold admitted, “as if there were as much fight -left in me as there is in Harry to-day. One sees,” he mused, “some -pretty queer things when one looks inside.” Then once more he caught up -the paper cutter in restless fingers, “But that won’t last. I seem to -see a thing or two while you’re here, seem to be more up to--several -things. It will all come back fast enough when I’m alone. You’ll carry -this quiet away with you, Bishop.” - -“I wish I could leave it with you! Couldn’t I, somehow?” - -“You couldn’t, could you, put me back twenty years, and give me -another try at it all? No, no, I don’t see the way to that!” - -“Do it! Don’t wait to see it! Vision!” the Bishop paused. “It is -perhaps true that it is not given to all to see, to feel, to know. Yet -those who do not see can act! Perhaps--perhaps--it is more beautiful -and more brave to work without the vision! We are the stewards, we call -ourselves that, you and I--God puts a cup into our hands. He doesn’t -say, ‘Believe,’ or ‘See.’ He only says, ‘Give’!” - -“But it is as _you_ give, Bishop!” - -Their eyes met long. Then the tense pause slackened. Murray Newbold -knew best his feeling for the Bishop when he felt the child gazing from -the faded eyes and speaking in his pleading voice. - -“Murray, will you build, then, the House of Friendship, for Westbury?” - -Silence. Newbold had bowed his forehead upon his interlaced fingers. -His face was concealed except the strong jaw, and the lips, motionless, -curiously refined by their tight pressure. Moments went by. Within -closed eyelids Newbold saw his future. He saw the past as if the issues -between himself and the Bishop had been always mounting to this final -issue. He saw himself, objective, detached as a painting. So taut were -all his senses on this morning that it seemed to him that he should -always see the Bishop’s face looking upon him just as he had closed his -eyes against it, there across the desk. It was a moment of such intense -seeing as makes promises impossible. The minutes went, one after one. -He could not have spoken a word. - -A touch brushed Newbold’s shoulder, “I am going now, lad,” the Bishop -said. Sudden and clamorous, the noon-day chimes, at the close of the -service, rang out, as the study door closed. - - - - -PART III - - -The air of the blue Christmas noon was sparkling clear, yet the -Bishop’s steps were groping. His blue eyes were vague as he smiled in -response to motor cars that flashed by, or carriages that passed with -a brisk jingle of harness. Groups, lightly laughing in the Christmas -sun, brushed by the old familiar figure in the cape overcoat, but they -seemed strangers. In the sharp daylight after that dusky study, the -Bishop trod an unknown street, as wistful and alone as a lost child. -Was this his Westbury, where none of this gay Christmas throng gave -thought to those swarming tenements at the bending of the river? An old -man’s life, what was it, against this hard and happy current? A smile, -briefly bitter, darkened the Bishop’s face; he was old and would pass, -having given his Westbury nothing! - -Yet all the time his feet, making for reassurance and relief, were -bearing him toward Lucy Hollister’s welcome, with the homing instinct -of a child that knows one door its own. Across the Bishop’s weariness -flashed the thought that in the afternoon Lucy would let him lie down -for a while. - -Lucy’s door opened wide to the Bishop. He felt once again, as the -closed latch shut him in from that vague and puzzling street, the spell -of the wide hall that cleft the house, and of grave old walls showing -at the opposite end a picture of the river through broad glass. The -Bishop handed his coat and hat to the brown old footman, his friend of -many years, then his head cleared happily at the sound of a soft rustle -and the tapping of light decisive slippers. Lucy’s hand was in his. - -“Good Christmas, Henry,” she said crisply, and led him in to the -drawing-room fire. - -“I was worried,” she went on. “You were not at church, nor at the house -when I drove there afterward.” - -“The service?” he inquired anxiously. - -“It was not Christmas without your sermon. Otherwise it was--well, a -service. For we missed our rector, too!” - -“He is ill.” - -“Is he?” inquired Lucy with musing emphasis. “And of what sickness? Too -much Westbury?” - -But at the Bishop’s troubled glance her tone changed instantly, “But -you yourself, Henry, have you been, are you, ill?” - -“Not now, not here. It is really Christmas here.” - -“I am glad,” she answered; then, with an unperceived catch of her -breath, “if it is really Christmas--here!” - -“How many Christmas dinners is it, Lucy?” - -“I do not count them,” to herself she added, looking at him, “those -that are over!” - -They fell to talking of the Christmases that were over. The Bishop did -not know that from time to time he leaned his head back, closing his -lids, and was silent while minutes ticked slowly and Lucy watched him -intently. It was comforting when he opened his eyes still to see her -sitting there, so alert, so alive. - -“So many Christmases!” he murmured. - -“I neither own to them,” she answered, “nor yet, not own!” - -Despite her many Christmases, it was with only a slight stiffening of -the sinuous grace of her girlhood that Lucy moved at the Bishop’s side, -to the dining-room, to the mid-afternoon holiday dinner of Westbury -habit. Lucy kept every custom Westbury had had in her youth, and she -made other people keep such custom, too; slight, elusive, dominant, -as she was, in her great house by Westbury’s river. They passed from -stately course to course exactly as they had done on that Christmas -when Henry Collinton and his wife had dined with Lucy when Annie was -a bride, and still earlier, the Bishop could remember dining at that -table, when he was a college lad and the two cousins, girls, Annie the -dark one, and Lucy, elfin and amber-tinted. The room was the same, the -china and the silver the same. Beyond the two long windows ran the gray -loop of the river. Many a time long ago, they had floated all three -in a boat on that spangled river. The wall paper was the same, put on -by French hands many a year ago. Round and round it raced a French -sporting scene, trim-waisted gentlemen that rode to the hunt by wood -and stream, and ladies that joined them for the huntsman’s repast, gay -picnickers all, still vivid in color. - -It was all the same, for in Westbury things did continue blessedly -unchanged. Lucy was unchanged, for all the long wearing of her widow’s -black. The yellow still showed in the snowy gloss of her carefully -arranged hair. Age had slightly rimmed her eyes with red, but the -will-o’-the-wisp still danced in them. Her mouth, netted by wrinkles, -was hardly more finely whimsical than in girlhood. As of old, when -in earnest talk, she dropped her chin, still clearly chiseled, to a -delicate white claw of a hand, flashing from a fall of black chiffon. -Lucy treated age as she did people: like them, age could not tell -whether it had penetrated her delicate aloofness. - -To the Bishop, room and river and woman were still the same. Spent -to the uttermost as he knew himself to be to-day, Lucy’s indomitable -vitality quickened him with sharp hope; perhaps, after all, there was -much he could still leave to Lucy! But not yet for him the outpouring, -as ever, into Lucy’s ear. That would come, but not yet! How happy, -now, shut in by that race round and round the walls of those merry -picnickers, to pluck, as it were a Christmas gift from a tree, one hour -in which they should still be boy and girl together. - -As they talked, two faces looked over their shoulders; over the -Bishop’s a boy’s with brown hair flung back, with eager listening -eyes, and a mouth that spoke poetry and as instantly laughed out in -merry mockery of it, a face that, clear as water, was all the play of -a mobile brain; and close by Lucy’s head, another in a white bonnet, -green-ribboned and green-leaved, from which, framed in red-gold curls, -looked out a tinted cameo face, with green-blue eyes, mocking and -mysterious. To-day, Lucy’s body was still fragile and unbroken, as in -girlhood, and for all she had married and borne four children, her -soul still went unfettered as when she was a girl. But age had charred -the Bishop’s face to fine white ashes, in which the blue eyes burned, -luminous and inward. - -“Henry,” mused Lucy, “the poetry never came back to you, did it? Do you -ever write nowadays, ever snare a little wild, singing poem now?” - -“The verses come to me sometimes still, but not near enough to catch, -or to _wish_ to catch, perhaps. I do sometimes see the pictures still, -this very morning, for instance, and I hear rhythms; but, no, I have -never written since--since Nan went.” - -He was silent a moment, lips tightening, then lights began to gleam on -his face, with the familiar pleasure of thinking aloud to Lucy. “But -perhaps I do not write because I can no longer distinguish between -poetry and prose, in life. That is boy’s work, really, to see the -sharp outlines of things that afterwards, for us, seem to overlap, to -interweave. Poetry and prose, which is which? Just so the distinction -between the sacred and the secular, easy enough at twenty, not at -eighty: then the two were clear to me as bars of sun and shadow on a -pavement; now the sun-bars would seem all softened with shadow, and the -shadow all shot through with sun. Just so the distinction between the -divine and the human, God and man, where shall one separate the two? -Can anyone say. Just so far,--” here the Bishop, all eager explanation, -drew the figure of a cross upon the leather armchair, keeping an ivory -finger tip upon the spot, “just so far shall God stoop to man, just so -far man rise to God! Oh! no, no!” He erased the imaginary cross with -a quick brushing of his long hand, “life is not like that, not sharp -distinctions, it is all interwoven, interwoven! - -“So with poetry and prose. How can I possibly write,” he laughed, “if -I can’t tell them apart? Why, nowadays I seem to get meshed in my own -metres. No, I’m no true poet,” he shook his head ruefully, “if I can’t -tell whether a poem is inside of me or outside of me, whether I am -it, or it is I! No, old age is the time for seeing, not for singing.” -He paused, thinking, “But I verily believe I like the seeing better -than the singing.” He looked over to her in the old, quick boyish way, -“Don’t you?” - -Lucy gave her little humorous shrug, inimitably slight, “O Henry, -forgive me, I believe old age for me is all plain prose.” - -He laughed his silvery old laugh, in pure amusement, “And that from -you, who know nothing whatever about old age!” - -“I! I know everything about old age!” - -“Prove it!” he rallied, “prove it! Prove that you know one thing more -about old age to-day than you did when you were twenty!” - -Her face, still beautiful despite its subtlety of lines, grew strange, -and her humorous lips delicately mocking, “No, I don’t believe I -could--prove--that I know anything more about old age to-day--than I -did when I was twenty!” - -“There,” he cried gaily, “you admit it?” - -“Admit what, my friend?” - -“That you are still a girl!” - -“Yet, a grandmother?” - -“One can never somehow remember that,” his gaze upon her changed to -puzzled thought. - -“Yet I am a grandmother, a model mother and grandmother, I’d have you -remember!” - -“It is very strange,” he mused, “mine, who are gone, seem almost nearer -than yours, who are here. I sometimes have wondered why you never -choose to go to them at Christmas-time. Although it is a happy thing -for me that you do not.” - -“I prefer my Christmas to myself!” - -“But isn’t it lonely?” - -“Lonely, when you have never failed me, Henry!” she laughed. “You know -I’m a stickler for old customs. I can’t change old friends for new -grandchildren.” - -“Grandchildren!” he shook his head. “No, it is impossible to believe -in them! You seem to me still Lucy Dwight of the long ago,” a twinkle -danced in his eyes, “and aren’t you?” - -“Who can answer that question but Henry Collinton, of the long ago? Who -else remembers?” - -They both remembered, and fell silent, joining thoughts. - -At length the Bishop, shining-eyed, exclaimed, “Those were great days, -when I came here to college!” - -“Great days, yes, when I--when we--taught you the town. You thought -everything so wonderful that you almost made me believe Westbury -wonderful, too.” - -“And didn’t you, don’t you, believe it wonderful?” - -She looked at him quietly, “But Westbury is my own,” she answered. - -“And isn’t it,” he pleaded, “my own, too, by this time?” - -“Yours?” she looked at him with far, intent eyes, then before his wide -child-gaze, troubled, her smile flashed reassurance, “Yours, surely, -Henry!” again she fell thoughtful, “yet it depends a little on what you -mean!” - -“Westbury _has_ been mine,” he maintained, and then, not confident, -“and Westbury has not changed, has it, Lucy?” - -She was silent. - -“It has not changed, Lucy?” - -“Oh, no, no, Henry,” she comforted him, “How? Where? Look about and -see!” - -“Once it sent more men forth into the church than any other place in -all the country. Will it, do you believe, continue to do that?” - -“Westbury is still churchly! Look at us! Westbury still goes to church. -I myself set the example.” - -“Westbury always has followed your example,” the Bishop answered; again -he felt a start of hope, but still postponed in this pleasant lighter -hour the full revelation of his morning’s anxiety. - -“Westbury will always follow my example, Henry, just so long as I -give it its head. It is a triumph, is it not,” her lips puckered -whimsically, “for an old lady to lead a town by a string? If I cared -for the triumph! Not to let Westbury get away from me, that has been -at least an absorbing pastime. I have spent my life trying to keep -Westbury the Westbury of my youth!” Quizzical, darting gleams showed in -her eyes. - -“There was no more beautiful way to spend your life,” the Bishop -answered. - -Lucy’s face changed, old age dropped over it like a veil, from which -her eyes looked forth, strange. - -“I, too,” the Bishop answered, “have wished to spend my life in keeping -Westbury the Westbury of my youth. It seemed so beautiful to me! People -were already beginning to be in a hurry in other places, but they still -had time to be kind, here. They were already locking themselves into -classes in other places, but they still had time to be friends, rich -with poor, rich with rich, here. You remember the mission, Lucy?” - -She started, glancing at him with quick, culprit look, which he, lost -in dreams, did not observe, continuing, “Westbury was a place of -beautiful friendship, a place to make a young man dream dreams.” - -Very low she whispered, “Your dreams, Henry, not Westbury’s!” - -“It has not changed, has it, Lucy?” - -She did not answer at first, then a smile, elusive, sweet, brushed her -lips and was gone, “No, Henry!” - -“For how could it,” he burst out joyously, “how could it, when you have -not changed, and you are Westbury!” - -“I am Westbury?” - -“Yes!” he answered, “yes!” - -“Have you always thought that, Henry?” - -“I believe so, yes.” - -But beneath his clear, smiling gaze, the witch lights gleamed in her -eyes, “I wonder if you will always think so, Henry!” But his words -seemed to have made her inattentive, restless, so that it was at length -almost abruptly that she rose. She turned an instant toward the picture -framed by the window. - -“How you love this town, Henry!” - -“It is my piece of God’s world,” he answered with that simple reverence -that could startle, then he stopped before turning away from the table, -“May I?” he asked permission, as he picked up a sprig of holly. “We’ve -had none at the house, and you remember how Annie loved holly.” - -“Yes,” Lucy answered, “I remember--Annie’s holly.” - -The Bishop still kept the spray of crimson berries in his hand when -they had crossed the hall into the library, where the fire sprang -high and where beyond the twin windows that matched those of the -dining-room, the river had turned to slaty gray below the dulling -eastern sky. The light in the room was quite clear, but yet the -Bishop, in the dizziness that followed his rising and walking from the -dining-room, groped for a chair, and sank into it awkwardly, leaning -back a moment with shut eyes. For the instant his clear old face looked -withered, and his hands upon the chair-arms hung lax. - -Lucy was still standing against the fire glow, slight, vivid, imperious. - -“Henry!” - -The Bishop opened vague eyes. - -“I can’t let you look like that, Henry, to-day!” - -The Bishop smiled, “I’m a bit tired. I’ve just remembered it. You had -made me forget it, as usual, made me forget both the tiredness and -some other things. They come back upon me now. I’ve had a rather rough -morning of it, to tell the truth.” - -“Tell me about it,” she said, sitting down. - -“I’ve been hearing things I didn’t want to hear, and believing things -I didn’t want to believe, and trying to do things I couldn’t do, all -morning. It seems a pretty long time since to-day began. Oh, I was -going to do great things to-day when I got up!” - -“But the day is not over.” - -“That is just it,” he answered. “My day _is_ over!” - -“No, no, it must never be over! You must never speak like that! Why -even I--” she broke off, “but you, Henry! Who were always such a boy -for hoping! You mustn’t stop; I’ll never let you!” - -He looked at her with a grave, far gaze, “It would be a Christmas gift -that I need, Lucy, if to-day you gave me hope. You are the only person -who can!” - -“What has gone wrong, Henry?” - -“It was only that I wanted to give Westbury a Christmas present, and -Westbury would not have it.” - -“Who, pray, had the right to say so?” - -“Newbold.” - -“Newbold! He! What rights has he in Westbury, may I ask?” - -The Bishop’s glance was startled and penetrating, “Has he none, Lucy?” - -She caught back her words sharply, saying merely, “No right to hurt -you, Henry, that is all. But tell me about the Christmas present to -Westbury. It is some new philanthropic scheme of yours, I suppose. -Tell me about it, for you know you might offer your Christmas present -to me. Try whether I’ll take it, if I am Westbury.” - -[Illustration: As before, he knocked, all eager, and again opening -doors flashed ruddy on the night - - _See page 146_] - -His face broke aflame, “You will?” he cried, “I believe that you can!” - -“Tell me!” she repeated, dropping her chin upon her white bodkin -fingers, and fixing her eyes upon the beauty of his face. - -The two clear, pale old faces looked forth at each other across a -space, while slowly there drew in about them the mystery of the dusk. -Athwart the gathering twilight, the Bishop’s voice fell musical and -clear. - -“The day didn’t go very well, not till I got here to you. I got up -feeling a bit shaky. I’m going to treat myself to that couch over there -presently. Perhaps if my head had been clearer I might have seen better -how to do what I tried to do to-day. But I’m afraid the real trouble -goes deeper, and dates farther back. Christmas day sometimes throws a -light back over the other days and years. I haven’t done what might -have been done with all the years that have been granted me. I see -that to-day. And now it is too late, isn’t it?” - -“What has happened to-day?” - -“Nothing has happened but knowledge, perhaps, knowledge to which I have -forced myself to be blind. But in the light of Christmas I had to see, -that’s all. And so I suppose I’m a little discouraged, and need to be -bolstered up, as you can. It’s a good thing for me that you’ve never -had time to grow old, Lucy. For it’s no fun,” his smile flashed, then -fell as suddenly, “this being old.” - -She fought against his growing seriousness, “I’ve had to stay young, -Henry, to keep you from growing old. So don’t go and be old all of a -sudden to-day,”--she forced her tone to evenness, “not to-day of all -days! I will have to-day!” - -“I wanted to-day, too,” he answered, “but I’ve had to give up what I -wanted, so far, twice.” - -“Who, exactly, is the trouble, Henry?” - -“Newbold.” - -He paused so long that Lucy asked with the faintest frown of -weariness, “Well, and what has that young man done to-day?” - -“Young, he is that, certainly! I half forgot it, young and -therefore,--” again he stopped, but his eyes were kindled. - -“No, not ‘therefore,’” Lucy answered keenly, “if you mean by that that -he is still young enough to improve.” - -“Not with help?” - -“Whose?” - -The Bishop hesitated, eyes intent, searching hers, then answered, -“Westbury’s, for Westbury has hurt him.” - -“Will he profit by Westbury’s help if he has not profited by yours?” - -The Bishop mused, frankly anxious, puzzled, “I had been thinking that -if Westbury had hurt him, just for that reason perhaps, Westbury--could -also help him, and would.” - -“Oh, Henry, Henry,” she shook her head with pursed, humorous lips, “you -talk in abstract terms. But Westbury is no abstraction. ‘Westbury could -help him.’ Exactly what do you mean? For who, pray, is Westbury?” - -The Bishop’s gaze met hers; there was humor in his eyes as in hers, but -also something deeper, something watchful, strange. - -“Oh,” she laughed, “I remember. I am Westbury! Do you mean, Henry -Collinton, that I am to help this Newbold of yours? That I am to make a -gentleman of him, if you couldn’t?” - -But at her words the Bishop’s face grew stern, “No, I have utterly -failed to make him anything that I wished. But it is arrogant, perhaps, -this hoping to make anybody anything. Yet how could I help hoping? He -was a splendid boy, and I had no son.” - -In that stern, brooding silence, Lucy said at length, “Don’t mind too -much, Henry. Remember you idealize--persons and--towns. He was always -out of place here, that is all. He could never belong here.” - -The Bishop turned his head in the old quick boyish way, “But could he -not have a place in Westbury, if Westbury would make a place for him?” - -“Incorrigible one!” she smiled. “How?” - -Stern age in judgment on his failure left the Bishop’s face,--the -little sunny child stole back to it. “I have a little hope,” he -admitted, “but so very small! It depends on you, all of it.” - -His eyes were all aflame, but his tone was grave. “You know so well -how to help a man in his work, how to cheer him on through doubt and -failure. Have you ever failed me?” - -“I know how to let a man talk to me, perhaps,” she murmured. - -“Yes, how you have let me talk to you, always,--ever since the mission -was founded! Ever since that day we have talked, ever since that day I -have brought my work to you!” - -“And I have listened!” - -“And have helped! Lucy, as you have helped,” she felt the sharp intake -of his breath, “as you have helped me, could you not also help him who -shall come after me?” - -“Come after you? What, whom, do you mean, Henry! You cannot surely mean -that he, your Newbold, shall come after _you_?” - -“You know the diocese, Lucy, as I know it--can you doubt that--Dr. -Newbold--will come after me?” - -“Henry, would you, could you, choose that he should? After _you_?” - -“What choice have I? I--I am passing on. The sadness is that I would -have desired him to follow me, once.” - -“Now?” - -“Will you help him, Lucy?” - -“How?” - -“Be his friend. He does not believe you his friend. It is the only -hope.” - -“Hope of what, Henry?” - -“It seems to me at this moment, the only hope of all that I have -desired.” - -Leaning back in infinite weariness, he gazed into the fire, silently. -In the dusky room the fire glow was rosy warm about them, as they sat -in twin chairs before the hearth. Silently the old footman had entered, -and across the room had lighted and turned low a green-shaded lamp. -Lucy sat motionless. A coal slipped down, with a whisper, glowed, and -dimmed to ashes. - -“What have you desired, Henry?” - -The Bishop turned, “You have had all my dreams,” he answered, “so -you know.” A strange mysticism showed upon his face, “I have desired -to-day, to give all that I had to the poor, and to the rich, to the -rich! And I could not!” At her look of puzzled curiosity, he explained -quickly, with a passing smile, “But that is a Christmas secret, between -Dr. Newbold and me. And besides, it is all over, now,--that little -Christmas dream.” Again a long gaze into the fire where one can watch -one’s wishes glowing, dying. “And I have desired most of all, to leave -my work to someone who would understand and carry it on!” - -“Who could understand, Henry,” she whispered, “your work?” - -He turned his head toward her, quick and sunny. “You alone, perhaps, -and therefore you will help him to understand.” - -“How?” - -“By giving him courage, as you have given it to me.” - -“I never gave you courage.” - -“Yes! And so, let me believe, you will give it to him!” - -“Courage for what? Be explicit, dreamer!” - -“Courage to reopen the Southside Mission, and to keep it open,--and -every mission throughout the diocese! Let him know that Westbury stands -by him there!” - -“But if--” she spoke low, “if it doesn’t?” - -There was a stab of pain on the Bishop’s face, and then bright hope, -“Let him know you do! That will be enough! And besides,” he smiled, -“can you not make Westbury do whatever you wish?” - -“I never tried,” she answered musingly, “to make Westbury do anything -it did _not_ wish.” - -“I cannot believe,” he cried, “that it wishes the closing of the -mission. There has been somehow a mistake. It cannot be. It would mean -the going out of a lamp which you and I saw kindled,--it does not seem -to me so very long ago.” - -“It is a lifetime.” - -The light died from the Bishop’s face, leaving on it all the cruelty -of age. “Yes, a lifetime that is over,” for a moment his lips showed -their palsied working, for a moment spoke an old man’s querulousness, -“they could not have closed the mission without my knowing it, if they -had not thought me, already, laid upon the shelf!” - -“Henry,” she pleaded, “not that, please!” - -“No, not that!” he cried, instantly himself and contrite, “we pass, but -the work goes on! I am an old man who has somehow made a failure of it. -But I’ll try not to think of that any more, clouding our Christmasing. -I’ll try just to remember I am leaving Murray Newbold and Westbury, the -two I have loved, to you.” - -“Leaving! But, Henry, you speak as if I were not also old! What time -have I left, for Newbold, for Westbury, more than you?” - -“You will have time,” he answered, while the mysticism again touched -his face, “my head is not clear to-day, but that is one of the things I -seem to know, that you will have time, more than I. Time enough to help -Newbold to learn his own strength. He has never tried it. Time enough -to teach him to fight. A soldier, he’ll not desert,--afterwards. And -time enough to help Westbury rekindle the mission, whose death would -mean--you and I know,” his voice fell and he groped a little for words, -a little confused, “the light must not die, you will have time to keep -the light, to keep Westbury--alive. Your Westbury and mine! I seem to -know to-day,” his low voice, in the twilight, was very clear, “that you -will have time to help the man and the town I have failed to help.” - -“If time were all that is needed, Henry, to help them!” - -Looking into the fire, he did not turn, answering happily, “Whatever -else is needed you possess, and have given to me for sixty years.” - -With the snapping of a lifetime’s tension her voice rang, “Henry, stop -looking into the fire! For sixty years you have looked into dreams. -Now, once, look at me!” - -The Bishop turned. - -Her elfin laugh tinkled, “The fairies were good to you, Henry, they -gave you eyes that do not see.” - -While she spoke, slowly the Bishop saw, but at first he saw only a -girl’s witch-face in the fire glow. - -“I will make you see this once, Henry Collinton--_me_! You look -strange, Henry! As if you couldn’t guess what’s coming. Neither, I -assure you, can I. You called me Lucy Dwight of the long ago,--and -you’ll have to take the consequences! I like you to look strange, for -then you don’t look old! Look young, Henry, and look at me! You are -looking, I believe, at last, with open eyes,--looking at a woman, not -a diocese. Henry, I might say in passing that I did not think once, on -one afternoon we both recall,--but differently!--when we talked about -a mission, that we should still be talking about that mission after -sixty years. You will excuse my changing the subject from your work -for a few moments, then, after sixty years! I’ve been a pretty good -listener--take your turn!” - -She looked no longer at the Bishop, who watched her as if she were -some Christmas sprite risen out of the red hearth. Her white old face, -white-crowned, was touched to rose and gold by the fire flame. - -“Shall I draw you a portrait, Henry, of someone you have never seen? -Yet it is a portrait on constant exhibition. It is shown to every -guest in Westbury,--a private exhibition is called High Tea at Mrs. -Hollister’s. People watch the guest when he sees the portrait; by its -effect he is judged. People point out that the portrait is valuable -historically, since it combines inseparably the style of sixty years -ago with the style of to-day. That is because the picture has been -retouched so carefully from year to year to fit the taste of the times. -So the painting is seen to represent the sixty-year history of a town, -even to costume,” she flashed a white hand from throat to skirt of her -clinging black which looked at first sight so fresh from a fashion -plate and was so carefully studied to fit no decade, and no person, but -her own. - -“Who would ever have thought Lucy Dwight could have stepped into a -picture and stayed there all her life? She did not expect to, once, but -she made up her mind to it, later, when one day she looked in the glass -and took stock of what was left to her. She was twenty then. - -“I am proud of the portrait, frankly. I have enjoyed making it. I -haven’t had anything else to do, except, of course,” a ripple of -laughter ran through her tone, “to listen! The portrait needed a frame, -so I’ve made that, too. Your figure of speech was inaccurate, a while -ago. I am not Westbury. Westbury is the frame; I am the portrait, the -portrait of an interesting old woman, interesting to everybody but -herself!” - -Lucy was an artist, she knew the value of the pause, she knew the -value of a shrug, the most delicate perceptible lifting of brows and -shoulders, she knew the value of hands, that, out of periods of quiet, -flickered now and then, spirit-white against the black shadows of her -gown. An artist, she forgot the Bishop while she talked and did not -look upon the change that grew upon his face. - -“It is very easy to be interesting. It only needs that you always guess -what people are going to say next and never let them guess what you are -going to say next. It needs a gift for words and a gift for silence. -It was the process by which I brought up my children. My children have -always known they did not know their mother, a course of training -easier than spanking and more efficacious.” She stopped a moment. Her -clasped hands tightened, “Yet in ultimate effect, at seventy-seven, a -little lonely. We prefer our Christmases apart, my children and I.” -Her words fell clear against a long silence following, “My husband, of -course, spoiled the children. I was perfectly willing that he should; -they were his children.” - -After a pause, the Bishop, bringing the words forth from far away -murmured, musing, “Fathers do spoil children, perhaps.” - -Her tone turned tense, “I would have spoiled Nan!” then, resuming her -gaze into the fire, upon her portrait, she continued her retrospective -analysis, “And I have managed the town as I have managed my family. -What Mrs. Hollister says, what Mrs. Hollister does not say, about -ministers and missions, about dinners and diners, Westbury waits -to know, and I have never let it be quite, quite sure! So Westbury -watches, watches me--but oh, not as I watch Westbury! For it would be -a little curious and disquieting--if I should cease to be popular! I -don’t think that unpopularity would exactly suit--my physique! I am old -and accustomed to sovereignty, even if it is, well, a bit monotonous! -We were young and lively once, Westbury and I, but now we grow old and -wish to be complacent and comfortable, so we don’t poke at each other’s -consciences. And, indeed, why should we? For are we not pretty good, -when one stops to look at us!” Patriotism deepened her voice, “Where is -there another Westbury! We have kept the heritage of our fathers! We -have not grown cheap in Westbury!” Then a lighter tone, “And how could -we be very bad when we always have had you to idealize us! Ever since -you were a boy! You came to us a stranger and we took you in, at once. -We sometimes do take in the stranger at once, and sometimes never. -Nowadays he must be presented to the portrait, and must pass that -examination. Young Murray Newbold has never passed his, and he knows -it. I believe I rather like to see him squirm, for it is not petty, it -is a giant’s squirming, and I enjoy it because I fancy it has ceased to -be perceptible to any eye but mine. It is interesting to observe the -effect of the air of Westbury on some constitutions. Your young Newbold -would have been worth bringing up once, but he has never learned not -to be afraid, and that brings it about that he has parted with every -good quality he possesses except his brain. That is still with us, -fortunately, for, quite between us, in spite of patriotism, I must say -there are not many brains in active employment in Westbury in these -days (I’m not, of course, so impolitic as to say ‘in these days’ to -anyone but you, Henry!). We have about half-a-dozen brains in Westbury -capable of conversation,--yours and young Newbold’s and mine, I forget -the other three!” Her laugh died into a thoughtful pause. - -“And yet a brain for a woman is a big stupidity. But perhaps I ought -not to quarrel with mine, for,” she drew a quick breath of intensity, -“it has given me all I’ve ever had! Oh, you and I have had some great -old talks, haven’t we, here by my old red fire! Brains make--at -least--good comradeship!” Her voice fell low, “I sometimes wonder if -there is anything better for--men and women--than good comradeship. -What--what do you think, Henry?” But still she looked into the fire and -not at him, and the Bishop did not answer. For a moment his deep gaze -upon her wavered, went to the blackening window,--below there in the -wintry garden long bleak stems broke aflame with wee yellow blossoms, -beneath them little brown Annie walked among the roses. - -“How curiously that holly glistens, Henry!” Lucy’s eyes were upon the -long lean hands transparent to the fire glow, then suddenly in a voice -lingering and judicial, “I really do not know whether it is so very -interesting after all to be an interesting old woman!” - -Lucy’s hands unclasped, fluttered an instant on the chair arms, then -lay still, “Oh, I am bored! And I have been bored for so long! It would -astonish this town of mine to know how it bores me! There is nothing -new for me anywhere! I know what everybody is going to say and do. If -it were not for you, I should even know what I myself am going to say -and do! Oh, dull, dull, dull,--this being old! I wish I had something -to do! I don’t even yet feel old enough to do nothing, yet when have I -ever done anything else?” - -The fire snapped in the stillness of the room, embers leaping up, the -sooner to die to blackened ashes. Lucy’s voice grew low and vibrant. - -“You wonder why I speak these things to-day? It is your own fault, -Henry, my friend! Why do I keep my hearth fire bright except that you -should drop in beside it and talk to me? It is quite the only thing -left that is entertaining. And to-day you yourself threaten that!” Her -voice fell low, “Christmas has always been my day, why this time do -you bring with you these terrible thoughts, this talk of--death! Why -talk of it, the thinking of it is bad enough! Did anyone ever hear me -talk of dying? Except, of course, my lawyer. No, when death takes me, -he must catch me first! I shall never go forth to meet him with plans -and preparations for the things that shall come after,--and why should -you? Why must you talk of your going, speaking as if I could have an -interest in your work without you! Oh, Henry, why did you yourself -bring the spectre to our Christmas fire, where I wanted to be snug and -warm! You are not afraid, but I--I regret to confess it, I am!” Then -her tone grew less intense, determinedly casual, “Yet it is curious -that I should care or really take the trouble to be afraid! I who am -bored to the uttermost! The other will be at least a new thing! But I -have never been fond of games of chance! A picture in a frame is dead -enough, but a coffin is--ugh!--slightly worse! It is so ugly, this -dying! Nobody can ever say I yielded to it before I had to--I have -yielded so far, I flatter myself, to nothing! Yet when I must, I shall -step into my carriage and drive off with my head up and my lips shut, -like a lady! As I have lived!” - -She paused, momentarily conscious of his expression, so that to the -strange intentness of his watching face she went on, “I never have -yielded to the need of a confessional before; if I do so once in a -lifetime, you really must excuse me, Henry! - -“Of course, for you it is different, you are not afraid; you are a man, -and then you have your religion. But a woman is rarely religious, at -least a woman who has not had what she wanted! As a thinking person, I -quite envy you your religion. It is a valuable possession, at this end -of life. Not that I am unorthodox--who is, in our good old churchly -Westbury? I am a good churchwoman,--that does not enable me to see -through a stone wall. Oh, Henry, Henry, here you come to-day, looking -so pale that I can’t bear it, and talking of going, passing on, leaving -your work! You have made me feel how near we are, you and I, to that -stone wall. I am sitting here shivering at the strange things on the -other side!” - -No light but the ebbing fire and the clear green lamp, and somewhere -outside in the darkness stars above the swift rush of the river. - -“It is this that makes me talk. The time is so short, here, and over -there--who knows about over there? One speaks out at last, I find, -after being good for sixty years. For I have been good, have I not, -Henry, for sixty years,--listened and listened, helped, as you believe, -your work? It has been a great thing to be jealous of so great a work! -Did you really think my mind was in it, that I really cared,--I!--for -missions, for making men over, for turning a town right about face! - -“I never expected to speak out; pictures in frames do not expect to -speak out. Yet I might have known, for sooner or later everyone does -speak out to you. I’ve been rather proud of being the one exception. -But is it not my turn? And yours to listen, to me, just once, at last? -You are surprised, I suppose. I am afraid I do not care that you are. I -had to open your eyes. You speak as if I existed only to carry on your -work--it has always been like that. So I’ve drawn you a portrait. Do -you still think, looking at it, that I am the one to give you hope, I! -What do you think, Henry Collinton, of the portrait of Lucy Dwight?” - -Her strangely gleaming eyes at last met the Bishop’s deep gaze, -profound, unfaltering. There was stillness, then the Bishop spoke, in -quiet judgment on himself, “My work? Yet I had hoped that it seemed -God’s. And for sixty years I have thought that you loved it!” - -“I have loved you!” - -There was no old age for them now, no past, no future. Beyond the room -that briefly held them were night and the river and death. She was Lucy -Dwight of the flickering fire flame, who laid bare at the last her -deathless desire. The man she loved was God’s, was all men’s. After a -lifetime of delicate sanity, she cried out to him to be for one hour -hers. Then she waited. - -The singular clarity of the Bishop’s brain had annulled for him every -other emotion. He no longer felt any shock of revelation. The lucidity -of his thinking was like a physical sensation of actual daylight in the -room and beyond the windows. He saw the past as if it had been written -in a foreign tongue and with a new meaning, but he saw it as plainly as -black print on white paper. The woman before him was one whom he had -never known, but he read her soul, too, clear as a printed page. So -strangely clear his head, it seemed to him he could have laid his hand -on that wall of death Lucy had talked of, that it would have crumbled -at his touch, leaving him standing on the other side, in this same new -daylight, serene and unsurprised. So crystal his thoughts that words -seemed to him a remote and frivolous medium, like a grown man’s being -forced to rediscover his baby-lisp in order to make himself understood. -His personal pain had become merely a matter for reflection and limpid -analysis. Carried far on thought that ran deep and wide, the Bishop -spoke, hardly conscious of his words, “But love _loves_! It does not -hurt! You knew me and my faith in you and my hope through you. If you -had loved me, would you have destroyed for me that faith and hope? -Would you not have taken from my hand my boy and my town, to take care -of and to help, if you had loved me?” - -They seemed to sit there as if looking on these words, in a silence -that grew palpitant. Then her cry broke, “Henry, I can be all that you -have believed, I can promise to try to do all that you desire. If you -ask me to do it for you! Do you?” - -All in that strange daylight within his brain, the Bishop saw the -future, saw his work die with him. In the same white light he saw the -woman before him whom he had never known. - -Lucy waited. God’s or hers? Yet why had she loved him except because -he had never been hers? The Bishop’s gaze rested upon her in a far -tranquillity of insight. - -“No.” - -He sat there, quiet as a portrait before her gaze, and all alone. She -had desired to rouse him from bodily weakness, and there was about -him now no taint of feebleness. He sat erect, his long hands tranquil -but not flaccid. A smile touched his lips, so fine and firm, a man’s -smile, not a child’s; a smile of thought in retrospect, neither bright -nor bitter. He had believed his lonely life cheered by a beautiful -friendship, so sacred that he had supposed it hallowed the shrines of -his God, of his wife, even as he did. This friendship had not been what -he thought it. Truth was well. He had no friend. There remained God. - -“Henry!” - -He looked over to her with a far, alien pity. - -“Have I lost you, Henry? I was never mad before. To keep you I have -been for a lifetime so frightfully wise! Have I lost you now?” - -Involuntarily he shut his eyes, the faintest line was pencilled between -his brows. Pain struck home again through all that serenity of light. -If there was one thing Henry Collinton, the man, loved, it was reserve, -the delicate stateliness of their mutual sympathy. Yet here was the -nakedness of a woman’s soul! Words seemed to him too far away to find -or utter. - -“Henry, sometimes you seem to me to see only God!” - -Still he sat before her, silent and motionless as a portrait statue, as -austere and beautiful. His face was in profile to her. The firelight -fell on his silver-white hair and filled the eyes that did not turn or -see her. Still she seemed to him changed into a stranger. But her words -sounded in his head, “Sometimes you seem to see only God!” The Bishop -put up his right hand to his brow, suddenly veiling his face from her. -Against the strange recoil from her his quick prayer throbbed. So long -Lucy gazed at that corded old hand that shut him from her that there -grew at last on her face also, a marble sternness that matched his own. -She was no longer beautiful beneath that blighting cynicism. Behind -his lifted hand, the Bishop did not guess his testing, alone with God -as he sat there, praying against this quivering repulsion of his soul. -At last Lucy’s eyes turned from him to the fire. The smile of a faint -scorn caught on her lips! Scorn for herself? Scorn for him? Sixty years -of loving? Was this its issue? - -Silence, except for the whispering fire. - -The Bishop dropped his hand, leaning back a moment in uttermost relief. -From head to foot, he felt, all quietly, some stern tension relaxed, -and with it there passed away also something of that intensely clear -vision he had just experienced. Looking now toward that other chair by -the fire, he knew it was no stranger but the old familiar Lucy seated -there, his friend, and how tired she looked and white and lonely! He -must try to understand. It was very strange to realize it all, but -step by step he must try to understand, even though he felt again now -suddenly, and far more certainly, the shutting in upon him of the -vagueness and dullness of the morning hours. He cried out to the Friend -to hold it at bay a little while that he might talk to Lucy. He smiled -over to her sunnily. - -As she looked into his eyes that blighting scorn was transformed into -a tremulous new beauty, her brooding face suddenly puckered with the -painful tears of age. - -“Henry, tell me how to live without you! Give it to me this Christmas -Day, that gift of hope!” - -“I would,” he answered slowly, “if I could! But I haven’t been so -very successful in my gift-giving to-day. So I don’t feel very sure -of myself. You’ll be patient, won’t you, while I try to understand?” -Slowly and humbly he felt his way, with wistful pauses. “There is so -much that is new to me, to understand.” Deep in thought he gazed into -the past. “You have been very patient with me. I see now how often I -have been self-absorbed and selfish, bringing it all to you, every -worry. I have taken,--I see it now--much sympathy and given very -little. It’s a little late, isn’t it, after sixty years, to ask you to -excuse it?” He shook his head with a strange, sad little smile. “How I -have talked to you! Always! It must indeed have seemed to you a long, -long listening! I am sorry!” - -“But I am not sorry, Henry!” - -“No!” his face brightened. “For if I have been self-absorbed, you at -least can remember that you have been very good to me. That helps, does -it not?” he pleaded quickly. “That thought helps a little toward cheer? -For as I try to understand, I do not seem able to look back and read -my life without you. You have always strengthened me. You have never -failed me.” - -“Until to-day?” - -Her whisper sent a shiver of hurt along his lips, but in a moment he -achieved steadiness, holding self at bay. “That!” his breath caught, -then low words that grew calm, “But as you said, it is perhaps my turn -now, to listen to you. It is only fair, as you said, that I should -listen and see, at last.” - -“I never meant you to see. I always knew what would happen if you did.” -Her voice throbbed through the dusky room, with strange finality, “And -now it _has_ happened!” - -His eyes met hers, crystal clear, “Nothing has happened,” he said -simply; “I think nothing ever happens, does it, to friends?” - -There was a strange wondering relief upon her keen white face, as she -listened for his words, seeing the old boyish mysticism brighten in -his eyes. “But let me keep on trying to understand. They cannot be -very easy to bear, the things you have been telling me about, all that -I have been so dull and slow to guess. It will never do for either of -us to let Christmas day go out in the blues. The air seemed full of -good cheer this morning; we mustn’t lose that, you and I, just because -we are being drawn into the evening. You have been cheer itself to me -through all these years; if only I knew the word to say to you now! My -thoughts don’t feel very clear or manageable, but you know I want to -find the right word! You who have always known what to say to me.” He -fell thoughtful and silent, then looked up quickly, “You see it was -for that reason that I couldn’t help asking you to look after Murray, -because I knew what you had done for me. I have had every hope for -him, and you know how hard it is for me to give up a thing I have -hoped for,--that is why I caught at your friendship for him as the one -security now. I thought perhaps there would be for you the pleasure -in his brain, in his strength, that I have felt. But no, now I see it -cannot be. It would all be too hard on you. I know, of course,” he -sighed, “Murray’s faults. I’ve cared too much for him not to know them; -that was another reason, my love for him, that made me want to feel -that I was leaving him to you, to help him through--what lies before -him. But now I see it would be painful and difficult for you--one man -who has always brought you all the worry of his work has been enough! -And even to-day I have been bringing it all to you still, troubling you -with my work and worry and Murray and Westbury! Lucy, believe me, I -never meant to be selfish with it! I see at last that I have been. - -“And Westbury,--shall we leave that subject quiet, too, as being -troublesome to-day? And the Southside Mission and all the other -missions, and the spirit that enkindles them, and must be kept alive -here and everywhere--one tries to keep the fire alight, but one must -go some day, trusting, hoping, not _knowing_, for that is too much to -ask! I will try not to trouble you with all that, any more, to-day. It -was a good deal, wasn’t it, to ask you to keep a whole town--alive! -One of my dreams! Such incorrigible dreams they must seem to you, I’m -afraid. I am always looking into dreams, you said. And perhaps my -Westbury is all a dream, for it has always seemed to me one of the holy -places. It does not seem, when you talk, to be that to you. You see, -I thought we were one in our love for it,--that is why I talked of -leaving it to you--it all sounds now, doesn’t it, a little fantastic? -Have I always lived in fantasy then? Are you showing me truth at the -last, Lucy?” - -His voice ceased, weary. His face looked forth from the shadow depths, -worn to silver-white by all the years, then, even as he paused, hope -ran across it a bright transforming hand. - -“It cannot be true! It need not be true! Need it, Lucy? I seem to -see--forgive me one more dream,--Murray with you to help him, still -keeping Westbury the Westbury of our youth. Of our youth! The old -customs, the way of graceful living, you have kept! And now to keep -the spirit, the spirit of the place, its simple godliness, its simple -friendliness! It has seemed to me God’s ground, where He let me walk a -little while and serve and then pass on, hoping! Hoping, Lucy? - -“For you, there is so much left!” he spoke a bit wistfully. “Such -vigor still and life left in you! It does not matter if the years left -are few and late, if they can be so strong and beautiful! While, as -for me--” he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders, smiling, “oh, -these poor old bodies that we wear, how they fetter and confine! Yet -we mustn’t scorn them too much either, poor things, when they’ve done -their best for us for eighty years!” - -Something in her listening face recalled him, “Dear me, I am at it -again! Troubling you again with the things that shall come after. It -was only that I saw before you for a moment--so much! I seem to see -so much everywhere, to-day. And yet much of it is sadly jumbled. Your -brain never seems to play these sorry tricks on you. You’re feeling -patient still, aren’t you,” he smiled, “while I try still to remember -and understand?” - -Slowly keenness grew in his gaze upon her face, mute before him and -subtle. His words were a little hesitant, “I do not believe it is quite -true, that figure of a portrait. It hurts us both to think about that -portrait, because it is not true. Truly, I think my idea was better -than that, that you are the spirit of the place. Yes, I prefer my -figure of speech to yours, and so I shall keep it and forget yours. We -have known each other too long to believe in that portrait,--it’s such -a lonesome notion, somehow! Perhaps you feel like a portrait yourself -sometimes when you’re sitting alone by the fire and feeling a little -down, as we all do sometimes, I’m afraid, but you surely couldn’t -expect me to believe you a picture in a frame when for a lifetime -you’ve seemed life and energy to me! So remember,” an instant his voice -grew lower, “always remember--” the old twinkle showed, “that I don’t -believe a word of it!” - -He knew that her eyes, at full gaze on him, frankly showed all secrets, -but they were secrets he was not sure he read. Still he was trying to -understand, while he paused for help. - -“You did not quite mean, did you, that the dullness, the boredom, is -all the time present with you? Only sometimes? It is very puzzling -to believe ennui of you who seem so alert. You are very brave at -concealing it,--you must know the remedy better than I do, for it is -one of the things that have not been chosen for me to bear, for I still -get up in the morning expecting new things to happen. I did this very -day.” - -Involuntary mocking pulled at her lips. “New things _are_ happening to -us both to-day!” - -“Yes!” he murmured, while his face was shadowed, then reverting, “To be -dull every day! It seems to me almost the saddest thing you have said -to me! I wish it were not so! I wish I had the right word to say for -that!” - -He sat silent, hesitant and doubtful. - -“Henry, say out to me all that you have in mind to say. I need it. -There are no veils left!” - -His face grew clear with light. - -“You are looking into dreams again!” she cried, “but now tell me what -you see!” - -“What I see for you?” - -“Yes, that belongs to me now.” - -“I think I see for you what might be,” he began hesitant. -“Mysteriously, there is in you still the power of effort together with -the power of wisdom. It seems to me that it is like a cup in your hand, -your influence. And if it should be all in vain,--I know to-day that -much we desire to do must be in vain. We understand that together, you -and I. I feel, you know, as if the soul of a man and the soul of a town -were in your keeping for a little while,--if you should take them, -might it not be that new thing you want? Might it not bring you joy and -forgetting? My work has meant that to me. And I know it is very lonely -if one never forgets. And even if it were all in vain, might it not be -life and hope to you, Lucy? I do not want to preach any preachments, -you know that, surely. I can only tell you what I have lived. Perhaps -I have never lived in reality--I half guess it this evening, looking -back, and looking forward, seeing all that I have not done. It isn’t -very easy to grow old, not easy for anyone to feel the body breaking -beyond mending, and to see all that is unfinished, but I believe, Lucy, -an enthusiasm is the one thing to keep us warm, us old ones. I’ve done -a plentiful amount of failing, but I wish I could succeed in one thing -now,--I wish God would let me give you the word of joy to-night!” - -It was so quiet in the old room, that low-lighted space, four-square, -swung out upon the night. The Bishop’s long fingers passed slowly -across his brow, trying to smooth away that darkness which seemed -shutting in upon his brain. - -“And might not effort new and different help you to forget, Lucy, that -wall of death? Perhaps you might be so busy, so joyously busy, that you -would come quite to the wall without seeing, and the gate would open -so quickly that you would step through without waiting to be afraid. I -wish God might let it be that way with you. Perhaps He will. Strange -that for me death has always seemed easier than life, so that I’ve -tried not to look at the thought of it too much, not because of fear, -because of beauty. It is only lately that I have felt that God will not -mind if I look toward the gate. I think perhaps he’ll excuse me now, -for wanting to get home. They’ve been waiting for me pretty long, too, -Annie and Nan and the baby. He must be a man now. I often wonder by -what ways they grow up over there. - -“Lucy, I wish you need not be afraid of going home.” - -Again the Bishop passed his hand over his forehead. He felt himself -growing vague, tried blindly to remember what he was trying to say, -turned to her at length, appealing, with a strange little smile of -apology. - -“There is something I am trying to say, but somehow I keep losing it. -Can you possibly excuse me if you try quite hard? For I know you’ve -told me something this afternoon that I ought never to have forgotten, -and somehow, Lucy, it’s gone, it fades, it escapes me! Only it was -something that troubled you and that I was trying to understand. But -I can’t, I can’t remember! But I wanted to say something to help a -little, I remember that part of it. Lucy, for you and me, is that -enough, even if I can’t remember what it was all about? - -“There is just one thing I can find the words for, before they slip -away,--you and I have had to walk through life alone, and yet we have -walked together. It was because God walked with us that we have walked -together. Lucy, you will remember, whatever happens, that He is always -there? And so, that way, you see, we can never be so very far apart!” - -They are piteous, the tears of age. Lucy pressed them back with ivory -finger-tips on each eyelid, her hands masking all her face. Behind them -stretched the long past, the brief future. The key to the future was -in her broken whisper, “After all, God was just; Annie was fit to love -you!” - -But the Bishop had risen suddenly, and crossed the room blindly, -stumbling but once. The crashing pain in his head left only one -instinct--air, the street, his own house! Instantly he must get there! -Then sharp through his own pain came admonishment. He steadied himself -with one hand upon the mahogany table where the green lamp stood. It -was the close of his Christmas, he remembered; would it go with no -reassurance? - -The white panelled doorway behind him, he stood there by the low green -lamp. His face was all longing, like a little child’s. - -“Lucy, I tried; have I given you--hope?” - -The Bishop’s voice was low, lower than he knew, and it is sometimes -impossible to hear or to speak. It was a long time before Lucy’s hands -dropped from a face a-quiver. She looked about, startled to know -herself alone when she felt only him, everywhere. - -But quietly the outer door had closed. - - - - -PART IV - - -Stars thridded the bare elm-boughs overhead. Always against the -blackness of the next corner loomed a blurred ball of light, which, -on approach, turned into a familiar street lamp. The broad avenue was -almost deserted. From blurred light to light ran a space of pavement -blessedly firm to hurrying, uncertain feet, yet lights and pavement -seemed to multiply and stretch away indefinitely. But if one hurried, -hurried on, there was someone waiting at the end. - -Sometimes, against the dark faces of the housefronts, window-shades -were rolled up, like eyelids opening, on home-pictures that reminded -the Bishop it was Christmas night. The morning of the day gleamed -through mist like one of the street lamps he was passing. Faces kept -forming close against his eyes and then melted again into gray, into -black, Mrs. Graham’s and Murray’s and Lucy’s, suffering, lonely faces -that had been locked against his pleading. Now there only remained to -get home. - -A street of black housefronts, closed upon good cheer within, the -Bishop’s own street, any door of which would have opened readily to -his need, had anyone guessed it! But illness had left in his brain -only a great homing instinct. He knew he must not stop along the way, -because like all other men in all the world on Christmas-night, he, -too, had his own, and there, at home, his own were waiting for him. -For at last he knew why he was hurrying so, it was because Annie was -there, at home. He might not find her below in the hall, but she would -be upstairs, listening for him and waiting. He knew that when his key -turned, he should hear her voice, liquid and sweet with welcome, come -floating down the shadowy stair, “Up here! I’m up here, Hal!” - -Yet when at length the Bishop did press his key into the lock, the -house was silent and the hallway unlighted and chilly. Still Annie’s -presence seemed all-pervasive, catching him back to older days, -and making him, as he groped for a match and lighted the gas-jet, -forget to wonder why Mrs. Graham had not returned or to surmise the -train missed for the baby’s sake. As he hung overcoat and hat on a -peg of the towering black-walnut rack, his face being reflected to -unseeing eyes in the glimmering mirror, the familiarity of the action -and the security of his own hallway and open study door steadied -and strengthened him. He had got home safe and sound after all, and -now before climbing up to bed and undertaking all the weariness of -undressing, he would put on his old black velvet dressing gown, and -would sit down in the dark, in the sagging old leather armchair, and -rest a little, and look out on the stars in the band of night-sky -stretching below the rim of the piazza roof. - -The door into the hall, slightly ajar, allowed a little light to enter -the room, showing the seated figure facing the long eastward window, -the black velvet gown sweeping from throat to foot, and the long pale -hands stretching out on the chair arms from the wide black cuffs. Hair -and profiled face gleamed silver-white in the gloom. From to time the -Bishop’s right hand moved to pull the folds more closely over his -knees, unconsciously, for he did not know that he was cold. Down below, -under the rear piazza, at the grated iron door of the basement kitchen, -the man who tended the furnace had set the whirring bell sounding again -and again, but all unheeded. The two maids, returning, rang and knocked -at all the doors, only to go away, baffled. The Bishop heard no sounds -from without. - -Near the Bishop’s left hand, the corner by the window where the Friend -was standing always harbored Annie’s work basket. It stood on three -bamboo legs, an ample, covered basket, in which the old darning cotton -was still, as long ago, a little tangled. Looking toward that little -workstand the Bishop remembered that it was Annie he was sitting up to -wait for. She was coming in very soon. Or was it Nan he was awaiting? -Or someone else? - -The flowing lines of the Nazarene’s talith melted into the folds of -the long curtain close to which He was standing. He was looking forth, -together with the Bishop, on the Bishop’s town, where he had failed. -Too tired to think about that any more, the Bishop only knew that the -Friend understood failure. The little quick upward smile showed like a -spent child’s, too tired to do anything but trust. - -Yet the Bishop’s thought, in retrospect upon his Christmas Day, was -strangely clear, as he looked out on that familiar picture, white stars -above in the night-blue and, below, the blackness gemmed by ruddier -earth-lights. So dark now, yet so bright with sun and hope in the -Christmas morning! His thought went out to the unseen houses, each -holding a little group of his friends, following them to the bend of -the river until his fancy walked once more among the tenements where he -knew the brown babies with their great black eyes, his friends, too. - -Of late he had so often looked out on his little city wrapped in night, -but not as now. Before, he had been thinking of his Christmas gift, -the House of Friendship, which should, in the terms of some strange -symbolism, give back to Westbury the beauty it had once given him. But -this was not to be. He was quite clear about it all, and quiet. It was -night now, and he had not done any of the things he had meant to do -in the morning. He had not even gone to church. God’s chalice! He had -not been able on this Christmas Day to offer it to one soul in all his -Westbury! - -All day long his hands had been baffled of their gift-giving. That -was sometimes God’s way, the Bishop knew, as he leaned back in this -strange, expectant peace. Suddenly, sharp as paintings torch-lit -against a gloom, there passed before him again, as on the black street, -those three faces out of his Christmas Day: Mrs. Graham’s, black hate -scarcely lighted by love for that little Christmas baby; Newbold’s, -storm-tossed upon a struggle that gave no presage of victory; and -Lucy’s, seamed with the subtleties of a loneliness that could not see -the only help for lonely living. These three faces were, God in his -mystery had showed him to-day, only the symbols of his larger failure, -in his town, in his diocese. His little garden space hedged in for him -out of all the world, he had tended it with much love but with little -wisdom. So God would have to take care of it now. - -Sharp again, just as the three faces had flashed forth out of darkness -and passed close against the Bishop’s eyes, came other visions and -pictures, those of his Christ-child poem of the morning. Only now it -was no sacred city of the Orient, but the dumb and sleeping streets of -Westbury where the Child went wandering. As before, he knocked, all -eager, and again opening doors flashed ruddy on the night, to close -again with a low dull sound. On and on he fled, a glimmering baby-form -blown on the winter wind, until the Bishop’s eyes closed wearily from -following. He opened them with a twitch of pain, and there without, -close against the dark sash the Child was standing, not sad at all, but -sweet and smiling. Then instantly this picture, like the others, faded, -and again the Bishop knew himself with the familiarity of unnumbered -silent nights like this one, seated alone in his study, quiet with -the peace of the Friend. Through all the solitary hours of all the -solitary years, the Friend had always stood there, clear-figured, by -the eastward window. - -The night was wearing on as the Bishop sat, waiting. Very soon they -would be there. He remembered that he had been looking for them all -the day. It would be very cosy to have them coming in on Christmas -night--his own! - -But at the chiming of those two words through his brain, thought -sharply asserted itself, keen and crystalline in retrospect. As a man -brings all his life to God at the end, the Bishop looked into the -Nazarene’s eyes from the picture of the little city that belonged to -them both, whispering, “But those out there have been my own.” - -Presently the silvered head sank back in the sudden drowsiness that -falls upon the very old, but even as he yielded to it, the Bishop’s -eyelids flickered an instant. He looked again toward the Friend, -forever clear against the curtained window. He lifted his right hand a -little, like a child, not knowing how confident it was. Too tired and -sleepy to be conscious of anything at all but that Presence that filled -all the room, the Bishop murmured happily, “And I have not been lonely!” - -The Bishop did not actually doze off, however, but sat resting quietly -in the peaceful borderland of sleep. The threadbare house that -harbored him was very silent. From time to time, across his dim worn -face, fancies flickered, bright as a caged bird’s dreaming. Out of the -engulfing vagueness of his brain, Annie came to him, the child-woman of -long ago. His boat was rocking at the little pier waiting, as she came -tripping down the terraces. He saw the upward sweep of the round young -arms as she opened the high wrought-iron gate. She wore a white muslin -sprigged with yellow, wide-skirted and flounced. The live brown of her -hair was swept back into a net. Her face was soft olive and rose, her -lips parted, and the eyes grave and steady, a child’s. On either side -about the high black portals of the gate pulsed and flamed wee yellow -roses. Slim, sturdy boy that he was, something had shaken him in that -moment like a tossed leaf. Even now, old and dim in his chair, it was -not the sense of her lips beneath his sudden ones that he remembered; -it was that there in that instant he saw her eyes change forever to a -woman’s. And the boy, all a-quiver with strong youth as he was, he, -too, in that moment had changed into a man, a man forever reverent -before the mystery he had wakened. The Bishop’s hand tightened on the -chair arm, for he remembered that at last, at last, Annie was coming -back to him. He was waiting for her to come in. - -Again thought shifted many a year; and he sat expectant of a knock, -light, imperative, merry, Nan’s evening knock. The door swung in and -she entered, that tall, slim girl of his. She wore a white dress girt -about in the absurd panniers of the eighties. Her dark hair was looped -low at her neck. She had her mother’s brooding brown eyes lightened by -her father’s twinkle. She sank on a hassock at his knee, folding her -long figure up in a trick of grace she had. - -“Ready to hear a secret, father?” - -As on so many, many evenings, he was ready to hear a secret, the -secrets a motherless girl may tell to her father. The Bishop remembered -still one secret she had told him which had seemed to be a fine silk -thread cutting his heart in two, for the father, listening, knew that -the man Nan loved was not worthy of her. Then a tiny smile touched the -worn old lips, a smile of pride, half-jealous, at the memory that it -was her father, not her husband, that Nan had first told about her -little baby. The father’s blood, even now, beat faster at the thought -of that remembered hope. Then again he saw the wee waxen form on Nan’s -arm. But instantly mysterious glad expectancy swept that sight from -him as he recalled that even now he was listening for Nan’s tap-tap at -his study door, Nan, once more coming to tell him a secret, a secret -blithe, unguessed. - -The house had ceased to be silent; there were movings, stirrings, -voices, through it. They seemed to be without, on the stairs, and -above, in the upper rooms. There were people on the stairs, mounting up -and up on jocund feet. The Bishop heard it perfectly clear now, Annie’s -voice from his bedroom overhead, “Up here, I’m up here, Hal!” - -But listen! There on the hallstair, that was surely a child he heard -now! It was little Nan, chuckling and chattering as she climbed. It was -her old merry challenge to her father to be out and after her as up she -scampered. Yet no, that was not Nan, that merry call was a boy’s, a -baby’s,--it was Nan’s baby-boy, who had just learned to go upstairs. -The Bishop heard the small ecstatic feet, the slap of exultant little -palms on each step achieved. And, like little Nan, the brave wee -grandson meant the Bishop to follow him, as on he scurried, up and up, -where the stairs were multiplied, were mounting, ever higher, higher. - -Again the sounds on the stair changed to other footfalls, lighter, -firmer, surer, but like the others, very glad; fleet and pattering, -pattering, spirit-light, the steps of the little Christ-Child, going -home. - -A slight tremor ran through the length of the form seated there, silver -and black. Suddenly all mist was wiped from the Bishop’s brain, leaving -it clear. The Nazarene laid his hand on the window-sash, as if opening -a door. “Rise!” He said, “Let us go forth into the morning.” - -Beyond the silent house, Westbury slept on, the star-lit, throbbing -city, not knowing. The deep sleep of the earliest dawn held those three -faces of the Bishop’s failure, sleep of victors, spent with struggle. -In the morning they would awaken, the three the Bishop had loved, to -know! In the morning all Westbury would awaken, to know,--that there -was only one way to love him now! - -In the house of each heart that must perforce hold his memory like a -shrine, there could never be any chamber for hate. Through the gift of -his three years’ presence should the grandmother hold to her breast her -baby’s baby, until love, overflowing, should enfold that black-mooded -woman, her son’s wife, and both, being mothers, should learn the way of -peace by guiding there the little feet of a little child. This, himself -all unwitting, should be the Bishop’s immortal gift. - -Even so, by divine largess of life given to life, should Murray Newbold -become the Bishop’s spiritual son. Henceforth, always--instant, -insistent--should the Bishop’s presence seem near him at every -turning-point, compelling, as in the darkened study on that last day of -all their days together. - -And the woman who had loved the boy, Henry Collinton, she, too, -through his gift of a beauty steadfast to the end, should in the last -brief years find ease of her lifelong hunger. In unspoken kinship of -loneliness must they draw near now, the man and the woman who had -walked closest to him, to rear together his last wish. Deathless as -dream should rise the House of Friendship, for, passing, the Bishop -had found the way to give himself. It is only a little city where he -offered the chalice of his spirit, and only a little space his whole -bishopric, yet all the world is richer for the gift of his Christmas -soul. - -Westbury shall know now,--shining old face beneath the shabby hat, -stooping old shoulders beneath the worn cape overcoat, spent old feet -that walked these careless streets--Westbury shall know now, their -Bishop, passed from them, their own forever. - -Yet these things the Bishop did not know, for God was showing him more -beautiful things, even as all his life He had been showing him the -things that are more beautiful than fulfilment. All happily he sat -there in his old study chair, looking toward the eastward window. - -His face had changed to a beauty of light. Gently on the chair arms -rested the lean old hands, as very softly the gray room brightened at -the coming of the dawn. - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - -Page 93: “that I did when” changed to “than I did when” - -Page 115: “Murry Newbold” changed to “Murray Newbold” - -Page 126: “vagueness and dulness” changed to “vagueness and dullness” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Christmas Bishop</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Winifred Kirkland</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Louise G. Morrison</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 22, 2022 [eBook #68590]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP ***</div> - - - - - -<h1>THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP</h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img001"> - <img src="images/001.jpg" class="w50" alt="Sometimes, against the dark faces of the housefronts, window shades -were rolled up, like eyelids opening, on home-pictures that reminded -the Bishop it was Christmas night" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center caption">Sometimes, against the dark faces of the housefronts, window shades -were rolled up, like eyelids opening, on home-pictures that reminded -the Bishop it was Christmas night<br /><i>See <a href="#Page_140">page 140</a></i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="vbig">The Christmas Bishop</span></p> -<p class="center p2"> -<span class="small">BY</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="big">WINIFRED KIRKLAND</span><br /> -<br /> -<i>Author of “Introducing Corinna,” “The Home-Comers,” etc.</i><br /> -</p><p class="center p2"> -<span class="small">ILLUSTRATED BY</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="big">LOUISE G. MORRISON</span></p> -<p class="center p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img002"> - <img src="images/002.jpg" class="w10" alt="Publisher mark" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p4">BOSTON<br /> -<span class="big">SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY</span><br /> -PUBLISHERS<br /> -</p> - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - - -<p class="center p2 small"> -Copyright, 1913<br /> -By SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY<br /> -(Incorporated)</p> -<p class="center p4"> -THE VAIL-BALLOU <abbr title="company">CO.</abbr>,<br /> -<span class="smcap small">Binghamton, <abbr title="New York">N. Y.</abbr></span><br /> -</p></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak vbig" id="THE_CHRISTMAS_BISHOP">THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP</h2> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I">PART I</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Christmas morning, blue-black, pricked with stars against the Bishop’s -window panes. Westbury lay asleep beside its curving river, the great -old houses with gardens that ran terraced to the bank, the churches, -the college, even the new teeming tenements at the bending of the -water, all lay asleep in the Christmas dawning. The Bishop alone was -awake, and against the darkness before his eyes pictures raced. He had -been a poet once, so long ago that when sometimes they sang his hymns -in church he had forgotten they were his, but he still kept the poet’s -trick of thinking in pictures during those strangely alert moments -between sleep and full awakening. The pictures fell into the march of a -poem.</p> - -<p>It was a storied city built upon two hills cleft<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> by a valley. -On the twin crests towered great palaces and a temple. Where the -hills sank toward the north, there were terraced streets and narrow -climbing byways. There were markets and booths and all the signs of -multitudinous life, but throughout all the place one heard no sound, -saw nothing that moved, yet one knew that the whole city throbbed with -the pulse-beats of innumerable homes. A gray pall hung low, as if the -abrupt Oriental dawn had been arrested; the gray dimmed the marble of -the palaces, and dulled the temple gold. In the silent gloom one waited.</p> - -<p>One did not know whence he had come, the Child who was suddenly there, -in the streets of that city without stars, a sacred city once; but -wherever he knocked upon the portal, quickly all within woke to life, -and became a teeming, bustling household; again, when he withdrew, all -was once more silence and darkness.</p> - -<p>He was a tiny child, barefoot and pale, some little lost waif from the -mountains who had come seeking his kinsfolk among the homes. So fast -he pattered over the pavement that his pale hair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> and his white tunic -streamed upon the wind. His little yearning hands stretched out showed -fair as a baby’s in that wintry twilight. Ever and again he knocked and -entered, and always, entering, his face flamed with hope, and always, -coming forth, he was sobbing, for he found no welcome.</p> - -<p>On and on he went, while each black street along which he hurried was -stabbed ever and again by the opening and shutting of a ruddy door. -In the silence one heard it plain, the heavy sound of a door that -closed because it did not know him. At length he had passed the city -portals and was mounting the hill-slope that is Golgotha, a form all -pale upon the dark, blown hair and robe and pattering feet. There the -Child turned, for it seemed he was the little Prince of that city, -and all the folk his kin. Rising a-tiptoe he stretched out his hands, -cross-wise, to them in love, and suddenly the sun, withheld, leaped -kingly above the hills beyond Jordan, and the silent air was full of -wings and of voices, the chant of the Christmas angels singing home the -Homeless One, and in that flood of light and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> song all that city knew -the Child they had lost their own, forever.</p> - -<p>Slowly, before the Bishop’s eyes, that gold radiance dimmed into the -bleak gray twilight that was stealing over his room. Sharp as life -shall strike at visions came a sound from below that struck the dreamy -smile from his lips, leaving a twitching pain; certain sounds had that -power of intolerable renewal. A homely enough sound, merely the thud -of a lid dropped upon a flour bin, but it seemed now to be a flour bin -in a doll-house pantry in their first Rectory, his and Annie’s. He -would seek her there before going out to his parish calls. She would be -standing with her back to him, hands deep in dough, and would turn to -him her cheek, olive that always went rose beneath his kiss. He could -still hear the catch of her breath as she whispered good-by, for Annie, -deeply joyous, had yet always treated joy a little apprehensively, -as if knowing it would not last so very long. Looking back over many -years, the Bishop thought how young Annie had been when she died, and -Nan had been younger still. Nan! There it was again! That flash<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> of hot -pain through his head, followed by a numbing dullness, even stranger -to bear. He had felt this several times of late. The Bishop ran a hand -over his forehead. He seemed to be floating far, without thought, yet -this was not sleep. Slowly, slowly, he drew back, but his thoughts -were heavy, not clear. He seemed to lie there waiting, waiting for -something. Surely thus he had always waited on Christmas morning. He -listened. It would come in a moment. There! A scurry along the hall, -the clatter of the door-handle, a rush, a jump, curls, lips, bubbling -chuckles, little cold toes to be warmed in his hand! Hear the shouts -and the singing of her, feel the pummelling of her little hands!</p> - -<p>“Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!” shrilling straight up to the angels! -Was she not Christmas joy turned mad, his little girl!</p> - -<p>He was full awake now. His lips formed a word. We are very weary of old -pain repeated when we whisper out to God like that.</p> - -<p>The Bishop wondered why people say that one grows used to loss, and -that old age grows dull in feeling. Still he had got used to it, of -course.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> This was Christmas, too; it was quite natural that he should -feel it more on Christmas. He must be a little patient then with -himself about it, perhaps, on Christmas. Yet when had there been a day -when he had not missed them, his own!</p> - -<p>The Bishop turned toward the eastward window, and on his gray and -beautiful face fell the gray and beautiful morning, for the Bishop was -one who had made God a habit, so that he turned to Him instinctively -without thinking about it at all. And since also he was a man of quick -visual imagination he thought of God quite simply: he saw Him standing -there, between the bed and the brightening window, in the form of a -young Jewish rabbi. He always stood there, to greet the Bishop’s day. -Together they always went about, step matching step, so that the Bishop -was never a lonely man. To himself he always thought of the Nazarene as -the Friend, because, so he thought, it was by loneliness that Jesus had -learned how to love. Since the Bishop always thought in words and in -pictures, it seemed to him that the Friend said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> to him now, “Rise. Let -us go forth into the morning. It is Christmas. It is the day of giving.”</p> - -<p>While he dressed, the Bishop still knew God standing there, but felt -rather than seen, being lost sometimes in mist and dizziness. The -spaces in the room were strange; it was a very long journey to the -washstand, and the white window squares seemed to advance and then -recede. The Bishop could see his brush plainly enough on the bureau -scarf, but it was a long time before he could make his hand reach it. -He had to smile quaintly at himself at last, for he was sitting on -the bed mechanically counting the flower baskets in the worn Brussels -carpet, flower baskets that ran diagonally to the chair holding his -coat. Groping a little, the Bishop achieved the coat, then stood -trembling. Undoubtedly he was ill that morning, but Mrs. Graham should -not know it! For he must go out, he must go to church, there was no -service in all the year so dear to him as the Christmas communion at -<abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s. He would force his blurring head to go through with it, -and Mrs. Graham should not keep him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> in! Keep him in! A frown twitched -on his forehead, an old man’s helplessness at the thought of coddling. -Why should a woman he had known but three years be so solicitous over -his health, dictating about his rubbers and his socks—he was not ill, -nor was he so very old! At that his brow cleared in a sunny flash of -amusement, for of course, he was very old, eighty-one, and besides -Mrs. Graham was very good to him. Still to-day she must not keep him -at home, for to stand once more within the rail offering the chalice -to his people had become a deep and blind desire, overmastering all -sense of weakness. Besides, there were other matters and grave ones to -be seen to, to-day. Somehow—he looked toward the eastward window—the -strength would come for the day, as it always came.</p> - -<p>Slowly, while he stood looking out into the morning grown rosy now with -the coming sun, his head cleared more and more, as he thought about his -Westbury as it brightened beneath the Christmas sunrise. Few towns, the -Bishop thought, had changed so little in sixty years. He looked out on -the same Westbury he had first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> seen when he had come to <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s -college as a boy. Stately old River Street with its twin rows of elms -still curved to the curve of the river. Each quiet old house had in the -rear a terraced wintry garden sloping to the wide and sparkling water. -The Bishop knew each of these houses, even as far as Lucy Hollister’s, -which was beyond his sight. Lucy still kept the house of her girlhood -where the Bishop had first known her, known Lucy and her cousin, Annie. -Far beyond Lucy’s house, River Street changed to towering tenements and -grimed factories, the place of the strangers, where the Bishop often -walked, but wistful and puzzled, for it was this part of Westbury alone -that had changed since his boyhood, although even then it had been the -place of work-people, for whom <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s Southside Mission had been -founded. The Bishop stood thinking of the mission.</p> - -<p>Well in sight, breaking the row of houses set among their wintry trees, -sprang the spire of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, and beyond its Rectory lay the brown, -cube-like buildings of the college above the sweeping river, a small -college of mighty men. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> there that the Bishop and his roommate, -Barty Judd, had learned to dream dreams. It was the glory of Westbury, -the kindly old city, remote, unworldly, that it had set so many young -men dreaming. The Bishop smiled to think how proudly Westbury still -pointed to its seven bishops, for the spirit of Westbury had not -changed in all the sixty years since the founding of the mission. -Westbury had given the Bishop, he thought, the most beautiful thing in -his life; it was this that brought the light to his face as he thought -of the gift he wished to give Westbury in return, to-day, if—if he -could! At that “if” his eyes deepened with a sharp and subtle change, -then cleared as the passing thought of the day before him yielded -to memories, and he saw the afternoon of the laying of the mission -corner-stone. As they had walked home together, the Bishop, after long -silence, had broken into boyish fire of words, seeing all his life -before him. Lucy had listened and answered, but Annie had been silent.</p> - -<p>Dreamer as the boy had been, he had never dreamed of coming back one -day, long afterwards,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> and living to be an old, old man in the bishop’s -house in Westbury.</p> - -<p>The sun was climbing to a golden blaze now, filling with hope the -day before the Bishop. He was always a good deal of a child in his -Christmas feeling. There was work before him on this Christmas day, in -his own house and out of it. Quite simply he closed his eyes a moment, -with bowed head, thinking of the Westbury he loved and of three within -it, whom he should see that day.</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s tall figure swayed a little as he grasped the stair -rail, and for an instant his gaze was vague upon the dusky hall, upon -the gloomy wall-paper, the threadbare carpet. It was a gray and worn -old house in which the Bishop’s soul was harbored. A succession of -housekeepers, under the oversight of Mrs. Hollister, kept it in order, -but it needs the authority of kinship to change a wall-paper or a -carpet. Thus it was that the Bishop’s long hallway was hardly more his -own than the pavement outside, or his own dining-room door before which -he paused, hardly more his own than the doors along his familiar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> River -Street. His hand lingered on the knob, for, thinking of Mrs. Graham -within, and of the testing now of his three years’ hope, he had grown -apprehensive and wistful. Then his face flashed firm in a smile, as he -looked toward Someone beside him there in the dim hall. That little way -of looking toward the Friend with a quick upward smile was one of the -Bishop’s habits engendered by solitude. He never meant to betray his -thought publicly, yet sometimes wayfarers in the train, on the street, -were startled at the sudden passing of strange light across the gray -face, making it, as now in the opening doorway, the face of a little -child. The Bishop bent toward the black-clad little woman before him -the bow that belonged to the days of his youth. Age had stooped his -shoulders, but never stiffened their grace, nor that of the sweep of -his extended hand. His face—lean, clear-chiselled, blue-eyed, and -heavily thatched with white—was ashine with Christmas greeting.</p> - -<p>“I wish you a beautiful Christmas!” he said.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Graham’s glance met the Bishop’s furtively. She had restless brown -eyes beneath a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> tranquil parting of brown hair, curling and lightly -silvered. Her mouth looked as if locked upon discontent. She was a -stout, rosy little woman who moved in a heavy, bustling manner. She put -her hand into the Bishop’s awkwardly, never having become accustomed to -one who shook hands as a morning greeting.</p> - -<p>“Merry Christmas,” she murmured perfunctorily, as, in the holiday -absence of a maid, she turned toward the business of the Bishop’s -breakfast. The raised slide of the dumb-waiter made a gap in the -solid paneling of dark cupboards occupying one wall. Like other -dining-rooms on River Street, the room had two long windows looking -toward the water. There was a wide piazza beyond them, hung with the -gnarly ropes of leafless Virginia creeper. It was a dark-wainscoted -room, but now the level eastern sun flooded it, and there was a great -crimson spot of roses at the Bishop’s plate. The table was set for -one, he noticed; when Maria was away, Mrs. Graham insisted on serving -him with her own hands, instead of settling comfortably into her usual -seat. In the silent room, only the sound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> of the dumb waiter that -creaked and rattled, but the Bishop was waiting to speak, after the -long patience of three years. When his breakfast had been set forth to -her satisfaction, Mrs. Graham sank upon the edge of a chair near the -window, keeping an alert eye on the Bishop’s needs, but having also an -air of absence.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she burst out at last, “so it’s Christmas again!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” the Bishop smiled, “‘again.’ It comes around pretty often, -doesn’t it? This is your third Christmas in Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder how many more I’ll have, in Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“Is it such a bad place to spend Christmas in then, Westbury?”</p> - -<p>“Bad for me, yes! After Fair Orchard!”</p> - -<p>“But I had hoped you had begun to feel at home in Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“Me! At home! In Westbury! No, I’ve no place here and never can have. -I see that plain enough,—just a housekeeper, anyway! I’ve no place -in the place, I mean, like at home! Oh, there’s no harm in Westbury! -It’s not as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> bad as some towns. There’s show here, but it’s not showy; -there’s money, but there’s manners, too! Only there’s no <em>heart</em> -in the place! How could there be, with Dr. Newbold running the church -and Mrs. Hollister running society?”</p> - -<p>“They both have hearts, I am sure, Mrs. Graham.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe. Not for plain people, or poor people, though. Maybe for you. -Although Dr. Newbold—” she broke off sharply, teeth on lip, while her -eyes, too full and bright with meaning, changed before the Bishop’s -gaze, and she altered her unspoken sentence, concluding, “Dr. Newbold -suits the place all right. He don’t suit me, that’s all. It’s kind of -spoiled church for me, going to <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, and church in Fair Orchard -was such a lot to me. It’s queer when you always hear about Westbury -being such a strong church place that it should have spoiled church -for me. It’s all right when you preach, of course, Bishop, but it’s -something else I’m talking about. It was different at home—oh,” her -rosy face darkened savagely, “sometimes it seems as if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> my church was -just another of the things she’s taken from me along with my home and -my boy!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop closed his eyes an instant, seeking counsel.</p> - -<p>“It’s Christmas that upsets me so! Christmas that brings it all back on -me so. And then to-day she sent, Florence herself, she sent the baby’s -picture on a post-card. It’s signed ‘From Florence.’ You’d think after -all that’s happened, she’d have let Dan send it, the first word I’ve -had from either of them for three years!”</p> - -<p>She rose and filled the coffee cup abruptly. “Well,” she jerked the -words out, “Christmas and other days, I’ve got to grin and bear it, -being turned out by my son’s wife. But it’s been worse since there was -a baby.”</p> - -<p>“It’s the baby’s first Christmas,” mused the Bishop.</p> - -<p>“Yes, he’s seven months and sixteen days old.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop smiled up at her, “May I see him? Where is the picture?”</p> - -<p>She laid it before him. The Bishop adjusted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> his glasses, then removed -them to look from the picture to a keen scrutiny of the grandmother’s -face.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered his look. “You see it then? The baby looks like us, -like Dan and me. And I can see Dan’s father in him, too. There’s not a -hair of him that looks like the Reynoldses,—that lot!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop was examining the photograph minutely. Mrs. Graham looked -over his shoulder, but at his next word she moved away again. “That’s -his mother’s hand holding him, isn’t it, that shadow under his arm?”</p> - -<p>“Yes! His mother’s hand! He looks like us, but he don’t belong to us! -He’s hers!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop glanced up, “And I suppose he’s also the other -grandmother’s.”</p> - -<p>“No! Florence has no mother. I’m all the grandmother that baby’s got!”</p> - -<p>“I think you never told me that before,” he paused thoughtfully, then -looking over to her standing by the window, he said, feeling slowly for -words, “So the baby’s mother, that girl out at Fair-Orchard, has had no -mother—to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> go with her—on that way—a woman goes, to bring home, a -little child?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s voice was soft with the awe of many years ago. The -grandmother flushed, muttering, “She would not have wanted <em>me</em>. -She had Dan.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s eyelids had fallen, quivering, over his eyes. He was far -away; again he watched with Annie, with Nan, as he said, “But men -cannot understand. God does not mean them to. Such things are a secret -between God and women, like the coming of Mary’s little child. Each -mother needs a mother then. It was not—it was not till then that I -understood how much my Nan had lost when she lost her mother.”</p> - -<p>“It did not live, did it, at all, your daughter’s child?” whispered -Mrs. Graham.</p> - -<p>The Bishop shook his head, not speaking, thinking of the little waxen -loveliness they had laid to sleep with Nan in the hollow of her -arm. His lips showed their rare palsied trembling, murmuring, “Both -together, Nan and the little one. She had been so well! I was not -prepared—” the eyelids of his quiet gray face trembled, then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> opened -on the blue eyes, as he said, “Of course, we know they do not die. -They are alive, somewhere where the dreams come true that we dream -for our children.” He smiled into her eyes, “For we are great old -dreamers, aren’t we, we grandparents?” He raised his hand from the -chair-arm, as if it would have pleaded, “But I think each mother needs -the grandmother to help her dream. I think she is wanting you now, that -Florence out there.”</p> - -<p>She faced sharp about, “Florence! Want me!” She looked at him in grim -pity at his simplicity. “No, Bishop, Florence don’t want me! No more -than I want her! We’re misfits, Florence and me,—worse luck for Dan, -and for me, and for the baby, too, now!”</p> - -<p>The blue eyes a-twinkle, “And worse luck for Florence, too,” he -persisted. “She sent you the picture. Wasn’t it perhaps to say that she -wants to show you the baby himself?”</p> - -<p>“It’s like you to think that, Bishop, but it’s not like Florence to -mean that. I understand Florence! I can still see her face plain, that -last morning!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> - -<p>“You have not seen her face since there was a baby. Perhaps she -understands you, too, now. Perhaps she understands, now, what it costs, -to give up an only child to anyone.”</p> - -<p>“That’s it, of course, that’s what finished me up, her getting Dan, the -way she has. I guess I seem pretty mean to you, but Dan was all I had.”</p> - -<p>“I think I understand,” the Bishop said quietly.</p> - -<p>Arrested by his tone she turned, “Was he good, your daughter’s husband? -Did you get on with him?”</p> - -<p>“No one is good enough for an only child. Yes, he was good. He—he has -been remarried for a long time, you know.” He spoke with long pauses, -remembering, “Yes, I got on with him. I should have lost my daughter if -I hadn’t. We had one happy year, together. Getting on is hard. But not -getting on is harder.”</p> - -<p>She did not speak, turned from him again toward the window, intent, -musing.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it,” he pleaded, “harder?”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t have to,” she spoke chokily, “get<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> on with Florence! Maybe -you could, though, you, Bishop. But I couldn’t! You couldn’t maybe -understand how I can’t forgive her for all that she’s taken from me,—a -man couldn’t maybe understand, even you. It’s the mother working in -me. They used to laugh at me over home, and say I mothered all the -village. Yet now I can’t get at Dan, nor at the baby. I haven’t anyone -to mother, and it seems as if it makes me sort of,” she struck away a -tear with an awkward gesture, “sort of smothery!”</p> - -<p>His eyes bent on her in sharp intentness, “There is someone for you to -mother!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“Florence!”</p> - -<p>“Florence!” her voice hissed.</p> - -<p>“Yes!”</p> - -<p>Her trembling lips turned hard, “I guess I’d have to forgive her first!”</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you?” he questioned, while the blue eyes grew softly a-shine. -“Couldn’t you, to-day? Couldn’t you, for instance, go out to them to -spend Christmas, to-day?” His plan, long suppressed, came hurrying -forth. “It’s so near,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> and so easy! Only thirty miles to that baby! -The train leaves at ten, you have time. There’s another train back at -seven-two. And you needn’t mind about me. I shall be out all day, first -a visit I must make, then the service, and afterward I dine with Mrs. -Hollister. You are quite free, you see, to go!”</p> - -<p>“I’m free enough, yes,” she admitted, “but I haven’t the will to go, -that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“To the baby?”</p> - -<p>“To Florence! It would mean making up with Florence!”</p> - -<p>Lips and eyes showed a quick pleading smile as he said, “Isn’t that -perhaps what Christmas and babies are for, for making up?”</p> - -<p>She was silent, her breast in its tightly hooked black rose and -fell. “But people!” she broke forth at length. “Everybody knowing! -The village knows I was turned out, and that there’s not been a word -between us for three years. I can’t go crawling back now, just because -there’s a baby come,—everybody looking on, everybody knowing!”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t everybody’s baby. It’s yours, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> hers,” then gravely, “I -was not thinking of other people. I was just thinking how much she -needs her mother, that girl!”</p> - -<p>“Florence!” she said, and there were many thoughts in her tone, slow, -incredulous.</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s eyes grew remote and bright, seeing Florence. He spoke -a little dreamily, “She needs you now, and she knows she needs you! -She may have been hard once, being young and without a mother. She -may have been cruel. It is different now. She does not feel so secure -now. They are so afraid for their babies, don’t you remember, always, -these little new mothers. There are so many dangers lying in wait for -the little men before they’ve got their armor on. There must be advice -to give, and care to give—oh, Florence knows how much he needs his -grandmother! Go and see. Can’t you? Couldn’t you? I—I’m in such a -hurry to have you go!”</p> - -<p>“If I could only hold him once, Dan’s baby!”</p> - -<p>“Florence’s baby, too,” he corrected gently.</p> - -<p>The brief light swept from her face. Her plump comfortable hands were -knotted, and her round face drawn into dignity by pain. Her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> words were -grave and final, “The way to that baby is only through Florence, so I -can never go. I can never have him.”</p> - -<p>Involuntarily the Bishop’s hand went to his temple in a gesture of -pain, then instantly was forced down. He hesitated, then at length, -“‘Never’ is such a long word,” he said. “Sometimes God says it for us, -but don’t—don’t let us ever say it for ourselves! You know,” a passing -tremor ran along his lips, “He didn’t let me have the grandchild -I hoped for, but don’t—don’t lose having yours. It seems as if I -couldn’t let you go on losing,—that. I am in such a hurry somehow -to-day. Can’t you go out there to-day, now? Take the baby the Christmas -present his mother most wants for him, take him his grandmother!”</p> - -<p>She turned on him, intense, “Bishop, do you know what it’s like to make -up with a person who’s done you wrong? Do you know what it feels like -to forgive? A person who’d hurt you? Where you care most?”</p> - -<p>A moment he groped in past experience for the answer, then in a rush of -realization it came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> upon him. He rose a little unsteadily, that he, -too, might stand to face her, as she stood by the curtained recess of -the window, where the searchlight of the Christmas sun fell relentless -on the drawn intensity of her plump face. The Bishop’s lean, corded -hands rested on the two ebony knobs of the chair back. He did not -notice, nor did she, that he swayed slightly with a passing dizziness.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he answered slowly, thinking of one he soon must see to-day, “I -know how it feels. Yes, I have had to learn, how to forgive—where I -cared most!”</p> - -<p>“How did you make yourself do it? How?”</p> - -<p>He would have evaded if he could. “I only know the old way,” he said -humbly, for the Bishop was shy in speaking of some things, as one is -shy in speaking about any friend in his presence.</p> - -<p>“Tell me how!”</p> - -<p>“I only know one way,” he repeated simply. “We all get at the truth -from different angles, so there may be many ways to learn to forgive, -but I can only tell you about the way that I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> tried.” The Bishop -was so old that often, as now, his eyes showed the reflection of the -harbor-lights in view. As always in his sermons, he had now lost, in -his very consciousness of their needs, the presence of his audience in -the overwhelming Presence of which he forced himself to speak, “The -way I have found is to try always to see through His eyes. I think He -is always very near us, trying always to lift us to the level of His -eyes, so that we can look forth from that point of view. I think He is -always trying and trying to say things to us to excuse—the people who -have hurt us. If only we could clear our ears to hear Him! If only we -could stand at the level of His outlook into souls! Then we should see -so much that’s pitiable and excusable, so many handicaps and mistakes, -so much to make us sorry for them that we couldn’t help forgiving. He -always saw enough in every soul to make Him patient, and if we don’t -see enough to make us patient, too, we have to trust His vision and -insight, and forgive because He does.</p> - -<p>“Yet it is hardest,” the Bishop’s face showed a passing shadow, as he -looked inward upon past<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> struggles and forward to that next interview -of his Christmas Day, “to forgive those who hurt <em>Him</em>, His work. -Yet he forgave even that, upon His cross. When we remember that, I do -not know how I—how we—<em>dare</em> not to forgive.” He paused, while -his fingers on the black knobs tightened, then the shadow of his face -was struck away by the quick sunshine of reassurance. He looked toward -Mrs. Graham, “You see,” he said, “it seems to me that if God in all -His eternity has no time to be stern, then perhaps we—who have such -a little while! have no time for anything but loving. Don’t you,” he -pleaded, “don’t you think so, too?”</p> - -<p>The ruddiness had paled from her cheeks. She was looking at him with -wide, intense eyes.</p> - -<p>“That’s your way, Bishop. But it’s what I couldn’t—ever climb up -to,—I guess.” She had to fight to speak, against her choking breath, -“I’m one of those you’ll have to forgive, I’m afraid, for not doing -what you want. I wish I could, on your account. But it don’t seem as if -I could make up with Florence. But I can’t bear that you should look -like that, Bishop,—disappointed!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> Don’t, please don’t, mind! It’s just -that I’m a mother who’s lost her boy, and wants him back and can’t get -him, him and his baby!”</p> - -<p>“And yet,” he answered, “they are all there, all ready for you, -waiting, wanting you, all there! It is, it is, too bad!”</p> - -<p>“Florence!” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Needing and wanting you most of all. Seeing, by the way her little one -needs her, how much she needs a mother. Perhaps mothering is your way -of forgiving. Couldn’t you try it? Florence has never had a chance, has -she, to learn many things, if she has been a motherless girl? Perhaps -she did hate you once. I don’t believe she hates anyone now. It’s very -hard to hate when there’s a baby in the house. She sent the picture. -She needs you. She knows she needs you, for she knows now what a child -can miss who has no mother. Let us think of all she has missed, and not -be too hard on her, you and I, any more.”</p> - -<p>She was silent, one hand tense upon the curtain cord.</p> - -<p>“It’s such a good day to go,” he urged, “such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> a good day to do the -unexpected, Christmas! Everyone expects the unexpected, on Christmas.”</p> - -<p>A comical smile worked on her set face, “You do, anyway, Bishop!” she -said with a catch in the throat.</p> - -<p>“I think I did allow myself to expect this,” he answered, “this -making-up. Perhaps I expected it because I wanted it so, for I’ve been -in such a hurry somehow, about that baby. Why, he’ll be growing up, -while we’re still talking. You have three-quarters of an hour,” he -glanced at the clock in quick remembrance of the visit to Dr. Newbold -before church-time, “and you’ll go?”</p> - -<p>He waited.</p> - -<p>She was silent still, until she burst out, “I can’t! I’d say ‘yes’ if -I could, when you beg me so. But I can’t say it, and I’ve got to be -honest with you. I can’t say it!”</p> - -<p>Her face, working with sobs she forced down, was too painful to look -at, yet it gave no hope.</p> - -<p>“I am very sorry,” he said quietly and turning went into the great -study adjoining, which faced, like the dining-room, on the veranda and -river. Suddenly very tired, he sank into his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> desk chair, pressing the -tips of his fingers to his temples, which had such a painful way of -throbbing every little while this morning.</p> - -<p>“I did want it very much,” he acknowledged to himself, “very much.” He -sat thinking, for some moments, then remembering, rose and went into -the hall to put on his overcoat, whispering, “But it happened to Him -like this always—always!”</p> - -<p>About to go out into the street, he turned back. The dining-room door -was shut. He opened it. Mrs. Graham was still standing in the window -recess, her forehead pressed to the cooling pane. There was no one -to see her face. Common-place, coarse, ugly with tears, lights were -trembling across it. “If she needs me,” she was whispering, “if she -needs me,—” for a holy thing was being born.</p> - -<p>In the doorway, wearing his old cape overcoat, his face like a wistful -child’s beneath his silver hair, the Bishop waited.</p> - -<p>“You will go?”</p> - -<p>She did not hear, nor know. She did not move until she started at a -sound, the heavy closing of the outer door.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II">PART II</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The river was a splendor of Christmas sunshine. A flurry of snow had -lightly powdered the brown sod beneath the double rows of elms. Few -people were abroad. Sometimes a little group of children, eyes and feet -a-dance, and cheeks nipped red, went tripping past the Bishop. Older -folk passed with hearty, careless greeting, for the stooping figure -in the cape overcoat was as familiar and unnoted as the river itself -with all its mystery of light. The Bishop had known Westbury so long -and so well that he felt that the homes by which he was passing, all -bright with holly, were his homes, that he might have stopped anywhere -to share the Christmasing. His slowly pacing feet, however, were bent -on the old way toward <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s Rectory. In the old days the Bishop -had always called at the Rectory to greet Barty Judd and his household -before church-time, and he still kept to the habit,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> even though it was -so different now at the Rectory.</p> - -<p>A flock of sparrows came swooping down through the wintry silence -with much chatter, and at the same time there came scudding across -the street a little Italian newsboy as shrill and brown as the birds. -The Bishop bought a paper, and made the youngster’s smile flash as he -paused for a few words in his own tongue. Presently, as he went on, the -newspaper dropped from the Bishop’s fingers, as he fell to thinking of -that alien colony down below there, where the river curved, Westbury’s -strangers. They had come so recently, the factories had sprung up so -quickly, that the workers were still the strangers. It is true that the -Bishop was well known to those teeming streets as the old man who spoke -Italian and who loved babies, but he felt that he had done nothing for -these others, really. Eighty years! How barren of accomplishment they -looked beneath the searchlight of Christmas! But perhaps there was -still time! His step quickened.</p> - -<p>As the Bishop passed beneath the shadow of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s church, the -chimes clanged forth the ten o’clock hour. He glanced toward the door, -thinking how calm and gentle and familiar everything was within. After -all, his headache had melted away and nothing was to prevent his -presence by the altar on this morning. The quiet of the chancel was -restful to his fancy, lying beyond the visit immediately before him.</p> - -<p>As he turned up the Rectory steps, tugging slightly on the handrail, -the door was flung open, and a tall boy came hurrying out. His thin, -fine face was set and black, but a smile played across its frown when -he saw the Bishop.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Harry,” said the visitor, “and good Christmas.”</p> - -<p>“There’ll be no good Christmas here,” answered the low taut voice, -“unless you’ve brought it, Bishop!”</p> - -<p>“No trouble here to-day, I hope?”</p> - -<p>“Trouble every day, now!” Then remembering dignity, Harry shut his -lips, adding more calmly, “Father is not well this morning, Bishop. I -am just going out to tell <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Edgerton that he does not feel able to be -at church.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> - -<p>“I am very sorry.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, too,—sorry for mother and Lois! I am glad you’ve come. It -will do them good to see you.”</p> - -<p>“And may I see your father, too?”</p> - -<p>“I think so, if you wish it. I shouldn’t wish it!” Harry murmured -darkly, as he turned about to unlock the door he had slammed, calling -in a low note of warning to his mother, and then leaving the Bishop -with her in the drawing-room. The shades had been pulled down, the -holly wreaths looked dull. A little mouse of a girl came out of a -shadowy corner, and the mother’s arm went about the child’s shoulders -as the two greeted the Bishop. They both had thin dark faces and -intense brown eyes. The girl’s hair was dusky and the mother’s silver, -above a forehead worn but unwrinkled. The girl’s dress was white and -the mother’s clinging gray, and both wore sprays of blood-red holly.</p> - -<p>“Christmas joy to you both,” smiled the Bishop.</p> - -<p>“And happy Christmas to you, too, Bishop,” said the mother, while Lois -took his hat and cane.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> He tugged helplessly at his overcoat so that -they each sprang to pull at a sleeve.</p> - -<p>“Thank you. There! Don’t let yourself be eighty, Lois. It’s a sad thing -to be older than your overcoat.” Then, seating himself, he continued, -“Harry tells me his father is not well to-day. I am very sorry. I have -been worried lately about him.”</p> - -<p>“We have all been worried. It is hard to understand. I suppose,” Mrs. -Newbold smiled wanly, “it is just another case of ministerial nerves, -but he suffers very much at times. I wish I could shield him from all -worry, but I cannot always anticipate what is going to disturb him. We -try, the children and I, but I fear we are very stupid. This morning, -for instance—” she broke off, “this morning he felt quite unequal to -the Christmas service, yet he is worried at not being there.”</p> - -<p>“Edgerton and I will manage the service. <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Newbold may be quite at -ease about that. I hope—”</p> - -<p>A summoning bell from above rang sharply.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Newbold started, “Oh, Katie is at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> church,” she exclaimed. “Run, -Lois! No, I’ll go myself!” With fingers upon the portière, however, she -paused.</p> - -<p>The Bishop rose, an odd little flicker in his eyes. “Suppose I go,” he -said, moving toward the hall.</p> - -<p>The wife looked at him, fighting for a tremulous smile. “There is -nothing the matter really, of course. I shouldn’t let you go up. I know -I ought to go. But—” she drew quick breath, concluding, “he’s in the -study, Bishop.”</p> - -<p>Once again as earlier in the day, the Bishop paused before a closed -door. An instant he stood there, hesitant, with bowed head, deeply -thoughtful, then he knocked with firm hand.</p> - -<p>“Come in, of course,” a voice thundered. “Why else should I ring except -for you to come in!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop was standing quietly in the doorway. At sight of him, the -bulky form flung upon the couch sprang up.</p> - -<p>“I—I—beg your pardon. I thought it was the maid, or my wife.”</p> - -<p>“It is merely your bishop.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p> - -<p>The Bishop’s quiet length sank into a deep chair. His long slim hands -rested calmly upon the leather arms.</p> - -<p><abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Newbold sat bolt upright upon the couch, darting furtive glances at -the Bishop from eyes too blue for his reddened face. His right hand, -strong and square, clutched a cushion tensely. The nervous twitching of -his lips redeemed from heaviness a face clean-shaven but always bearing -the blue-black shadow of a heavy growth of beard. There was a pleasant -sweep of brow beneath jet hair.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry you find me so upset this morning, Bishop. They perhaps -told you downstairs—” then he paused, remembering what they might well -have told the Bishop downstairs!</p> - -<p>“Harry told me you were ill. I met him going out.”</p> - -<p>“I judged that he had gone out. Harry’s sole comment on his father’s -headaches is slamming the front door!”</p> - -<p>“The youngsters know so little about headaches,” answered the Bishop; -“that is the trouble, then, this morning, headache?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p> - -<p>“The headache is constant, back here, incessant. But this morning the -trouble is,—a case of everything, as the doctor says.”</p> - -<p>“What does the doctor say? We must find some way of setting straight -this case of everything.”</p> - -<p>“What they all say—nerves, rest, less work, less worry, fewer diocesan -committees, fewer dinner parties—in Westbury where dining is a cult, -and as venerable and as sacred as the church steeple! I might as well -toss over one as the other! Suppose I did turn heretic, and refuse -Mrs. Hollister’s invitation for Thursday! Could I preach beneath her -withering glances next Sunday?</p> - -<p>“Or suppose I gave up my bridge with my Senior Warden. The Church needs -more card-playing clergy, he says quite frankly. And I’m inclined to -think, Bishop, that it does. A little more humoring of men of our good -warden’s type, and perhaps <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Judd’s experiences would be less often -repeated. Doctors and dinners be what they will—” mockery and worry -both played about the heavy flexible lips, “I have the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> unfortunate -close of that rectorate ever before me.”</p> - -<p>“You forget!” said the Bishop’s voice, low and keen. There was a tiny -fleck of red upon his cheek bones. <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Judd’s forced resignation had -been a matter of disagreement between the congregation of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s -and the Bishop. There was perhaps no connection between the action -of the vestry and the fact that <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Newbold, immediately called to -the parish, had been for years a friend of the Senior Warden, and a -prominent co-worker with him in diocesan affairs; the wires of diocesan -politics sometimes presented a strange network for feet like the -Bishop’s.</p> - -<p>The Bishop was silent a moment, for the Rector’s hand, lying square -upon the cushion, had recalled to him the days when he had sometimes -involuntarily closed his eyes against the sight of his young -secretary’s finger nails. It was an exquisitely kept hand nowadays, yet -one that looked unhealthily inactive rather than sleek.</p> - -<p>“Well,” mused the Bishop, at last, “if one can’t cut out any of these -social obligations, how about the committees?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> - -<p>Pity for the quick start and the flush of hurt pride, made him add -instantly, “Not that the committees can spare <em>you</em>. The church -needs you, and we should only be sparing you for a little while to save -you for bigger service afterwards.”</p> - -<p>“I should regret,” replied <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Newbold firmly, while glancing down in -some embarrassment, “withdrawing from any service to the diocese,—just -now.”</p> - -<p>“Why just now?”</p> - -<p>The Rector lifted his lids for a quick glance, then dropped his eyes -again to his uneasy foot, “The affairs of the diocese, as well as those -of the church at large, are passing through a critical period.”</p> - -<p>“Sufficient to justify the loss of your health?”</p> - -<p>“I feel that the diocese needs me, Bishop.”</p> - -<p>“It needs us all.”</p> - -<p>“Particularly now,” repeated the Rector.</p> - -<p>A curious subtlety crossed the cameo clearness of the Bishop’s face, -“But do you not feel that perhaps the need for your activity might be -even greater later on?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> - -<p>“You mean—,” Newbold faltered, for simple folk like the Bishop were -hard to fathom sometimes, even after twenty years of study.</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s smile showed, disarming, “I mean simply, lad—if I may -call you that sometimes, on Christmas, say,—that the diocese can’t -afford to have you break down. It needs, and will need you, too much -for that. Therefore,—let the diocese take care of itself a little -while.”</p> - -<p>“It’s been doing that too long,” the other broke forth, with the -brutality of overwrought nerves.</p> - -<p>A shadow passed over the Bishop’s clear, gray face. Quick words caught -with odd puckering upon his lips. He leaned his silver head against the -high, dark chairback, long silent.</p> - -<p>“Is it really so bad as that, Newbold?” he asked at last. “What is it -that is wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Our finances, for one thing. The treasurer’s last report—”</p> - -<p>“There must be finances, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>The other smiled his cynical, twitching smile, “If there’s to be a -church at all there must be finances.” He spoke with the irritation -belonging to many a former discussion.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> - -<p>The Bishop’s inscrutable gaze rested long upon the Rector. “You are -thinking, and rightly, that I am saved much because I have good -laborers in the field to count the sheaves and the shekels? Believe me, -Newbold, I know the value of your work to the diocese and I am sorry -for the weariness of it.”</p> - -<p>The other’s face cleared in still uneasy relief. “I do not feel that -I can withdraw from any office in the diocese, in the church, however -small my service.”</p> - -<p>“It is not small. You are the most prominent man in the diocese. The -most active. The most influential.”</p> - -<p>The other flushed with pleasure, yet regarded his guest enigmatically. -“Those are cheering words, Bishop, for a day like this, of -discouragement and—of pain.” His hand went to the throbbing disc at -the back of his neck, as he added abruptly, “If what you say is true, -Bishop, I am perhaps paying the price.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid,” answered the Bishop gently, “that you are.”</p> - -<p>“One doesn’t expect the strings to snap at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> forty-five!” Newbold said -querulously. “I could have swung a sledge once! I could still! Yet—it -makes me wonder—I have wondered lately—what is the secret of your -vitality, Bishop.”</p> - -<p>The flicker of a smile on the Bishop’s lips, “Yet I had thought, -Newbold, that you did not think so highly of my vitality—that you -thought it an ebbing flood, a year or two ago.”</p> - -<p>The other flushed to the brow.</p> - -<p>“It was for your own sake, Bishop, to save you the wear and tear of -constant travel, constant work, that I urged upon the convention the -election of a coadjutor.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you had done it not merely for my sake, but for the sake of the -diocese and of the church.”</p> - -<p>“It was for that, too,” Newbold murmured.</p> - -<p>“It was at any rate not for my own sake that I refused to have an -assistant,” the Bishop went on. “If I could have trusted the choice of -my clergy! It is easy and natural, to choose the most popular, the most -prominent. A bishop’s diocese is dearer than perhaps any one of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> -clergy can understand. It is my little piece of God’s world, it is my -Westbury in large.</p> - -<p>“And my ways are the old ways. My assistant’s might have been the new.” -He paused a moment chin on hand, then looked up quickly, “What are the -new ways?” he asked. “For I suppose my successor will introduce them.”</p> - -<p>Newbold warmed instantly, moistening his twitching lips, “The ways -first of all of economical administration. The church must show itself -a good business if we want business men to respect it.”</p> - -<p>“Do we?”</p> - -<p>“Do we <em>not</em>?” Nervous lightnings leaped to Newbold’s eyes. “These -are not days of sentimental idealism, of faiths that float in air. -To-day a man wants to see his money’s worth in the church as well as -out of it. The church,” he brought a tense fist down upon the cushion, -“has become a business proposition!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s face was intent on Newbold, yet inward and remote. Then -the blue eyes smiled,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> “Oh, but not in Westbury!” he pleaded. “We are -not money-mad in Westbury!”</p> - -<p>“Because you have so much money! Have always had! Yet the purse-strings -are the heart-strings in Westbury as elsewhere. Instance my vestry and -the Southside Mission. Closed, three weeks ago. Westbury is wealthy but -not wasteful. The mission was unsuccessful, therefore to be eliminated -from the items of our expenditure. The need of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, economical -organization, is merely an example of the needs of the diocese, and of -the church at large.”</p> - -<p>“I think I was not, was I, officially told of the action of the church, -in closing the mission?”</p> - -<p>The Rector stirred uneasily, then looked up with boyish directness, “I -was remiss, Bishop, and I acknowledge it. But I knew the matter would -need full explanation for you, and to be frank, I’ve postponed a good -many things of late, simply because I felt paralysed before them. I’m -all out of sorts, not myself at all. I can’t tell what’s the matter -with me.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop, noting the sudden hysterical flabbiness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> of the whole face, -recalled the man to firm thought.</p> - -<p>“The mission is permanently closed, then? That seems to me sad news for -Christmas morning.”</p> - -<p>“Believe me, Bishop, I understand your feeling about it. I, too, regret -the closing of the mission. I’ve positively enjoyed my work down there.”</p> - -<p>“I should think that you might have found the mission work almost -restful after the other sort.”</p> - -<p>“It was restful. Strangely! They speak out down there, act out, too. -The Southside caused me no night-long guessing, like my neighbors here. -Yet I had no time for the mission, and lately no money either, for the -work has become unpopular, quite naturally.”</p> - -<p>“Naturally?”</p> - -<p>“I mean the factories and the foreigners have obscured the native -population for whom the mission was organized. Social conditions were -different a few years ago. It was perfectly possible then for prominent -members of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s to work at the mission and yet preserve all the -decencies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> of class distinction. The church would hardly expect a man -of my Senior Warden’s type to organize clubs and classes for his own -factory hands!”</p> - -<p>“Yet might not Christianity expect it?”</p> - -<p>“In these days, Bishop, I fear, Christianity and the church are two -totally different propositions!”</p> - -<p>“You have not lost your power of frankness, Newbold!”</p> - -<p>A sudden shadow dropped over Newbold’s face. “Have I not?” he -questioned himself darkly, then louder, “With you, Bishop, it is always -curiously hard not to say what one thinks. Yet I don’t wish you to -misunderstand me. I seem to want to be understood this morning. And -you’re the only person in the universe, I believe, who’d take the -trouble. It’s not, then, that I don’t myself believe the principles of -the Christian religion.”</p> - -<p>A smile, infinitely sad and subtle, passed over the Bishop’s lips. -“Since you are a minister of the Gospel,” he said gently, “one might -hope that you believe it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> - -<p>“I have come to believe a good bit of it.”</p> - -<p>“To believe enough, lad?”</p> - -<p>The Christmas bells had begun again. The voices of the churchgoers -sounded on the clear air, but the Christmas visitor sat unheeding.</p> - -<p>The Rector’s voice was rasped with the tension of self-defense. -“Unfortunately for his health and happiness, a minister of the Gospel -has much more to think about than what he believes. He has to think -what his own congregation is going to allow him to say and to do; he -has to think what the church at large is going to allow him to say and -to do. He has to think of the success of his own parish, and of the -church, and of himself. All three must please the public or fail. Now -my policy—”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” the Bishop commented quietly, “your policy? A man of growing -influence, like yours, would naturally have outlined for himself his -creed and his conduct.”</p> - -<p>“My conduct, assuredly, yes. It has been my endeavor ever since I -entered the priesthood, and will always be my aim, to establish respect -for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> church, and its clergy, in the community, and in the world at -large.”</p> - -<p>“And by what methods?”</p> - -<p>“The same that prevail in other organizations, sound business system, -and the establishment of social dignity. We can’t expect our young men -to be attracted to the ministry unless we can show them something in -it worth getting,—they naturally want to get out of it reputation, -success, social recognition, as in other professions.”</p> - -<p>“You have found those things yourself,” the Bishop’s tone was half -comment, half question.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” answered Newbold, straightening, “I believe I can say that I -have found those things. I started at least without them, as you must -well remember—I was a raw enough youngster when I first came to you in -Westbury—it is humorous to recall—” he laughed a sharp nervous laugh, -then grew instantly grave, “I didn’t have much in those days, but I did -have health.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” the Bishop answered, “you did have,” he paused oddly—“health!”</p> - -<p>“I suppose, if the term had not been so much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> abused that I might -truthfully call myself a self-made man. The church has done much for -me. I am grateful,—with reservations! That is why I feel that in spite -of these diabolic nerves of mine I must go on, must serve the church, -the diocese, in its need.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you feel,” asked the Bishop wistfully, “that you cannot serve the -Southside Mission?”</p> - -<p>Sharp sagacity instantly controlled Newbold’s garrulous nerves, “That -was a principle of simple common sense, such as might well be applied -to other die-away mission chapels in many a parish.”</p> - -<p>Very low the other voice, and far away, “Yet the poor are to have the -Gospel preached to them.”</p> - -<p>“The parent church is open to them,” Newbold answered almost with -petulance, “here as elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>“You mean,” the tone was strange, “that it would be your policy to -close other missions, in other churches, throughout the diocese?”</p> - -<p>“It would be my policy,” replied Newbold,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> setting his heavy jaw, “to -cut off all waste until we get our diocesan treasury out of debt. The -church’s one foundation,” he added with that daring cynicism that -delighted <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s in his sermons, “is at present sound finance.”</p> - -<p>It was a buffet across the Bishop’s face, making Newbold instantly -protest, “It is not the mere money. It is the deep unpopularity of such -missions as the Southside with such congregations as <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s. Am I -to go against my vestry and retain my position? Am I to be a <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Judd?”</p> - -<p>“You are afraid?”</p> - -<p>“Afraid! Impossible! For a man of my make-up,” he smiled in honest -amusement, wetting his lips, “I merely have the sense not to become -voluntarily unpopular. What can a man do in the face of unpopularity? -His hands are tied. He is helpless.”</p> - -<p>The room and the man before him sank like a picture curtained from the -Bishop’s sight. With wide strange eyes he saw another picture. He was -unconscious of his words, “<em>His</em> hands were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> tied, in the face of -unpopularity! Yet He preached the Gospel to the poor,—and to the rich, -to the poor rich!”</p> - -<p>There was a long uncomfortable silence, during which the Bishop rested -his head against the chair-back, waxen eyelids closed. Newbold studied -the silent, sculptured face so long that at last for pure uneasiness he -faltered, “I own, Bishop, that I’m no idealist.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop opened far, clear eyes, “What are you?”</p> - -<p>There was a long pause, then still in that far, clear voice, speaking -quite to himself the Bishop said, “Yet you will be—”</p> - -<p>The room, embrowned, closed against the Christmas sun, dusky with many -books, held the two men, who faced each other as once in a lifetime men -may.</p> - -<p>The Bishop completed his own sentence, “You will be—my successor!”</p> - -<p>It was quite silent now, for the bells had ceased and the chat of -church-goers. The chancel of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s was only a stone’s throw from -the chair where the Bishop sat, yet it was far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> from him, the chancel -with its peace. But he could still get to church, although late, in -time for the communion. One more Christmas sacrament was before him, if -only he could hold his brain clear and his body taut, through one short -hour more, against the sudden blurring pain in his head.</p> - -<p>The silence of the study still quivered with the Bishop’s last words, -“My successor!”</p> - -<p>Newbold sat facing the fact never before so clearly stated by anyone, -not even by himself, but clear to him now as the goal of his clumsy, -forceful youth, of his anxious, successful ministry, a goal almost -near enough now to touch, perhaps. He could not take his eyes from -the Bishop’s face, transparent as porcelain, now turned into a mask, -impenetrable.</p> - -<p>“I would not be your choice, Bishop?”</p> - -<p>The straight line of the Bishop’s lips formed a quiet, “No!”</p> - -<p>“And likely enough, I may be nobody else’s choice either—in spite -of—services rendered!” Then querulous before that intent, gray face -that gave no sign, “It’s small odds what happens,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> with this head of -mine! Yet I have served and would gladly serve—”</p> - -<p>“God?” the Bishop lifted level eyes.</p> - -<p>Newbold’s thick lips formed for a quick reply, worked oddly, then were -oddly dumb a moment before they twisted into a cynic curve from the -large teeth. “Harry spoke to me with some frankness this morning. He -had just left me when you came, Bishop, a different visitor, it seemed -to me. A curious Christmas, verily, if you, too, like all the rest, -think strange things of me!”</p> - -<p>“Strange things! Are they not true?”</p> - -<p>A rush of anger had swept the color to the Bishop’s cheeks and shot -lightnings to his eyes. The years had fallen from his face like a -veil snatched aside. Yet with a torrent of words upon his tongue, the -Bishop, looking at Newbold, turned silent. There are some men to whom -the sight of one who cringes before a blow deserved is humiliating -to their own inmost manhood. The sight of Newbold seated there, from -his bowed, brute head, with its too-blue, watching eyes, to his big -foot that never ceased to tap the rug raspingly, had caused the -Bishop a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> recoil for which he hated himself. Yet his anger was just, -just! The Christ Himself had cried out against the hypocrite, against -commercialism in spiritual places. The Bishop, of fine frail fiber as -he was himself, remembered the charm for him of the youthful Newbold’s -provincial crudity and heartiness,—but now, the Bishop thought -bitterly, if one wished to make a minister of the gospel, one had -better take a gentleman to start with!</p> - -<p>He had trusted Newbold at the first, as he might have trusted a son; -he had forced himself to trust him afterwards, until this very day. -Yet the Bishop now acknowledged that he had known well enough whose -influence was at work in the diocese against his own, why certain -motions he had desired were tabled in the convention, or if passed, -only half-heartedly carried out. How hard the Bishop had fought not to -be aware of a growing evil undercurrent in the spirit of diocesan work! -He was far too sensitive not to have felt, as he talked with some of -his prominent clergy and laity, his own great simple enthusiasm fall -like a baffled flood against a politely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> concealed embarrassment he -refused to understand! But he had understood! He knew now that he had.</p> - -<p>Oh, there were powers of evil militant against the faith, the work, to -which he had given his life! He had tried not to see them, to believe -each man good, especially this man. Yet in this moment it seemed to -him that this Newbold, seated there, was the very cause of it all, of -this dark Judas spirit that everywhere throughout the diocese mocked -the loveliness of Christ within His very church! Again denunciation -trembled like a lash, then again was restrained because of a certain -dignity in the soul gazing so grimly from the bright-blue eyes, testing -the Bishop. It was a face the Bishop had loved and it was haggard as a -face in a fever picture.</p> - -<p>With all the power of vision innate in him the Bishop saw the facts of -his failure. This was the man with whom, more than with any other, he -had sought to share his service and his soul. They wore both of them -the badge of God’s ministry, they were both of them the stewards of -Christ’s mysteries; they sat now, after twenty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> years of friendship, -two men girt in by four brief walls, yet far apart as two who do not -speak each other’s tongue.</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s brow grew tense at the hard thought that it must have -been all his own fault! He had walked, as he had thought, beside the -Christ, the Friend, yet a man close to him as Newbold had perceived in -the Bishop himself no reflection of that Beauty! Oh, it could not be! -Newbold must understand! For the very loneliness of it, the Bishop’s -face grew all wistfulness, as if a child, lost on a city street, should -lift its face to a stranger, hungry for kinship. But for all his -seeking the Bishop could not find the lad Newbold in the face before -him, grown steel-tense with scrutiny.</p> - -<p>There was worse than this, too, as the Bishop looked, clear-eyed, on -his failure. He must one day leave to this man his Westbury, if not, as -chance and choice might direct, his diocese. It had been the Bishop’s -comfort to believe, sensitive as he had been to the great currents -of unrest and indifference in the world at large, that Westbury -had remained exquisitely old-fashioned.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> Yet it was by the will of -the congregation of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s that the Southside Mission had been -closed, the mission the Bishop had seen their fathers found, with free -outpouring of themselves and their purses. Had the Westbury of to-day -grown Judas-jealous of squandering both self and money? The Bishop must -one day go forth from Westbury leaving it—nothing! And whose could be -the fault but his own?</p> - -<p>And his failure with Newbold, his failure with Westbury, they were -but typical of the failure of his work at large. Of all the gifts of -mystery that God gives to man, surely the greatest is the mystery of -failure! Wisdom inscrutable that commands work, yet enjoins failure! -Mystery of mysteries, that a burning love for that Love Incarnate born -at Bethlehem, could not break through the flesh to solace a world -a-thirst! The Bishop had loved, yet he had failed to serve. He did not -even know how to give peace, as from a chalice, to this harried soul -before him.</p> - -<p>The worn gray face, intent, gave small clue to the thoughts within. -Always Newbold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> watched, watched, waiting for a word. Which way would -it swing, that word? His soul also was poised, waiting.</p> - -<p>The Bishop bowed his head upon his hand. He had never felt so utterly -alone. Involuntarily, from sheer force of habit belonging to all his -moments of unbearable solitude, the Bishop’s thought turned to the -Friend. He had always understood, would He understand now, despair at -failure to God’s trust?</p> - -<p>Suddenly the Bishop’s eyes opened wide and strange. He saw a -storm-scourged hill, a mob. Understand failure? What man had ever -loved like the Nazarene? What man had ever failed in such transcendent -loneliness?</p> - -<p>The room fell quiet as a sanctuary. Awed with understanding, the Bishop -closed his eyes, to be alone. His thought said, “All other things He -has shared with me. He shares also this.”</p> - -<p>Quiet, long quiet, that at last grew a-throb with pulses. So many the -mountains of Transfiguration, and at the bottom always the tumult and -the faithlessness. The mental habit of many years steadied the Bishop -as he drew slowly back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> to the actual: when some sorrow of his own grew -too poignant to be borne, he always forced himself to go forth to the -person nearest at hand, compelling his mind to the other’s affairs. -Such effort, although at first it might be so perfunctory that he was -ashamed, ended in full sincerity. Too tired to speak now, he smiled -over to Newbold his old sunny smile, meaning that all was well between -them.</p> - -<p>The tension of Newbold’s watching snapped like a spent cord. There was -a change upon his face, a change in his voice, “Bishop, why did you -come to me this morning? They must have told you downstairs that I did -not wish to see anyone. Yet you came.”</p> - -<p>“I had a gift to bring.”</p> - -<p>“For me?”</p> - -<p>“Not now, I am afraid. Still I have no one else, lad, to leave it with. -It is for Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“What gift?”</p> - -<p>“One I have been thinking of for a long time. You see Christmas always -sets me dreaming, and in these last weeks I’ve been much shut in, so -that I’ve had a good deal of time to look out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> my window and to -send my thoughts up and down the streets. I suppose it is because I -have been about so little of late that I failed to hear of the closing -of the mission, although I knew you were worried about the funds. So -I’ve been happy with my plan. You’ve listened to my dreams before,” -the Bishop smiled his little quick, appealing smile, “even though you -haven’t always—” he broke off, a wistful twinkle of remembrance in -his eyes. “I’m still an incorrigible visionary, you think, lad?” The -twinkle died. “Perhaps I am!”</p> - -<p>“No!” cried Newbold, “No! I—I would have helped to carry out all -your dreams, Bishop, if I could, if they’d been practical. Why, -Bishop,” Newbold smiled the first real smile of the morning, “you’re -irresistible as my Lois when you want things. Even Mrs. Hollister has -to do what you want!”</p> - -<p>“Even Mrs. Hollister!” repeated the Bishop wonderingly. “But, of -course, for she is my friend.”</p> - -<p>“You understand Mrs. Hollister better than I do, Bishop,” Newbold -murmured darkly, then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> could have bitten his lip, for he saw on the -Bishop’s face the fine, controlled recoil that told Newbold he had once -again said something no real Westburian would have said. Clumsy again, -when he was watching himself all the time! Oh, if there was one thing -Newbold envied the Bishop, it was his inalienable social grace!</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s smile was strangely wrought of sun and sadness. “To go -back to my dream,” he suggested, “so far from being prepared for the -closing of the mission, I had actually been planning its enlargement.” -He grew a little hesitant and shy, “You see I have a small private -fortune, not very much, some sixty thousand. I have, as you know, no -near relatives. I’m not much of a business man, as you are well aware, -and I have also perhaps a foolish reluctance to leaving anything in -the shape of a memorial, anything bearing my name,—yet it was here -in Westbury, in <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, and at the founding of the mission in the -Southside sixty years ago, that there first came to me—the meaning of -the Christian ministry.” A moment his eyes grew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> dream-bright, as he -continued, “I’m so in the habit of trusting all money matters to you -that I have simply had my will made out to you, without any stipulation -as to the object—”</p> - -<p>“To me?”</p> - -<p>“In trust,” said the Bishop, “for Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“To me!”</p> - -<p>“I <em>must</em> trust you, lad!”</p> - -<p>Newbold’s eyes, round with amazement, dropped before the pure flame of -the Bishop’s.</p> - -<p>“I had thought,” the clear voice went on, “that you would be glad to -have the management of this money for Westbury, because it was here in -Westbury, and in <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, and in work for the Southside, that you, -too, twenty years ago, came to your first thoughts of the Christian -ministry.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” muttered Newbold, “twenty years ago!” His foot ceased to tap -the floor. He sat straight, motionless, “What, Bishop, was your idea, -exactly, for the use of this sixty thousand?”</p> - -<p>“My idea—I—I suppose it’s impractical now—was what I called it in my -mind, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> House of Friendship. Not, of course, that I want it called -that in reality. That’s, of course,” he said in quick deprecation, -“sentimental in sound, but that’s what I mean.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly what?” probed Newbold.</p> - -<p>“You know,” the other appealed whimsically, “I left all the details -to you even in my plans. I thought I’d just explain the spirit of it. -A House of Friendship, that is a settlement house, in connection with -the chapel in the Southside, a house open to everybody, to the mothers -and fathers and the babies and the little girls and the newsboys, and -open—still more open—to the members of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s over here, on River -Street, so that the mission and the church might learn, from each -other, to be friends. I haven’t gone into the details, although I want -to, one of these days, when my head gets a little clearer. The main -thing was that you should understand.”</p> - -<p>“And I am to understand that your will is made out to me, with no -instructions as to the use of the money?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> - -<p>“Does anyone know of your desire for the settlement house?”</p> - -<p>“No one. You were the only one who needed to know.”</p> - -<p>Newbold looked straight at his visitor. “Has it occurred to you, -Bishop, that you are taking a great risk?”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, lad?” asked the Bishop wonderingly.</p> - -<p>Newbold laughed, a laugh that rang true with honest amusement. “Well, -hardly, as we both know, that I should make way with the money for my -own ends, or that one cent of it shall be spent except for the object -of your desire, but,—” his face grew grave and dark, “you imply, I -think, something more. It is not merely the money that you leave in my -charge, Bishop, but the work itself?”</p> - -<p>“I had always hoped, lad, to leave my work in your charge. In spirit, -if not in actuality.”</p> - -<p>“Do you hope so this morning?”</p> - -<p>“May I hope so, Murray?” Once before, on the night of his ordination, -the Bishop had called Newbold by his first name.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p> - -<p>Newbold’s answer was as direct to the soul as the Bishop’s question, “I -don’t know!” Then sharp and querulous, “How could I? How can I?”</p> - -<p>The kindled hope on the Bishop’s face died like a quenched flame. In -its stead slowly there grew in his eyes their great and brooding pity. -“Lad, you’re tired to the depths this morning, and I am fretting you -with the thought of new responsibilities. Forgive me. I hope that in -eighty-one years I’ve learned to listen. Suppose you do the talking -now. What are some of the bothers back of this headache?”</p> - -<p>“My head is the chief bother, back of all bothers! It won’t let me go -on and I can’t stop!” Newbold sprang up and then reseated himself at -his desk, sweeping a fret of papers aside so that some fell on the -floor, then taking up a flexible paper cutter that he kept snapping in -his hands while he swung the revolving chair slowly from side to side. -“The truth is, I’ve been going down hill ever since I came here eight -years ago. The air of Westbury is knocking me to pieces.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> - -<p>“Yet it agreed with you during your other stay here, twenty odd years -ago.”</p> - -<p>“I was a boy then; I had a different body.”</p> - -<p>“And perhaps,” mused the Bishop, “a different soul.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that!” cried Newbold with a shrug, then, “Do you suppose if I’d -had my health, I’d ever have let the vestry bully me into giving up the -Southside Mission!”</p> - -<p>“Yet I used to think sometimes that opposition was the breath of life -to you. I wonder,” a flicker of whimsical humor in the blue eyes, “if -perhaps it would still be the breath of life to you,—if you tried it!”</p> - -<p>“Can I fight a spirit in the air? Can I fight, of all things, mere -amusement at enthusiasm? Can I fight the impenetrable self-satisfaction -of Westbury?”</p> - -<p>“Yet I thought you were one who loved Westbury!”</p> - -<p>“I love it, yes! And I hate it!”</p> - -<p>“Yet Westbury has loved you and taken you in, as it once took me, also -a stranger.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> - -<p>“It has never taken me in! Has Mrs. Hollister ever taken me in?”</p> - -<p>“Newbold, may I ask,” the Bishop sought to be patient with a resentful -child, “whether Mrs. Hollister has ever shown you the slightest -incivility?”</p> - -<p>“Never!” Newbold pressed his lips together in a curious grim smile. He -studied the paper-knife in his hands intently, “Oh, no, I should not -find fault with Westbury. It has given me what I wanted when I came -here as a boy, to be rector of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s. I did not perceive then the -price a man pays to be rector of—a <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s.”</p> - -<p>“What price?”</p> - -<p>“The price of his freedom! There’s no way to please the congregation -of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s, except to <em>please</em> them! I’ve learned the trick of -that! Ah, commend me to the clergy as latter-day courtiers!” It was -sentences such as these, applied in the chancel to his congregation, -not to himself, that his people so enjoyed in his sermons, feeling him -at one with them in a comfortable, workaday cynicism. Newbold’s words -were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> pressed through closed teeth as he concluded, “But I despise my -people!”</p> - -<p>“Your people of the Southside, too?”</p> - -<p>“They! Oh, no! Poor wretches! They are honest! I understand them! But -it is the strain of trying to understand <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s that is killing -me!” his hand went impatiently to his head.</p> - -<p>Serene and low the Bishop’s words, “Then why not go to your people of -the Southside?”</p> - -<p>“And <em>leave <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s</em>?”</p> - -<p>“If you do not understand the people of <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> John’s. If it is killing -you.”</p> - -<p>“They would think me a madman!”</p> - -<p>“Does it matter, what they think?”</p> - -<p>“It has mattered,” Newbold replied grimly, “a good bit, for eight -years!”</p> - -<p>“And where has that road brought us, lad?”</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>Low, incisive against the stillness, the Bishop’s voice, “Verily you -have <em>had</em> your reward.”</p> - -<p>Newbold’s hands dropped to the desk motionless.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> - -<p>“Yet even so, amid the praise of men, there was one man whose praise -you never had.”</p> - -<p>Newbold lifted his eyes in interrogation.</p> - -<p>“Yourself!” the Bishop concluded.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Newbold’s face, set as marble, puckered unbearably. “There’s -someone else, too!” Forcing the words out, he quoted, “‘I don’t care if -you are a minister. I’m your son, and I know you’re a hypocrite!’ How’s -that,” he was furious at the catch in his throat, “how’s that—for a -speech—from an only son—on Christmas morning!”</p> - -<p>“It is not true, Murray!”</p> - -<p>“You are perhaps the only man who believes in me, Bishop.”</p> - -<p>“It is because I have known you longest.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid the truth is that your namesake, my son, has the sharper -eyes, as well as the sharper tongue. A son’s estimate of his father -is doubtless the correct one. Yet it’s an ugly word—hypocrite! I -confess it drew blood, and knocked me out for the day.” He looked oddly -sheepish, boyish, in his confession, in spite of all the signs of -torturing nerves upon a body too vigorous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> to take ill-health with any -poise or patience. “You see I got up this morning feeling rather out -of sorts. I hadn’t slept since twelve. I’ve been dreading the services -more and more lately. I’m haunted by the idea of collapsing suddenly -before the eyes of my congregation—those eyes!</p> - -<p>“Then breakfast was late. If only, only, only,” his heavy fist came -down lightly but tensely upon the blotter, “the women would not look as -if they expected a scene under such circumstances. I had meant to hold -my tongue. But I didn’t. Nobody said anything, so I fancy I continued -to fill in the pauses. Harry sat with a face that made me want to knock -him down. It was afterwards that he spoke, a full hour afterwards, when -I had managed to pull myself together and was on my way to church. He -stopped me in the hall with ‘Going to the communion, father? After -making mother and Lois feel like that?’ Then he added that little -remark about hypocrisy, I came back upstairs, here. Presently you came. -A highly successful Christmas! A merry family group, do you not think -so, Bishop?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop had closed his eyes. This was the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> kind of thing that hurt -his head, and he must keep his head clear, must! “Christmas is not half -over,” he said, starting at the thought of the morning slipping by, and -the church, so near, calling to him, “There is half of Christmas left!”</p> - -<p>“Half a day in which to teach my son to respect me!”</p> - -<p>“But this son is Harry. So it will not take so long.”</p> - -<p>“Harry is hard!”</p> - -<p>“He is generous!”</p> - -<p>“He never forgives!”</p> - -<p>“Have you ever asked him to forgive?”</p> - -<p>“My boy! No! I know him! He knows me!”</p> - -<p>“I think perhaps,” the Bishop said slowly, “you will never know Harry, -nor he you, until you have asked of him forgiveness. It’s one of the -test things, forgiveness. The boy will meet it. He has nobility, Harry, -by inheritance.”</p> - -<p>“From his mother, yes.”</p> - -<p>“From his father, no less.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> - -<p>“They are their mother’s children, both of them,” Newbold murmured -wearily.</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s face flashed radiant. His right hand lifted in a quick -gesture. “Can any man say anything more beautiful than that?”</p> - -<p>“You mean,” stammered Newbold, “what?”</p> - -<p>“I think I only meant,” hesitated the Bishop, “that I felt just that -way about my child, and her mother. They belonged to each other, not to -me. I was only fit to try to take care of them.”</p> - -<p>“I have not taken,” said Newbold heavily, “much care of mine!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, lad, lad,” said the Bishop, “don’t waste that privilege. It -never—it never has grown easy—for me to live without it.”</p> - -<p>Newbold’s words came in a whisper, to himself, “She does not expect it -now. Perhaps she does not even wish it!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop leaned slightly forward in his chair. “Newbold,” he said -firmly, “between you and Harry there must be words, as between men. -But, for Lois and the mother, downstairs, have you anything to do but -to stretch out your hand?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> It is one of their mysteries, that women -always understand better without words.”</p> - -<p>Newbold dropped his forehead on interlaced fingers that concealed -his face. He was long silent. His hands dropped at last from a face -haggard, but a-shine with boyishness.</p> - -<p>“Bishop,” he said, “you’ve made me feel a whole lot better!”</p> - -<p>“I am glad!” For the first time in their talk the Bishop’s lip showed -its slight palsied trembling.</p> - -<p>“You always did make me feel better. It is your secret.” Then a shadow -fell, “But how? Why?” the shadow darkened. “I don’t deserve it!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop studied the darkened face with a sad keenness. “You have not -told me all the worries this morning, have you? What else?”</p> - -<p>Newbold stirred uneasily, then brightened a little with reminiscence, -“Odd, how little things take one back sometimes. The mere way we are -sitting at this moment,—you, Bishop, in that deep chair with your -hands on the arms, and I here at the desk,—it makes me feel as if you -might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> take up the dictating and I my shorthand at any instant.”</p> - -<p>“It does not seem to me so very long ago.”</p> - -<p>“It strikes me now, that you were pretty patient. I was a raw enough -youth when I first came to Westbury.”</p> - -<p>“A bit truculent in argument sometimes,” admitted the other, smiling. -“You bowled over some of our best doctors in theology. There wasn’t -much you were afraid of.”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, I was afraid of everything. It was the first time I -had ever been afraid, too. Westbury frightened me.”</p> - -<p>“Yet I knew then that you would live to make Westbury proud of you. I -believe I never had such hopes for any young man as I had for you.”</p> - -<p>“And now?”</p> - -<p>“And now?” The Bishop turned the question back upon the man.</p> - -<p>“And now,” said Newbold bitterly, “where are the hopes?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly where they were before. Don’t you know, lad, that we old men -are incorrigible in hopes?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p> - -<p>“I know that you are, Bishop, incorrigible in hope,—and in patience.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s eyes narrowed to fine scrutiny, “Have I then, do you feel, -something to be patient about?”</p> - -<p>Newbold shot a sharp glance, searching the Bishop’s meaning. They both -waited. At last Newbold, leaning back in his chair lifted steady eyes. -“Since we’re talking this morning, Bishop, about the things on my mind, -there are, as you seem to guess, more things. I’d be glad to get them -all clear with you this morning. It’s a relief to talk, no matter where -we come out. I’m afraid, that perhaps you haven’t always understood, -Bishop, my apparent opposition to your wishes on some occasions that -perhaps we both remember.”</p> - -<p>“We both remember, yes!”</p> - -<p>At the tone Newbold started, grew more vehement, “Oh, if you could -but understand, Bishop! Why, sometimes, as I have stood between your -desires on the one hand and what I knew to be those of the majority of -the clergy and laity on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> the other, what I knew to be necessary to the -prosperity of the diocese and the church, I have verily felt myself -between two fires.”</p> - -<p>“Or between two masters?”</p> - -<p>Nervous irritation fretted Newbold’s forehead. “Yes, I suppose, that, -too, in a way, from your point of view, Bishop. The point of view -of—well—of the apostles, perhaps!” He hesitated, but then grew -defensive, “In practical application, Bishop, it is impossible that the -policies of primitive Christianity should prevail in their pristine -simplicity in the church to-day!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop was long silent, the white profile of his far-away face -clear before Newbold’s watching eyes. Newbold spoke at last in anxious -apology. “You understand, therefore, I hope, Bishop, my policy, as I -understand yours? I wanted you to understand.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you want me to understand?”</p> - -<p>There was something very strange in those far, far blue eyes, so old, -so ageless. Newbold gazed into them, curiously compelled. “Perhaps you -know best the answer to that, Bishop.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p> - -<p>A wistful smile touched the Bishop’s lips, “Perhaps I do, lad. For it -has been a long while that we have been friends.”</p> - -<p>“You know, Bishop, surely,” the man cried out, “how I feel toward -you,—in spite of—mere policies?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop nodded slightly, “Yes, yes,” then looked at the other with a -larger thought. “But, Newbold, I have no policy, I have found only one -reading to the riddle of life, and I preach it. There is no policy in -that, I think, is there?”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Newbold, quietly, “that you are the only man I have -ever seen solve that riddle.”</p> - -<p>“I have not solved it, Murray, if I have not given you the clew.”</p> - -<p>At that unbearable sadness Murray Newbold cried out, “No, Bishop, no! -If I have failed, it is not your failure! Faith such as yours, life -such as yours,—it is impossible to men like me. It is not for us.”</p> - -<p>“I always thought it was for all.” There was a long pause. “And it is. -I have not known how to show you, that is all.” The Bishop bowed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> his -head in silence, murmuring, “But I wanted you,” again a long pause, “as -you would want peace for your boy!”</p> - -<p>The next words were not to Newbold, but Newbold knew to Whom they -were spoken, “Yet I ask so much! We can never share with Him, we who -ask fulfillment!” Then the Bishop started sharply from revery, “The -service! I must go. It is too late, perhaps, already for the communion.”</p> - -<p>“There is just time. But, Bishop, will you go? There is so much still -to say. Stay a little while!”</p> - -<p>“What I have failed to say in twenty years, can I say now? In a little -while?”</p> - -<p>“Say it!” pleaded Newbold, “say it!”</p> - -<p>Like a physical need, like hunger, the Bishop felt the blind desire to -feel the chancel quiet about him, to offer once more to his people the -cup of Christ. Yet before him here and now, in this silent room, a soul -a-thirst.</p> - -<p>“What is it, lad, that you want from me?”</p> - -<p>“You believe it, Bishop?” Newbold burst forth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“What we preach. I never knew any man to believe it as you do. How?”</p> - -<p>“How otherwise?”</p> - -<p>“I never knew any other man who had found peace. <em>How?</em>”</p> - -<p>“It is hard,” hesitated the Bishop, “for me to talk about these -things—with you. It is hard for me to understand,” his tired eyes -widened with the effort to understand. “You mean with the Story ever -before you, that yet you cannot see—Him?”</p> - -<p>“I see nothing. I’ve come to a pretty dark place in my career, -successful, I suppose it would be called.”</p> - -<p>“Since I’ve come to be old, I find I don’t always call things by their -right names. Success and failure, I don’t always know how to name them.”</p> - -<p>“But you have success!”</p> - -<p>“No—no, you have showed me clearly to-day that I have failure.”</p> - -<p>“<em>I</em> have shown you?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember that I came here with a hope?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p> - -<p>“Which I have destroyed? But, Bishop, the work you describe is -impossible to me. You know, no one better, what I am. The amazing -thing is that knowing, you still chose me. Why, such a work requires a -courage, a conviction, a vision such as—”</p> - -<p>“You have not courage?”</p> - -<p>“Not, not courage of your sort, now.”</p> - -<p>“I believe it is courage of your sort, not my sort, that Westbury -needs, now.”</p> - -<p>“It would mean a complete facing about. That would surprise,” he -smiled grimly, “a few people! I don’t know that I should really mind -surprising them.” Then his face again clouded. “The Southside would -find me out, Bishop. I have not the vision. I don’t know that I -thought it necessary, originally. It’s been, however, of late years, -a bit persistent, the advantage, say, of believing what one says one -believes.” The caustic tone changed to intensity, “If I were capable, -Bishop, of your faith!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop studied him wistfully, “And yet,” he mused, “it seems to me -so simple, faith, so unavoidable, like sunshine. No man could have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> -made the sun. Just so, it seems as if no man could have invented—that -Beauty!”</p> - -<p>“Unfortunately most people don’t see things quite so readily. As for -me, I believe I’m incapable of religious vision.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop hesitated, thoughtful, then quick words came, “But not -incapable of action. I’ve always believed that there is need perhaps -for soldiers as well as seers. There’s the fighter somewhere within -you, isn’t there?”</p> - -<p>“I sometimes feel,” Newbold admitted, “as if there were as much fight -left in me as there is in Harry to-day. One sees,” he mused, “some -pretty queer things when one looks inside.” Then once more he caught up -the paper cutter in restless fingers, “But that won’t last. I seem to -see a thing or two while you’re here, seem to be more up to—several -things. It will all come back fast enough when I’m alone. You’ll carry -this quiet away with you, Bishop.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I could leave it with you! Couldn’t I, somehow?”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t, could you, put me back twenty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> years, and give me -another try at it all? No, no, I don’t see the way to that!”</p> - -<p>“Do it! Don’t wait to see it! Vision!” the Bishop paused. “It is -perhaps true that it is not given to all to see, to feel, to know. Yet -those who do not see can act! Perhaps—perhaps—it is more beautiful -and more brave to work without the vision! We are the stewards, we call -ourselves that, you and I—God puts a cup into our hands. He doesn’t -say, ‘Believe,’ or ‘See.’ He only says, ‘Give’!”</p> - -<p>“But it is as <em>you</em> give, Bishop!”</p> - -<p>Their eyes met long. Then the tense pause slackened. Murray Newbold -knew best his feeling for the Bishop when he felt the child gazing from -the faded eyes and speaking in his pleading voice.</p> - -<p>“Murray, will you build, then, the House of Friendship, for Westbury?”</p> - -<p>Silence. Newbold had bowed his forehead upon his interlaced fingers. -His face was concealed except the strong jaw, and the lips, motionless, -curiously refined by their tight pressure.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> Moments went by. Within -closed eyelids Newbold saw his future. He saw the past as if the issues -between himself and the Bishop had been always mounting to this final -issue. He saw himself, objective, detached as a painting. So taut were -all his senses on this morning that it seemed to him that he should -always see the Bishop’s face looking upon him just as he had closed his -eyes against it, there across the desk. It was a moment of such intense -seeing as makes promises impossible. The minutes went, one after one. -He could not have spoken a word.</p> - -<p>A touch brushed Newbold’s shoulder, “I am going now, lad,” the Bishop -said. Sudden and clamorous, the noon-day chimes, at the close of the -service, rang out, as the study door closed.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_III">PART III</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The air of the blue Christmas noon was sparkling clear, yet the -Bishop’s steps were groping. His blue eyes were vague as he smiled in -response to motor cars that flashed by, or carriages that passed with -a brisk jingle of harness. Groups, lightly laughing in the Christmas -sun, brushed by the old familiar figure in the cape overcoat, but they -seemed strangers. In the sharp daylight after that dusky study, the -Bishop trod an unknown street, as wistful and alone as a lost child. -Was this his Westbury, where none of this gay Christmas throng gave -thought to those swarming tenements at the bending of the river? An old -man’s life, what was it, against this hard and happy current? A smile, -briefly bitter, darkened the Bishop’s face; he was old and would pass, -having given his Westbury nothing!</p> - -<p>Yet all the time his feet, making for reassurance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> and relief, were -bearing him toward Lucy Hollister’s welcome, with the homing instinct -of a child that knows one door its own. Across the Bishop’s weariness -flashed the thought that in the afternoon Lucy would let him lie down -for a while.</p> - -<p>Lucy’s door opened wide to the Bishop. He felt once again, as the -closed latch shut him in from that vague and puzzling street, the spell -of the wide hall that cleft the house, and of grave old walls showing -at the opposite end a picture of the river through broad glass. The -Bishop handed his coat and hat to the brown old footman, his friend of -many years, then his head cleared happily at the sound of a soft rustle -and the tapping of light decisive slippers. Lucy’s hand was in his.</p> - -<p>“Good Christmas, Henry,” she said crisply, and led him in to the -drawing-room fire.</p> - -<p>“I was worried,” she went on. “You were not at church, nor at the house -when I drove there afterward.”</p> - -<p>“The service?” he inquired anxiously.</p> - -<p>“It was not Christmas without your sermon.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> Otherwise it was—well, a -service. For we missed our rector, too!”</p> - -<p>“He is ill.”</p> - -<p>“Is he?” inquired Lucy with musing emphasis. “And of what sickness? Too -much Westbury?”</p> - -<p>But at the Bishop’s troubled glance her tone changed instantly, “But -you yourself, Henry, have you been, are you, ill?”</p> - -<p>“Not now, not here. It is really Christmas here.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad,” she answered; then, with an unperceived catch of her -breath, “if it is really Christmas—here!”</p> - -<p>“How many Christmas dinners is it, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>“I do not count them,” to herself she added, looking at him, “those -that are over!”</p> - -<p>They fell to talking of the Christmases that were over. The Bishop did -not know that from time to time he leaned his head back, closing his -lids, and was silent while minutes ticked slowly and Lucy watched him -intently. It was comforting when he opened his eyes still to see her -sitting there, so alert, so alive.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p> - -<p>“So many Christmases!” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“I neither own to them,” she answered, “nor yet, not own!”</p> - -<p>Despite her many Christmases, it was with only a slight stiffening of -the sinuous grace of her girlhood that Lucy moved at the Bishop’s side, -to the dining-room, to the mid-afternoon holiday dinner of Westbury -habit. Lucy kept every custom Westbury had had in her youth, and she -made other people keep such custom, too; slight, elusive, dominant, -as she was, in her great house by Westbury’s river. They passed from -stately course to course exactly as they had done on that Christmas -when Henry Collinton and his wife had dined with Lucy when Annie was -a bride, and still earlier, the Bishop could remember dining at that -table, when he was a college lad and the two cousins, girls, Annie the -dark one, and Lucy, elfin and amber-tinted. The room was the same, the -china and the silver the same. Beyond the two long windows ran the gray -loop of the river. Many a time long ago, they had floated all three -in a boat on that spangled river. The wall paper was the same, put on -by French hands many a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> year ago. Round and round it raced a French -sporting scene, trim-waisted gentlemen that rode to the hunt by wood -and stream, and ladies that joined them for the huntsman’s repast, gay -picnickers all, still vivid in color.</p> - -<p>It was all the same, for in Westbury things did continue blessedly -unchanged. Lucy was unchanged, for all the long wearing of her widow’s -black. The yellow still showed in the snowy gloss of her carefully -arranged hair. Age had slightly rimmed her eyes with red, but the -will-o’-the-wisp still danced in them. Her mouth, netted by wrinkles, -was hardly more finely whimsical than in girlhood. As of old, when -in earnest talk, she dropped her chin, still clearly chiseled, to a -delicate white claw of a hand, flashing from a fall of black chiffon. -Lucy treated age as she did people: like them, age could not tell -whether it had penetrated her delicate aloofness.</p> - -<p>To the Bishop, room and river and woman were still the same. Spent -to the uttermost as he knew himself to be to-day, Lucy’s indomitable -vitality quickened him with sharp hope; perhaps, after all, there was -much he could still leave to Lucy!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> But not yet for him the outpouring, -as ever, into Lucy’s ear. That would come, but not yet! How happy, -now, shut in by that race round and round the walls of those merry -picnickers, to pluck, as it were a Christmas gift from a tree, one hour -in which they should still be boy and girl together.</p> - -<p>As they talked, two faces looked over their shoulders; over the -Bishop’s a boy’s with brown hair flung back, with eager listening -eyes, and a mouth that spoke poetry and as instantly laughed out in -merry mockery of it, a face that, clear as water, was all the play of -a mobile brain; and close by Lucy’s head, another in a white bonnet, -green-ribboned and green-leaved, from which, framed in red-gold curls, -looked out a tinted cameo face, with green-blue eyes, mocking and -mysterious. To-day, Lucy’s body was still fragile and unbroken, as in -girlhood, and for all she had married and borne four children, her -soul still went unfettered as when she was a girl. But age had charred -the Bishop’s face to fine white ashes, in which the blue eyes burned, -luminous and inward.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p> - -<p>“Henry,” mused Lucy, “the poetry never came back to you, did it? Do you -ever write nowadays, ever snare a little wild, singing poem now?”</p> - -<p>“The verses come to me sometimes still, but not near enough to catch, -or to <em>wish</em> to catch, perhaps. I do sometimes see the pictures -still, this very morning, for instance, and I hear rhythms; but, no, I -have never written since—since Nan went.”</p> - -<p>He was silent a moment, lips tightening, then lights began to gleam on -his face, with the familiar pleasure of thinking aloud to Lucy. “But -perhaps I do not write because I can no longer distinguish between -poetry and prose, in life. That is boy’s work, really, to see the -sharp outlines of things that afterwards, for us, seem to overlap, to -interweave. Poetry and prose, which is which? Just so the distinction -between the sacred and the secular, easy enough at twenty, not at -eighty: then the two were clear to me as bars of sun and shadow on a -pavement; now the sun-bars would seem all softened with shadow, and the -shadow all shot through with sun. Just so the distinction between the -divine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> and the human, God and man, where shall one separate the two? -Can anyone say. Just so far,—” here the Bishop, all eager explanation, -drew the figure of a cross upon the leather armchair, keeping an ivory -finger tip upon the spot, “just so far shall God stoop to man, just so -far man rise to God! Oh! no, no!” He erased the imaginary cross with -a quick brushing of his long hand, “life is not like that, not sharp -distinctions, it is all interwoven, interwoven!</p> - -<p>“So with poetry and prose. How can I possibly write,” he laughed, “if -I can’t tell them apart? Why, nowadays I seem to get meshed in my own -metres. No, I’m no true poet,” he shook his head ruefully, “if I can’t -tell whether a poem is inside of me or outside of me, whether I am -it, or it is I! No, old age is the time for seeing, not for singing.” -He paused, thinking, “But I verily believe I like the seeing better -than the singing.” He looked over to her in the old, quick boyish way, -“Don’t you?”</p> - -<p>Lucy gave her little humorous shrug, inimitably slight, “O Henry, -forgive me, I believe old age for me is all plain prose.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p> - -<p>He laughed his silvery old laugh, in pure amusement, “And that from -you, who know nothing whatever about old age!”</p> - -<p>“I! I know everything about old age!”</p> - -<p>“Prove it!” he rallied, “prove it! Prove that you know one thing more -about old age to-day than you did when you were twenty!”</p> - -<p>Her face, still beautiful despite its subtlety of lines, grew strange, -and her humorous lips delicately mocking, “No, I don’t believe I -could—prove—that I know anything more about old age to-day—than I -did when I was twenty!”</p> - -<p>“There,” he cried gaily, “you admit it?”</p> - -<p>“Admit what, my friend?”</p> - -<p>“That you are still a girl!”</p> - -<p>“Yet, a grandmother?”</p> - -<p>“One can never somehow remember that,” his gaze upon her changed to -puzzled thought.</p> - -<p>“Yet I am a grandmother, a model mother and grandmother, I’d have you -remember!”</p> - -<p>“It is very strange,” he mused, “mine, who are gone, seem almost nearer -than yours, who are here. I sometimes have wondered why you never -choose to go to them at Christmas-time.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> Although it is a happy thing -for me that you do not.”</p> - -<p>“I prefer my Christmas to myself!”</p> - -<p>“But isn’t it lonely?”</p> - -<p>“Lonely, when you have never failed me, Henry!” she laughed. “You know -I’m a stickler for old customs. I can’t change old friends for new -grandchildren.”</p> - -<p>“Grandchildren!” he shook his head. “No, it is impossible to believe -in them! You seem to me still Lucy Dwight of the long ago,” a twinkle -danced in his eyes, “and aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Who can answer that question but Henry Collinton, of the long ago? Who -else remembers?”</p> - -<p>They both remembered, and fell silent, joining thoughts.</p> - -<p>At length the Bishop, shining-eyed, exclaimed, “Those were great days, -when I came here to college!”</p> - -<p>“Great days, yes, when I—when we—taught you the town. You thought -everything so wonderful that you almost made me believe Westbury -wonderful, too.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p> - -<p>“And didn’t you, don’t you, believe it wonderful?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him quietly, “But Westbury is my own,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“And isn’t it,” he pleaded, “my own, too, by this time?”</p> - -<p>“Yours?” she looked at him with far, intent eyes, then before his wide -child-gaze, troubled, her smile flashed reassurance, “Yours, surely, -Henry!” again she fell thoughtful, “yet it depends a little on what you -mean!”</p> - -<p>“Westbury <em>has</em> been mine,” he maintained, and then, not -confident, “and Westbury has not changed, has it, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>“It has not changed, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no, Henry,” she comforted him, “How? Where? Look about and -see!”</p> - -<p>“Once it sent more men forth into the church than any other place in -all the country. Will it, do you believe, continue to do that?”</p> - -<p>“Westbury is still churchly! Look at us! Westbury still goes to church. -I myself set the example.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p> - -<p>“Westbury always has followed your example,” the Bishop answered; again -he felt a start of hope, but still postponed in this pleasant lighter -hour the full revelation of his morning’s anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Westbury will always follow my example, Henry, just so long as I -give it its head. It is a triumph, is it not,” her lips puckered -whimsically, “for an old lady to lead a town by a string? If I cared -for the triumph! Not to let Westbury get away from me, that has been -at least an absorbing pastime. I have spent my life trying to keep -Westbury the Westbury of my youth!” Quizzical, darting gleams showed in -her eyes.</p> - -<p>“There was no more beautiful way to spend your life,” the Bishop -answered.</p> - -<p>Lucy’s face changed, old age dropped over it like a veil, from which -her eyes looked forth, strange.</p> - -<p>“I, too,” the Bishop answered, “have wished to spend my life in keeping -Westbury the Westbury of my youth. It seemed so beautiful to me! People -were already beginning to be in a hurry in other places, but they still -had time to be kind,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> here. They were already locking themselves into -classes in other places, but they still had time to be friends, rich -with poor, rich with rich, here. You remember the mission, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>She started, glancing at him with quick, culprit look, which he, lost -in dreams, did not observe, continuing, “Westbury was a place of -beautiful friendship, a place to make a young man dream dreams.”</p> - -<p>Very low she whispered, “Your dreams, Henry, not Westbury’s!”</p> - -<p>“It has not changed, has it, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>She did not answer at first, then a smile, elusive, sweet, brushed her -lips and was gone, “No, Henry!”</p> - -<p>“For how could it,” he burst out joyously, “how could it, when you have -not changed, and you are Westbury!”</p> - -<p>“I am Westbury?”</p> - -<p>“Yes!” he answered, “yes!”</p> - -<p>“Have you always thought that, Henry?”</p> - -<p>“I believe so, yes.”</p> - -<p>But beneath his clear, smiling gaze, the witch lights gleamed in her -eyes, “I wonder if you will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> always think so, Henry!” But his words -seemed to have made her inattentive, restless, so that it was at length -almost abruptly that she rose. She turned an instant toward the picture -framed by the window.</p> - -<p>“How you love this town, Henry!”</p> - -<p>“It is my piece of God’s world,” he answered with that simple reverence -that could startle, then he stopped before turning away from the table, -“May I?” he asked permission, as he picked up a sprig of holly. “We’ve -had none at the house, and you remember how Annie loved holly.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Lucy answered, “I remember—Annie’s holly.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop still kept the spray of crimson berries in his hand when -they had crossed the hall into the library, where the fire sprang -high and where beyond the twin windows that matched those of the -dining-room, the river had turned to slaty gray below the dulling -eastern sky. The light in the room was quite clear, but yet the -Bishop, in the dizziness that followed his rising and walking from the -dining-room, groped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> for a chair, and sank into it awkwardly, leaning -back a moment with shut eyes. For the instant his clear old face looked -withered, and his hands upon the chair-arms hung lax.</p> - -<p>Lucy was still standing against the fire glow, slight, vivid, imperious.</p> - -<p>“Henry!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop opened vague eyes.</p> - -<p>“I can’t let you look like that, Henry, to-day!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop smiled, “I’m a bit tired. I’ve just remembered it. You had -made me forget it, as usual, made me forget both the tiredness and -some other things. They come back upon me now. I’ve had a rather rough -morning of it, to tell the truth.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me about it,” she said, sitting down.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been hearing things I didn’t want to hear, and believing things -I didn’t want to believe, and trying to do things I couldn’t do, all -morning. It seems a pretty long time since to-day began. Oh, I was -going to do great things to-day when I got up!”</p> - -<p>“But the day is not over.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> - -<p>“That is just it,” he answered. “My day <em>is</em> over!”</p> - -<p>“No, no, it must never be over! You must never speak like that! Why -even I—” she broke off, “but you, Henry! Who were always such a boy -for hoping! You mustn’t stop; I’ll never let you!”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with a grave, far gaze, “It would be a Christmas gift -that I need, Lucy, if to-day you gave me hope. You are the only person -who can!”</p> - -<p>“What has gone wrong, Henry?”</p> - -<p>“It was only that I wanted to give Westbury a Christmas present, and -Westbury would not have it.”</p> - -<p>“Who, pray, had the right to say so?”</p> - -<p>“Newbold.”</p> - -<p>“Newbold! He! What rights has he in Westbury, may I ask?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s glance was startled and penetrating, “Has he none, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>She caught back her words sharply, saying merely, “No right to hurt -you, Henry, that is all. But tell me about the Christmas present to -Westbury.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> It is some new philanthropic scheme of yours, I suppose. -Tell me about it, for you know you might offer your Christmas present -to me. Try whether I’ll take it, if I am Westbury.”</p> - - -<p class="center p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img003"> - <img src="images/003.jpg" class="w50" alt="As before, he knocked, all eager, and again opening -doors flashed ruddy on the night" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center caption">As before, he knocked, all eager, and again opening -doors flashed ruddy on the night<br /><i>See <a href="#Page_146">page 146</a></i></p> - -<p>His face broke aflame, “You will?” he cried, “I believe that you can!”</p> - -<p>“Tell me!” she repeated, dropping her chin upon her white bodkin -fingers, and fixing her eyes upon the beauty of his face.</p> - -<p>The two clear, pale old faces looked forth at each other across a -space, while slowly there drew in about them the mystery of the dusk. -Athwart the gathering twilight, the Bishop’s voice fell musical and -clear.</p> - -<p>“The day didn’t go very well, not till I got here to you. I got up -feeling a bit shaky. I’m going to treat myself to that couch over there -presently. Perhaps if my head had been clearer I might have seen better -how to do what I tried to do to-day. But I’m afraid the real trouble -goes deeper, and dates farther back. Christmas day sometimes throws a -light back over the other days and years. I haven’t done what might -have been done with all the years that have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> granted me. I see -that to-day. And now it is too late, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“What has happened to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing has happened but knowledge, perhaps, knowledge to which I have -forced myself to be blind. But in the light of Christmas I had to see, -that’s all. And so I suppose I’m a little discouraged, and need to be -bolstered up, as you can. It’s a good thing for me that you’ve never -had time to grow old, Lucy. For it’s no fun,” his smile flashed, then -fell as suddenly, “this being old.”</p> - -<p>She fought against his growing seriousness, “I’ve had to stay young, -Henry, to keep you from growing old. So don’t go and be old all of a -sudden to-day,”—she forced her tone to evenness, “not to-day of all -days! I will have to-day!”</p> - -<p>“I wanted to-day, too,” he answered, “but I’ve had to give up what I -wanted, so far, twice.”</p> - -<p>“Who, exactly, is the trouble, Henry?”</p> - -<p>“Newbold.”</p> - -<p>He paused so long that Lucy asked with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> faintest frown of -weariness, “Well, and what has that young man done to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Young, he is that, certainly! I half forgot it, young and -therefore,—” again he stopped, but his eyes were kindled.</p> - -<p>“No, not ‘therefore,’” Lucy answered keenly, “if you mean by that that -he is still young enough to improve.”</p> - -<p>“Not with help?”</p> - -<p>“Whose?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop hesitated, eyes intent, searching hers, then answered, -“Westbury’s, for Westbury has hurt him.”</p> - -<p>“Will he profit by Westbury’s help if he has not profited by yours?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop mused, frankly anxious, puzzled, “I had been thinking that -if Westbury had hurt him, just for that reason perhaps, Westbury—could -also help him, and would.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Henry, Henry,” she shook her head with pursed, humorous lips, “you -talk in abstract terms. But Westbury is no abstraction. ‘Westbury could -help him.’ Exactly what do you mean? For who, pray, is Westbury?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> - -<p>The Bishop’s gaze met hers; there was humor in his eyes as in hers, but -also something deeper, something watchful, strange.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” she laughed, “I remember. I am Westbury! Do you mean, Henry -Collinton, that I am to help this Newbold of yours? That I am to make a -gentleman of him, if you couldn’t?”</p> - -<p>But at her words the Bishop’s face grew stern, “No, I have utterly -failed to make him anything that I wished. But it is arrogant, perhaps, -this hoping to make anybody anything. Yet how could I help hoping? He -was a splendid boy, and I had no son.”</p> - -<p>In that stern, brooding silence, Lucy said at length, “Don’t mind too -much, Henry. Remember you idealize—persons and—towns. He was always -out of place here, that is all. He could never belong here.”</p> - -<p>The Bishop turned his head in the old quick boyish way, “But could he -not have a place in Westbury, if Westbury would make a place for him?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p> - -<p>“Incorrigible one!” she smiled. “How?”</p> - -<p>Stern age in judgment on his failure left the Bishop’s face,—the -little sunny child stole back to it. “I have a little hope,” he -admitted, “but so very small! It depends on you, all of it.”</p> - -<p>His eyes were all aflame, but his tone was grave. “You know so well -how to help a man in his work, how to cheer him on through doubt and -failure. Have you ever failed me?”</p> - -<p>“I know how to let a man talk to me, perhaps,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Yes, how you have let me talk to you, always,—ever since the mission -was founded! Ever since that day we have talked, ever since that day I -have brought my work to you!”</p> - -<p>“And I have listened!”</p> - -<p>“And have helped! Lucy, as you have helped,” she felt the sharp intake -of his breath, “as you have helped me, could you not also help him who -shall come after me?”</p> - -<p>“Come after you? What, whom, do you mean, Henry! You cannot surely mean -that he, your Newbold, shall come after <em>you</em>?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p> - -<p>“You know the diocese, Lucy, as I know it—can you doubt that—<abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> -Newbold—will come after me?”</p> - -<p>“Henry, would you, could you, choose that he should? After <em>you</em>?”</p> - -<p>“What choice have I? I—I am passing on. The sadness is that I would -have desired him to follow me, once.”</p> - -<p>“Now?”</p> - -<p>“Will you help him, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“Be his friend. He does not believe you his friend. It is the only -hope.”</p> - -<p>“Hope of what, Henry?”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me at this moment, the only hope of all that I have -desired.”</p> - -<p>Leaning back in infinite weariness, he gazed into the fire, silently. -In the dusky room the fire glow was rosy warm about them, as they sat -in twin chairs before the hearth. Silently the old footman had entered, -and across the room had lighted and turned low a green-shaded lamp. -Lucy sat motionless. A coal slipped down, with a whisper, glowed, and -dimmed to ashes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> - -<p>“What have you desired, Henry?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop turned, “You have had all my dreams,” he answered, “so -you know.” A strange mysticism showed upon his face, “I have desired -to-day, to give all that I had to the poor, and to the rich, to the -rich! And I could not!” At her look of puzzled curiosity, he explained -quickly, with a passing smile, “But that is a Christmas secret, between -<abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Newbold and me. And besides, it is all over, now,—that little -Christmas dream.” Again a long gaze into the fire where one can watch -one’s wishes glowing, dying. “And I have desired most of all, to leave -my work to someone who would understand and carry it on!”</p> - -<p>“Who could understand, Henry,” she whispered, “your work?”</p> - -<p>He turned his head toward her, quick and sunny. “You alone, perhaps, -and therefore you will help him to understand.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“By giving him courage, as you have given it to me.”</p> - -<p>“I never gave you courage.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes! And so, let me believe, you will give it to him!”</p> - -<p>“Courage for what? Be explicit, dreamer!”</p> - -<p>“Courage to reopen the Southside Mission, and to keep it open,—and -every mission throughout the diocese! Let him know that Westbury stands -by him there!”</p> - -<p>“But if—” she spoke low, “if it doesn’t?”</p> - -<p>There was a stab of pain on the Bishop’s face, and then bright hope, -“Let him know you do! That will be enough! And besides,” he smiled, -“can you not make Westbury do whatever you wish?”</p> - -<p>“I never tried,” she answered musingly, “to make Westbury do anything -it did <em>not</em> wish.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot believe,” he cried, “that it wishes the closing of the -mission. There has been somehow a mistake. It cannot be. It would mean -the going out of a lamp which you and I saw kindled,—it does not seem -to me so very long ago.”</p> - -<p>“It is a lifetime.”</p> - -<p>The light died from the Bishop’s face, leaving on it all the cruelty -of age. “Yes, a lifetime<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> that is over,” for a moment his lips showed -their palsied working, for a moment spoke an old man’s querulousness, -“they could not have closed the mission without my knowing it, if they -had not thought me, already, laid upon the shelf!”</p> - -<p>“Henry,” she pleaded, “not that, please!”</p> - -<p>“No, not that!” he cried, instantly himself and contrite, “we pass, but -the work goes on! I am an old man who has somehow made a failure of it. -But I’ll try not to think of that any more, clouding our Christmasing. -I’ll try just to remember I am leaving Murray Newbold and Westbury, the -two I have loved, to you.”</p> - -<p>“Leaving! But, Henry, you speak as if I were not also old! What time -have I left, for Newbold, for Westbury, more than you?”</p> - -<p>“You will have time,” he answered, while the mysticism again touched -his face, “my head is not clear to-day, but that is one of the things I -seem to know, that you will have time, more than I. Time enough to help -Newbold to learn his own strength. He has never tried it. Time enough -to teach him to fight. A soldier, he’ll not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> desert,—afterwards. And -time enough to help Westbury rekindle the mission, whose death would -mean—you and I know,” his voice fell and he groped a little for words, -a little confused, “the light must not die, you will have time to keep -the light, to keep Westbury—alive. Your Westbury and mine! I seem to -know to-day,” his low voice, in the twilight, was very clear, “that you -will have time to help the man and the town I have failed to help.”</p> - -<p>“If time were all that is needed, Henry, to help them!”</p> - -<p>Looking into the fire, he did not turn, answering happily, “Whatever -else is needed you possess, and have given to me for sixty years.”</p> - -<p>With the snapping of a lifetime’s tension her voice rang, “Henry, stop -looking into the fire! For sixty years you have looked into dreams. -Now, once, look at me!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop turned.</p> - -<p>Her elfin laugh tinkled, “The fairies were good to you, Henry, they -gave you eyes that do not see.”</p> - -<p>While she spoke, slowly the Bishop saw, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> at first he saw only a -girl’s witch-face in the fire glow.</p> - -<p>“I will make you see this once, Henry Collinton—<em>me</em>! You look -strange, Henry! As if you couldn’t guess what’s coming. Neither, I -assure you, can I. You called me Lucy Dwight of the long ago,—and -you’ll have to take the consequences! I like you to look strange, for -then you don’t look old! Look young, Henry, and look at me! You are -looking, I believe, at last, with open eyes,—looking at a woman, not -a diocese. Henry, I might say in passing that I did not think once, on -one afternoon we both recall,—but differently!—when we talked about -a mission, that we should still be talking about that mission after -sixty years. You will excuse my changing the subject from your work -for a few moments, then, after sixty years! I’ve been a pretty good -listener—take your turn!”</p> - -<p>She looked no longer at the Bishop, who watched her as if she were -some Christmas sprite risen out of the red hearth. Her white old face, -white-crowned, was touched to rose and gold by the fire flame.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> - -<p>“Shall I draw you a portrait, Henry, of someone you have never seen? -Yet it is a portrait on constant exhibition. It is shown to every -guest in Westbury,—a private exhibition is called High Tea at Mrs. -Hollister’s. People watch the guest when he sees the portrait; by its -effect he is judged. People point out that the portrait is valuable -historically, since it combines inseparably the style of sixty years -ago with the style of to-day. That is because the picture has been -retouched so carefully from year to year to fit the taste of the times. -So the painting is seen to represent the sixty-year history of a town, -even to costume,” she flashed a white hand from throat to skirt of her -clinging black which looked at first sight so fresh from a fashion -plate and was so carefully studied to fit no decade, and no person, but -her own.</p> - -<p>“Who would ever have thought Lucy Dwight could have stepped into a -picture and stayed there all her life? She did not expect to, once, but -she made up her mind to it, later, when one day she looked in the glass -and took stock of what was left to her. She was twenty then.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> - -<p>“I am proud of the portrait, frankly. I have enjoyed making it. I -haven’t had anything else to do, except, of course,” a ripple of -laughter ran through her tone, “to listen! The portrait needed a frame, -so I’ve made that, too. Your figure of speech was inaccurate, a while -ago. I am not Westbury. Westbury is the frame; I am the portrait, the -portrait of an interesting old woman, interesting to everybody but -herself!”</p> - -<p>Lucy was an artist, she knew the value of the pause, she knew the -value of a shrug, the most delicate perceptible lifting of brows and -shoulders, she knew the value of hands, that, out of periods of quiet, -flickered now and then, spirit-white against the black shadows of her -gown. An artist, she forgot the Bishop while she talked and did not -look upon the change that grew upon his face.</p> - -<p>“It is very easy to be interesting. It only needs that you always guess -what people are going to say next and never let them guess what you are -going to say next. It needs a gift for words and a gift for silence. -It was the process by which I brought up my children. My children have -always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> known they did not know their mother, a course of training -easier than spanking and more efficacious.” She stopped a moment. Her -clasped hands tightened, “Yet in ultimate effect, at seventy-seven, a -little lonely. We prefer our Christmases apart, my children and I.” -Her words fell clear against a long silence following, “My husband, of -course, spoiled the children. I was perfectly willing that he should; -they were his children.”</p> - -<p>After a pause, the Bishop, bringing the words forth from far away -murmured, musing, “Fathers do spoil children, perhaps.”</p> - -<p>Her tone turned tense, “I would have spoiled Nan!” then, resuming her -gaze into the fire, upon her portrait, she continued her retrospective -analysis, “And I have managed the town as I have managed my family. -What Mrs. Hollister says, what Mrs. Hollister does not say, about -ministers and missions, about dinners and diners, Westbury waits -to know, and I have never let it be quite, quite sure! So Westbury -watches, watches me—but oh, not as I watch Westbury! For it would be -a little curious and disquieting—if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> I should cease to be popular! I -don’t think that unpopularity would exactly suit—my physique! I am old -and accustomed to sovereignty, even if it is, well, a bit monotonous! -We were young and lively once, Westbury and I, but now we grow old and -wish to be complacent and comfortable, so we don’t poke at each other’s -consciences. And, indeed, why should we? For are we not pretty good, -when one stops to look at us!” Patriotism deepened her voice, “Where is -there another Westbury! We have kept the heritage of our fathers! We -have not grown cheap in Westbury!” Then a lighter tone, “And how could -we be very bad when we always have had you to idealize us! Ever since -you were a boy! You came to us a stranger and we took you in, at once. -We sometimes do take in the stranger at once, and sometimes never. -Nowadays he must be presented to the portrait, and must pass that -examination. Young Murray Newbold has never passed his, and he knows -it. I believe I rather like to see him squirm, for it is not petty, it -is a giant’s squirming, and I enjoy it because I fancy it has ceased to -be perceptible to any eye but mine.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> It is interesting to observe the -effect of the air of Westbury on some constitutions. Your young Newbold -would have been worth bringing up once, but he has never learned not -to be afraid, and that brings it about that he has parted with every -good quality he possesses except his brain. That is still with us, -fortunately, for, quite between us, in spite of patriotism, I must say -there are not many brains in active employment in Westbury in these -days (I’m not, of course, so impolitic as to say ‘in these days’ to -anyone but you, Henry!). We have about half-a-dozen brains in Westbury -capable of conversation,—yours and young Newbold’s and mine, I forget -the other three!” Her laugh died into a thoughtful pause.</p> - -<p>“And yet a brain for a woman is a big stupidity. But perhaps I ought -not to quarrel with mine, for,” she drew a quick breath of intensity, -“it has given me all I’ve ever had! Oh, you and I have had some great -old talks, haven’t we, here by my old red fire! Brains make—at -least—good comradeship!” Her voice fell low, “I sometimes wonder if -there is anything better for—men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> and women—than good comradeship. -What—what do you think, Henry?” But still she looked into the fire and -not at him, and the Bishop did not answer. For a moment his deep gaze -upon her wavered, went to the blackening window,—below there in the -wintry garden long bleak stems broke aflame with wee yellow blossoms, -beneath them little brown Annie walked among the roses.</p> - -<p>“How curiously that holly glistens, Henry!” Lucy’s eyes were upon the -long lean hands transparent to the fire glow, then suddenly in a voice -lingering and judicial, “I really do not know whether it is so very -interesting after all to be an interesting old woman!”</p> - -<p>Lucy’s hands unclasped, fluttered an instant on the chair arms, then -lay still, “Oh, I am bored! And I have been bored for so long! It would -astonish this town of mine to know how it bores me! There is nothing -new for me anywhere! I know what everybody is going to say and do. If -it were not for you, I should even know what I myself am going to say -and do! Oh, dull, dull, dull,—this being old! I wish I had something -to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> do! I don’t even yet feel old enough to do nothing, yet when have I -ever done anything else?”</p> - -<p>The fire snapped in the stillness of the room, embers leaping up, the -sooner to die to blackened ashes. Lucy’s voice grew low and vibrant.</p> - -<p>“You wonder why I speak these things to-day? It is your own fault, -Henry, my friend! Why do I keep my hearth fire bright except that you -should drop in beside it and talk to me? It is quite the only thing -left that is entertaining. And to-day you yourself threaten that!” Her -voice fell low, “Christmas has always been my day, why this time do -you bring with you these terrible thoughts, this talk of—death! Why -talk of it, the thinking of it is bad enough! Did anyone ever hear me -talk of dying? Except, of course, my lawyer. No, when death takes me, -he must catch me first! I shall never go forth to meet him with plans -and preparations for the things that shall come after,—and why should -you? Why must you talk of your going, speaking as if I could have an -interest in your work without you! Oh, Henry, why did you yourself -bring the spectre to our Christmas fire, where I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> wanted to be snug and -warm! You are not afraid, but I—I regret to confess it, I am!” Then -her tone grew less intense, determinedly casual, “Yet it is curious -that I should care or really take the trouble to be afraid! I who am -bored to the uttermost! The other will be at least a new thing! But I -have never been fond of games of chance! A picture in a frame is dead -enough, but a coffin is—ugh!—slightly worse! It is so ugly, this -dying! Nobody can ever say I yielded to it before I had to—I have -yielded so far, I flatter myself, to nothing! Yet when I must, I shall -step into my carriage and drive off with my head up and my lips shut, -like a lady! As I have lived!”</p> - -<p>She paused, momentarily conscious of his expression, so that to the -strange intentness of his watching face she went on, “I never have -yielded to the need of a confessional before; if I do so once in a -lifetime, you really must excuse me, Henry!</p> - -<p>“Of course, for you it is different, you are not afraid; you are a man, -and then you have your religion. But a woman is rarely religious, at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> -least a woman who has not had what she wanted! As a thinking person, I -quite envy you your religion. It is a valuable possession, at this end -of life. Not that I am unorthodox—who is, in our good old churchly -Westbury? I am a good churchwoman,—that does not enable me to see -through a stone wall. Oh, Henry, Henry, here you come to-day, looking -so pale that I can’t bear it, and talking of going, passing on, leaving -your work! You have made me feel how near we are, you and I, to that -stone wall. I am sitting here shivering at the strange things on the -other side!”</p> - -<p>No light but the ebbing fire and the clear green lamp, and somewhere -outside in the darkness stars above the swift rush of the river.</p> - -<p>“It is this that makes me talk. The time is so short, here, and over -there—who knows about over there? One speaks out at last, I find, -after being good for sixty years. For I have been good, have I not, -Henry, for sixty years,—listened and listened, helped, as you believe, -your work? It has been a great thing to be jealous of so great a work! -Did you really think my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> mind was in it, that I really cared,—I!—for -missions, for making men over, for turning a town right about face!</p> - -<p>“I never expected to speak out; pictures in frames do not expect to -speak out. Yet I might have known, for sooner or later everyone does -speak out to you. I’ve been rather proud of being the one exception. -But is it not my turn? And yours to listen, to me, just once, at last? -You are surprised, I suppose. I am afraid I do not care that you are. I -had to open your eyes. You speak as if I existed only to carry on your -work—it has always been like that. So I’ve drawn you a portrait. Do -you still think, looking at it, that I am the one to give you hope, I! -What do you think, Henry Collinton, of the portrait of Lucy Dwight?”</p> - -<p>Her strangely gleaming eyes at last met the Bishop’s deep gaze, -profound, unfaltering. There was stillness, then the Bishop spoke, in -quiet judgment on himself, “My work? Yet I had hoped that it seemed -God’s. And for sixty years I have thought that you loved it!”</p> - -<p>“I have loved you!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> - -<p>There was no old age for them now, no past, no future. Beyond the room -that briefly held them were night and the river and death. She was Lucy -Dwight of the flickering fire flame, who laid bare at the last her -deathless desire. The man she loved was God’s, was all men’s. After a -lifetime of delicate sanity, she cried out to him to be for one hour -hers. Then she waited.</p> - -<p>The singular clarity of the Bishop’s brain had annulled for him every -other emotion. He no longer felt any shock of revelation. The lucidity -of his thinking was like a physical sensation of actual daylight in the -room and beyond the windows. He saw the past as if it had been written -in a foreign tongue and with a new meaning, but he saw it as plainly as -black print on white paper. The woman before him was one whom he had -never known, but he read her soul, too, clear as a printed page. So -strangely clear his head, it seemed to him he could have laid his hand -on that wall of death Lucy had talked of, that it would have crumbled -at his touch, leaving him standing on the other side, in this same new -daylight, serene and unsurprised. So crystal his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> thoughts that words -seemed to him a remote and frivolous medium, like a grown man’s being -forced to rediscover his baby-lisp in order to make himself understood. -His personal pain had become merely a matter for reflection and limpid -analysis. Carried far on thought that ran deep and wide, the Bishop -spoke, hardly conscious of his words, “But love <em>loves</em>! It does -not hurt! You knew me and my faith in you and my hope through you. If -you had loved me, would you have destroyed for me that faith and hope? -Would you not have taken from my hand my boy and my town, to take care -of and to help, if you had loved me?”</p> - -<p>They seemed to sit there as if looking on these words, in a silence -that grew palpitant. Then her cry broke, “Henry, I can be all that you -have believed, I can promise to try to do all that you desire. If you -ask me to do it for you! Do you?”</p> - -<p>All in that strange daylight within his brain, the Bishop saw the -future, saw his work die with him. In the same white light he saw the -woman before him whom he had never known.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> - -<p>Lucy waited. God’s or hers? Yet why had she loved him except because -he had never been hers? The Bishop’s gaze rested upon her in a far -tranquillity of insight.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>He sat there, quiet as a portrait before her gaze, and all alone. She -had desired to rouse him from bodily weakness, and there was about -him now no taint of feebleness. He sat erect, his long hands tranquil -but not flaccid. A smile touched his lips, so fine and firm, a man’s -smile, not a child’s; a smile of thought in retrospect, neither bright -nor bitter. He had believed his lonely life cheered by a beautiful -friendship, so sacred that he had supposed it hallowed the shrines of -his God, of his wife, even as he did. This friendship had not been what -he thought it. Truth was well. He had no friend. There remained God.</p> - -<p>“Henry!”</p> - -<p>He looked over to her with a far, alien pity.</p> - -<p>“Have I lost you, Henry? I was never mad before. To keep you I have -been for a lifetime so frightfully wise! Have I lost you now?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> - -<p>Involuntarily he shut his eyes, the faintest line was pencilled between -his brows. Pain struck home again through all that serenity of light. -If there was one thing Henry Collinton, the man, loved, it was reserve, -the delicate stateliness of their mutual sympathy. Yet here was the -nakedness of a woman’s soul! Words seemed to him too far away to find -or utter.</p> - -<p>“Henry, sometimes you seem to me to see only God!”</p> - -<p>Still he sat before her, silent and motionless as a portrait statue, as -austere and beautiful. His face was in profile to her. The firelight -fell on his silver-white hair and filled the eyes that did not turn or -see her. Still she seemed to him changed into a stranger. But her words -sounded in his head, “Sometimes you seem to see only God!” The Bishop -put up his right hand to his brow, suddenly veiling his face from her. -Against the strange recoil from her his quick prayer throbbed. So long -Lucy gazed at that corded old hand that shut him from her that there -grew at last on her face also, a marble sternness that matched his own. -She was no longer beautiful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> beneath that blighting cynicism. Behind -his lifted hand, the Bishop did not guess his testing, alone with God -as he sat there, praying against this quivering repulsion of his soul. -At last Lucy’s eyes turned from him to the fire. The smile of a faint -scorn caught on her lips! Scorn for herself? Scorn for him? Sixty years -of loving? Was this its issue?</p> - -<p>Silence, except for the whispering fire.</p> - -<p>The Bishop dropped his hand, leaning back a moment in uttermost relief. -From head to foot, he felt, all quietly, some stern tension relaxed, -and with it there passed away also something of that intensely clear -vision he had just experienced. Looking now toward that other chair by -the fire, he knew it was no stranger but the old familiar Lucy seated -there, his friend, and how tired she looked and white and lonely! He -must try to understand. It was very strange to realize it all, but -step by step he must try to understand, even though he felt again now -suddenly, and far more certainly, the shutting in upon him of the -vagueness and dullness of the morning hours. He cried out to the Friend -to hold it at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> bay a little while that he might talk to Lucy. He smiled -over to her sunnily.</p> - -<p>As she looked into his eyes that blighting scorn was transformed into -a tremulous new beauty, her brooding face suddenly puckered with the -painful tears of age.</p> - -<p>“Henry, tell me how to live without you! Give it to me this Christmas -Day, that gift of hope!”</p> - -<p>“I would,” he answered slowly, “if I could! But I haven’t been so -very successful in my gift-giving to-day. So I don’t feel very sure -of myself. You’ll be patient, won’t you, while I try to understand?” -Slowly and humbly he felt his way, with wistful pauses. “There is so -much that is new to me, to understand.” Deep in thought he gazed into -the past. “You have been very patient with me. I see now how often I -have been self-absorbed and selfish, bringing it all to you, every -worry. I have taken,—I see it now—much sympathy and given very -little. It’s a little late, isn’t it, after sixty years, to ask you to -excuse it?” He shook his head with a strange, sad little smile. “How I -have talked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> to you! Always! It must indeed have seemed to you a long, -long listening! I am sorry!”</p> - -<p>“But I am not sorry, Henry!”</p> - -<p>“No!” his face brightened. “For if I have been self-absorbed, you at -least can remember that you have been very good to me. That helps, does -it not?” he pleaded quickly. “That thought helps a little toward cheer? -For as I try to understand, I do not seem able to look back and read -my life without you. You have always strengthened me. You have never -failed me.”</p> - -<p>“Until to-day?”</p> - -<p>Her whisper sent a shiver of hurt along his lips, but in a moment he -achieved steadiness, holding self at bay. “That!” his breath caught, -then low words that grew calm, “But as you said, it is perhaps my turn -now, to listen to you. It is only fair, as you said, that I should -listen and see, at last.”</p> - -<p>“I never meant you to see. I always knew what would happen if you did.” -Her voice throbbed through the dusky room, with strange finality, “And -now it <em>has</em> happened!”</p> - -<p>His eyes met hers, crystal clear, “Nothing has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> happened,” he said -simply; “I think nothing ever happens, does it, to friends?”</p> - -<p>There was a strange wondering relief upon her keen white face, as she -listened for his words, seeing the old boyish mysticism brighten in -his eyes. “But let me keep on trying to understand. They cannot be -very easy to bear, the things you have been telling me about, all that -I have been so dull and slow to guess. It will never do for either of -us to let Christmas day go out in the blues. The air seemed full of -good cheer this morning; we mustn’t lose that, you and I, just because -we are being drawn into the evening. You have been cheer itself to me -through all these years; if only I knew the word to say to you now! My -thoughts don’t feel very clear or manageable, but you know I want to -find the right word! You who have always known what to say to me.” He -fell thoughtful and silent, then looked up quickly, “You see it was -for that reason that I couldn’t help asking you to look after Murray, -because I knew what you had done for me. I have had every hope for -him, and you know how hard it is for me to give up a thing I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> have -hoped for,—that is why I caught at your friendship for him as the one -security now. I thought perhaps there would be for you the pleasure -in his brain, in his strength, that I have felt. But no, now I see it -cannot be. It would all be too hard on you. I know, of course,” he -sighed, “Murray’s faults. I’ve cared too much for him not to know them; -that was another reason, my love for him, that made me want to feel -that I was leaving him to you, to help him through—what lies before -him. But now I see it would be painful and difficult for you—one man -who has always brought you all the worry of his work has been enough! -And even to-day I have been bringing it all to you still, troubling you -with my work and worry and Murray and Westbury! Lucy, believe me, I -never meant to be selfish with it! I see at last that I have been.</p> - -<p>“And Westbury,—shall we leave that subject quiet, too, as being -troublesome to-day? And the Southside Mission and all the other -missions, and the spirit that enkindles them, and must be kept alive -here and everywhere—one tries to keep the fire alight, but one must go -some day,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> trusting, hoping, not <em>knowing</em>, for that is too much -to ask! I will try not to trouble you with all that, any more, to-day. -It was a good deal, wasn’t it, to ask you to keep a whole town—alive! -One of my dreams! Such incorrigible dreams they must seem to you, I’m -afraid. I am always looking into dreams, you said. And perhaps my -Westbury is all a dream, for it has always seemed to me one of the holy -places. It does not seem, when you talk, to be that to you. You see, -I thought we were one in our love for it,—that is why I talked of -leaving it to you—it all sounds now, doesn’t it, a little fantastic? -Have I always lived in fantasy then? Are you showing me truth at the -last, Lucy?”</p> - -<p>His voice ceased, weary. His face looked forth from the shadow depths, -worn to silver-white by all the years, then, even as he paused, hope -ran across it a bright transforming hand.</p> - -<p>“It cannot be true! It need not be true! Need it, Lucy? I seem to -see—forgive me one more dream,—Murray with you to help him, still -keeping Westbury the Westbury of our youth. Of our youth! The old -customs, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> way of graceful living, you have kept! And now to keep -the spirit, the spirit of the place, its simple godliness, its simple -friendliness! It has seemed to me God’s ground, where He let me walk a -little while and serve and then pass on, hoping! Hoping, Lucy?</p> - -<p>“For you, there is so much left!” he spoke a bit wistfully. “Such -vigor still and life left in you! It does not matter if the years left -are few and late, if they can be so strong and beautiful! While, as -for me—” he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders, smiling, “oh, -these poor old bodies that we wear, how they fetter and confine! Yet -we mustn’t scorn them too much either, poor things, when they’ve done -their best for us for eighty years!”</p> - -<p>Something in her listening face recalled him, “Dear me, I am at it -again! Troubling you again with the things that shall come after. It -was only that I saw before you for a moment—so much! I seem to see -so much everywhere, to-day. And yet much of it is sadly jumbled. Your -brain never seems to play these sorry tricks on you. You’re feeling -patient still, aren’t you,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> he smiled, “while I try still to remember -and understand?”</p> - -<p>Slowly keenness grew in his gaze upon her face, mute before him and -subtle. His words were a little hesitant, “I do not believe it is quite -true, that figure of a portrait. It hurts us both to think about that -portrait, because it is not true. Truly, I think my idea was better -than that, that you are the spirit of the place. Yes, I prefer my -figure of speech to yours, and so I shall keep it and forget yours. We -have known each other too long to believe in that portrait,—it’s such -a lonesome notion, somehow! Perhaps you feel like a portrait yourself -sometimes when you’re sitting alone by the fire and feeling a little -down, as we all do sometimes, I’m afraid, but you surely couldn’t -expect me to believe you a picture in a frame when for a lifetime -you’ve seemed life and energy to me! So remember,” an instant his voice -grew lower, “always remember—” the old twinkle showed, “that I don’t -believe a word of it!”</p> - -<p>He knew that her eyes, at full gaze on him, frankly showed all secrets, -but they were secrets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> he was not sure he read. Still he was trying to -understand, while he paused for help.</p> - -<p>“You did not quite mean, did you, that the dullness, the boredom, is -all the time present with you? Only sometimes? It is very puzzling -to believe ennui of you who seem so alert. You are very brave at -concealing it,—you must know the remedy better than I do, for it is -one of the things that have not been chosen for me to bear, for I still -get up in the morning expecting new things to happen. I did this very -day.”</p> - -<p>Involuntary mocking pulled at her lips. “New things <em>are</em> -happening to us both to-day!”</p> - -<p>“Yes!” he murmured, while his face was shadowed, then reverting, “To be -dull every day! It seems to me almost the saddest thing you have said -to me! I wish it were not so! I wish I had the right word to say for -that!”</p> - -<p>He sat silent, hesitant and doubtful.</p> - -<p>“Henry, say out to me all that you have in mind to say. I need it. -There are no veils left!”</p> - -<p>His face grew clear with light.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p> - -<p>“You are looking into dreams again!” she cried, “but now tell me what -you see!”</p> - -<p>“What I see for you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that belongs to me now.”</p> - -<p>“I think I see for you what might be,” he began hesitant. -“Mysteriously, there is in you still the power of effort together with -the power of wisdom. It seems to me that it is like a cup in your hand, -your influence. And if it should be all in vain,—I know to-day that -much we desire to do must be in vain. We understand that together, you -and I. I feel, you know, as if the soul of a man and the soul of a town -were in your keeping for a little while,—if you should take them, -might it not be that new thing you want? Might it not bring you joy and -forgetting? My work has meant that to me. And I know it is very lonely -if one never forgets. And even if it were all in vain, might it not be -life and hope to you, Lucy? I do not want to preach any preachments, -you know that, surely. I can only tell you what I have lived. Perhaps -I have never lived in reality—I half guess it this evening,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> looking -back, and looking forward, seeing all that I have not done. It isn’t -very easy to grow old, not easy for anyone to feel the body breaking -beyond mending, and to see all that is unfinished, but I believe, Lucy, -an enthusiasm is the one thing to keep us warm, us old ones. I’ve done -a plentiful amount of failing, but I wish I could succeed in one thing -now,—I wish God would let me give you the word of joy to-night!”</p> - -<p>It was so quiet in the old room, that low-lighted space, four-square, -swung out upon the night. The Bishop’s long fingers passed slowly -across his brow, trying to smooth away that darkness which seemed -shutting in upon his brain.</p> - -<p>“And might not effort new and different help you to forget, Lucy, that -wall of death? Perhaps you might be so busy, so joyously busy, that you -would come quite to the wall without seeing, and the gate would open -so quickly that you would step through without waiting to be afraid. I -wish God might let it be that way with you. Perhaps He will. Strange -that for me death has always seemed easier than life, so that I’ve -tried not to look at the thought of it too much,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> not because of fear, -because of beauty. It is only lately that I have felt that God will not -mind if I look toward the gate. I think perhaps he’ll excuse me now, -for wanting to get home. They’ve been waiting for me pretty long, too, -Annie and Nan and the baby. He must be a man now. I often wonder by -what ways they grow up over there.</p> - -<p>“Lucy, I wish you need not be afraid of going home.”</p> - -<p>Again the Bishop passed his hand over his forehead. He felt himself -growing vague, tried blindly to remember what he was trying to say, -turned to her at length, appealing, with a strange little smile of -apology.</p> - -<p>“There is something I am trying to say, but somehow I keep losing it. -Can you possibly excuse me if you try quite hard? For I know you’ve -told me something this afternoon that I ought never to have forgotten, -and somehow, Lucy, it’s gone, it fades, it escapes me! Only it was -something that troubled you and that I was trying to understand. But -I can’t, I can’t remember! But I wanted to say something to help<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> a -little, I remember that part of it. Lucy, for you and me, is that -enough, even if I can’t remember what it was all about?</p> - -<p>“There is just one thing I can find the words for, before they slip -away,—you and I have had to walk through life alone, and yet we have -walked together. It was because God walked with us that we have walked -together. Lucy, you will remember, whatever happens, that He is always -there? And so, that way, you see, we can never be so very far apart!”</p> - -<p>They are piteous, the tears of age. Lucy pressed them back with ivory -finger-tips on each eyelid, her hands masking all her face. Behind them -stretched the long past, the brief future. The key to the future was -in her broken whisper, “After all, God was just; Annie was fit to love -you!”</p> - -<p>But the Bishop had risen suddenly, and crossed the room blindly, -stumbling but once. The crashing pain in his head left only one -instinct—air, the street, his own house! Instantly he must get there! -Then sharp through his own pain came admonishment. He steadied himself -with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> one hand upon the mahogany table where the green lamp stood. It -was the close of his Christmas, he remembered; would it go with no -reassurance?</p> - -<p>The white panelled doorway behind him, he stood there by the low green -lamp. His face was all longing, like a little child’s.</p> - -<p>“Lucy, I tried; have I given you—hope?”</p> - -<p>The Bishop’s voice was low, lower than he knew, and it is sometimes -impossible to hear or to speak. It was a long time before Lucy’s hands -dropped from a face a-quiver. She looked about, startled to know -herself alone when she felt only him, everywhere.</p> - -<p>But quietly the outer door had closed.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_IV">PART IV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Stars thridded the bare elm-boughs overhead. Always against the -blackness of the next corner loomed a blurred ball of light, which, -on approach, turned into a familiar street lamp. The broad avenue was -almost deserted. From blurred light to light ran a space of pavement -blessedly firm to hurrying, uncertain feet, yet lights and pavement -seemed to multiply and stretch away indefinitely. But if one hurried, -hurried on, there was someone waiting at the end.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, against the dark faces of the housefronts, window-shades -were rolled up, like eyelids opening, on home-pictures that reminded -the Bishop it was Christmas night. The morning of the day gleamed -through mist like one of the street lamps he was passing. Faces kept -forming close against his eyes and then melted again into gray, into -black, Mrs. Graham’s and Murray’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> and Lucy’s, suffering, lonely faces -that had been locked against his pleading. Now there only remained to -get home.</p> - -<p>A street of black housefronts, closed upon good cheer within, the -Bishop’s own street, any door of which would have opened readily to -his need, had anyone guessed it! But illness had left in his brain -only a great homing instinct. He knew he must not stop along the way, -because like all other men in all the world on Christmas-night, he, -too, had his own, and there, at home, his own were waiting for him. -For at last he knew why he was hurrying so, it was because Annie was -there, at home. He might not find her below in the hall, but she would -be upstairs, listening for him and waiting. He knew that when his key -turned, he should hear her voice, liquid and sweet with welcome, come -floating down the shadowy stair, “Up here! I’m up here, Hal!”</p> - -<p>Yet when at length the Bishop did press his key into the lock, the -house was silent and the hallway unlighted and chilly. Still Annie’s -presence seemed all-pervasive, catching him back to older days, -and making him, as he groped for a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> match and lighted the gas-jet, -forget to wonder why Mrs. Graham had not returned or to surmise the -train missed for the baby’s sake. As he hung overcoat and hat on a -peg of the towering black-walnut rack, his face being reflected to -unseeing eyes in the glimmering mirror, the familiarity of the action -and the security of his own hallway and open study door steadied -and strengthened him. He had got home safe and sound after all, and -now before climbing up to bed and undertaking all the weariness of -undressing, he would put on his old black velvet dressing gown, and -would sit down in the dark, in the sagging old leather armchair, and -rest a little, and look out on the stars in the band of night-sky -stretching below the rim of the piazza roof.</p> - -<p>The door into the hall, slightly ajar, allowed a little light to enter -the room, showing the seated figure facing the long eastward window, -the black velvet gown sweeping from throat to foot, and the long pale -hands stretching out on the chair arms from the wide black cuffs. Hair -and profiled face gleamed silver-white in the gloom. From to time the -Bishop’s right hand moved to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> pull the folds more closely over his -knees, unconsciously, for he did not know that he was cold. Down below, -under the rear piazza, at the grated iron door of the basement kitchen, -the man who tended the furnace had set the whirring bell sounding again -and again, but all unheeded. The two maids, returning, rang and knocked -at all the doors, only to go away, baffled. The Bishop heard no sounds -from without.</p> - -<p>Near the Bishop’s left hand, the corner by the window where the Friend -was standing always harbored Annie’s work basket. It stood on three -bamboo legs, an ample, covered basket, in which the old darning cotton -was still, as long ago, a little tangled. Looking toward that little -workstand the Bishop remembered that it was Annie he was sitting up to -wait for. She was coming in very soon. Or was it Nan he was awaiting? -Or someone else?</p> - -<p>The flowing lines of the Nazarene’s talith melted into the folds of -the long curtain close to which He was standing. He was looking forth, -together with the Bishop, on the Bishop’s town, where he had failed. -Too tired to think about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> that any more, the Bishop only knew that the -Friend understood failure. The little quick upward smile showed like a -spent child’s, too tired to do anything but trust.</p> - -<p>Yet the Bishop’s thought, in retrospect upon his Christmas Day, was -strangely clear, as he looked out on that familiar picture, white stars -above in the night-blue and, below, the blackness gemmed by ruddier -earth-lights. So dark now, yet so bright with sun and hope in the -Christmas morning! His thought went out to the unseen houses, each -holding a little group of his friends, following them to the bend of -the river until his fancy walked once more among the tenements where he -knew the brown babies with their great black eyes, his friends, too.</p> - -<p>Of late he had so often looked out on his little city wrapped in night, -but not as now. Before, he had been thinking of his Christmas gift, -the House of Friendship, which should, in the terms of some strange -symbolism, give back to Westbury the beauty it had once given him. But -this was not to be. He was quite clear about it all, and quiet. It was -night now, and he had not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> done any of the things he had meant to do -in the morning. He had not even gone to church. God’s chalice! He had -not been able on this Christmas Day to offer it to one soul in all his -Westbury!</p> - -<p>All day long his hands had been baffled of their gift-giving. That -was sometimes God’s way, the Bishop knew, as he leaned back in this -strange, expectant peace. Suddenly, sharp as paintings torch-lit -against a gloom, there passed before him again, as on the black street, -those three faces out of his Christmas Day: Mrs. Graham’s, black hate -scarcely lighted by love for that little Christmas baby; Newbold’s, -storm-tossed upon a struggle that gave no presage of victory; and -Lucy’s, seamed with the subtleties of a loneliness that could not see -the only help for lonely living. These three faces were, God in his -mystery had showed him to-day, only the symbols of his larger failure, -in his town, in his diocese. His little garden space hedged in for him -out of all the world, he had tended it with much love but with little -wisdom. So God would have to take care of it now.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> - -<p>Sharp again, just as the three faces had flashed forth out of darkness -and passed close against the Bishop’s eyes, came other visions and -pictures, those of his Christ-child poem of the morning. Only now it -was no sacred city of the Orient, but the dumb and sleeping streets of -Westbury where the Child went wandering. As before, he knocked, all -eager, and again opening doors flashed ruddy on the night, to close -again with a low dull sound. On and on he fled, a glimmering baby-form -blown on the winter wind, until the Bishop’s eyes closed wearily from -following. He opened them with a twitch of pain, and there without, -close against the dark sash the Child was standing, not sad at all, but -sweet and smiling. Then instantly this picture, like the others, faded, -and again the Bishop knew himself with the familiarity of unnumbered -silent nights like this one, seated alone in his study, quiet with -the peace of the Friend. Through all the solitary hours of all the -solitary years, the Friend had always stood there, clear-figured, by -the eastward window.</p> - -<p>The night was wearing on as the Bishop sat,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> waiting. Very soon they -would be there. He remembered that he had been looking for them all -the day. It would be very cosy to have them coming in on Christmas -night—his own!</p> - -<p>But at the chiming of those two words through his brain, thought -sharply asserted itself, keen and crystalline in retrospect. As a man -brings all his life to God at the end, the Bishop looked into the -Nazarene’s eyes from the picture of the little city that belonged to -them both, whispering, “But those out there have been my own.”</p> - -<p>Presently the silvered head sank back in the sudden drowsiness that -falls upon the very old, but even as he yielded to it, the Bishop’s -eyelids flickered an instant. He looked again toward the Friend, -forever clear against the curtained window. He lifted his right hand a -little, like a child, not knowing how confident it was. Too tired and -sleepy to be conscious of anything at all but that Presence that filled -all the room, the Bishop murmured happily, “And I have not been lonely!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop did not actually doze off, however, but sat resting quietly -in the peaceful borderland<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> of sleep. The threadbare house that -harbored him was very silent. From time to time, across his dim worn -face, fancies flickered, bright as a caged bird’s dreaming. Out of the -engulfing vagueness of his brain, Annie came to him, the child-woman of -long ago. His boat was rocking at the little pier waiting, as she came -tripping down the terraces. He saw the upward sweep of the round young -arms as she opened the high wrought-iron gate. She wore a white muslin -sprigged with yellow, wide-skirted and flounced. The live brown of her -hair was swept back into a net. Her face was soft olive and rose, her -lips parted, and the eyes grave and steady, a child’s. On either side -about the high black portals of the gate pulsed and flamed wee yellow -roses. Slim, sturdy boy that he was, something had shaken him in that -moment like a tossed leaf. Even now, old and dim in his chair, it was -not the sense of her lips beneath his sudden ones that he remembered; -it was that there in that instant he saw her eyes change forever to a -woman’s. And the boy, all a-quiver with strong youth as he was, he, -too, in that moment had changed into a man,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> a man forever reverent -before the mystery he had wakened. The Bishop’s hand tightened on the -chair arm, for he remembered that at last, at last, Annie was coming -back to him. He was waiting for her to come in.</p> - -<p>Again thought shifted many a year; and he sat expectant of a knock, -light, imperative, merry, Nan’s evening knock. The door swung in and -she entered, that tall, slim girl of his. She wore a white dress girt -about in the absurd panniers of the eighties. Her dark hair was looped -low at her neck. She had her mother’s brooding brown eyes lightened by -her father’s twinkle. She sank on a hassock at his knee, folding her -long figure up in a trick of grace she had.</p> - -<p>“Ready to hear a secret, father?”</p> - -<p>As on so many, many evenings, he was ready to hear a secret, the -secrets a motherless girl may tell to her father. The Bishop remembered -still one secret she had told him which had seemed to be a fine silk -thread cutting his heart in two, for the father, listening, knew that -the man Nan loved was not worthy of her. Then a tiny smile touched the -worn old lips, a smile of pride, half-jealous,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> at the memory that it -was her father, not her husband, that Nan had first told about her -little baby. The father’s blood, even now, beat faster at the thought -of that remembered hope. Then again he saw the wee waxen form on Nan’s -arm. But instantly mysterious glad expectancy swept that sight from -him as he recalled that even now he was listening for Nan’s tap-tap at -his study door, Nan, once more coming to tell him a secret, a secret -blithe, unguessed.</p> - -<p>The house had ceased to be silent; there were movings, stirrings, -voices, through it. They seemed to be without, on the stairs, and -above, in the upper rooms. There were people on the stairs, mounting up -and up on jocund feet. The Bishop heard it perfectly clear now, Annie’s -voice from his bedroom overhead, “Up here, I’m up here, Hal!”</p> - -<p>But listen! There on the hallstair, that was surely a child he heard -now! It was little Nan, chuckling and chattering as she climbed. It was -her old merry challenge to her father to be out and after her as up she -scampered. Yet no, that was not Nan, that merry call was a boy’s, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> -baby’s,—it was Nan’s baby-boy, who had just learned to go upstairs. -The Bishop heard the small ecstatic feet, the slap of exultant little -palms on each step achieved. And, like little Nan, the brave wee -grandson meant the Bishop to follow him, as on he scurried, up and up, -where the stairs were multiplied, were mounting, ever higher, higher.</p> - -<p>Again the sounds on the stair changed to other footfalls, lighter, -firmer, surer, but like the others, very glad; fleet and pattering, -pattering, spirit-light, the steps of the little Christ-Child, going -home.</p> - -<p>A slight tremor ran through the length of the form seated there, silver -and black. Suddenly all mist was wiped from the Bishop’s brain, leaving -it clear. The Nazarene laid his hand on the window-sash, as if opening -a door. “Rise!” He said, “Let us go forth into the morning.”</p> - -<p>Beyond the silent house, Westbury slept on, the star-lit, throbbing -city, not knowing. The deep sleep of the earliest dawn held those three -faces of the Bishop’s failure, sleep of victors, spent with struggle. -In the morning they would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> awaken, the three the Bishop had loved, to -know! In the morning all Westbury would awaken, to know,—that there -was only one way to love him now!</p> - -<p>In the house of each heart that must perforce hold his memory like a -shrine, there could never be any chamber for hate. Through the gift of -his three years’ presence should the grandmother hold to her breast her -baby’s baby, until love, overflowing, should enfold that black-mooded -woman, her son’s wife, and both, being mothers, should learn the way of -peace by guiding there the little feet of a little child. This, himself -all unwitting, should be the Bishop’s immortal gift.</p> - -<p>Even so, by divine largess of life given to life, should Murray Newbold -become the Bishop’s spiritual son. Henceforth, always—instant, -insistent—should the Bishop’s presence seem near him at every -turning-point, compelling, as in the darkened study on that last day of -all their days together.</p> - -<p>And the woman who had loved the boy, Henry Collinton, she, too, -through his gift of a beauty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> steadfast to the end, should in the last -brief years find ease of her lifelong hunger. In unspoken kinship of -loneliness must they draw near now, the man and the woman who had -walked closest to him, to rear together his last wish. Deathless as -dream should rise the House of Friendship, for, passing, the Bishop -had found the way to give himself. It is only a little city where he -offered the chalice of his spirit, and only a little space his whole -bishopric, yet all the world is richer for the gift of his Christmas -soul.</p> - -<p>Westbury shall know now,—shining old face beneath the shabby hat, -stooping old shoulders beneath the worn cape overcoat, spent old feet -that walked these careless streets—Westbury shall know now, their -Bishop, passed from them, their own forever.</p> - -<p>Yet these things the Bishop did not know, for God was showing him more -beautiful things, even as all his life He had been showing him the -things that are more beautiful than fulfilment. All happily he sat -there in his old study chair, looking toward the eastward window.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p> - -<p>His face had changed to a beauty of light. Gently on the chair arms -rested the lean old hands, as very softly the gray room brightened at -the coming of the dawn.</p> - - -<p class="center p2">THE END</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter transnote"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> - - -<p>Page <a href="#Page_93">93</a>: “that I did when” changed to “than I did when”</p> - -<p>Page <a href="#Page_115">115</a>: “Murry Newbold” changed to “Murray Newbold”</p> - -<p>Page <a href="#Page_126">126</a>: “vagueness and dulness” changed to “vagueness and dullness”</p> -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS BISHOP ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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