Newspaper Page Text
THE MASTER OF BERYL HEIGHTS
HE spoke lightly. She wanted him
to understand that she cared little
for his opinion; and knowing how
to shock him, she intended to do
it.
“I should never have expected,’’
he said more gently than he had
yet spoken to her, “the writer of
Iphigenia to express herself so care-
S
lessly. ’’
Ah! he has read her book! And the thought
was full of such exhilaration that she turned
to him and asked archly:
“Not if she had been societyized to the fin
ger tips?”
She is very, very glad. But the old antag
onistic feelings which she had always held
against him —coupled with the instinctive del
icacy which make her desire to keep her nobl
lest self out of sight—because he did not be
long to the ideal school that she did, and con
demned in consequence everything ultra and
extraordinary as unnatural. This betrayed
her into her half bitter and wholly artificial
mood. He regarded her gravely, and she now
remembered for the first time that he was an
ordained minister; and she hoped in her soul
that he would think her as entirely frivolous
as she was trying to appear. She wondered,
as she looked his magnificent figure over, just
how much longer he was going to sit there
with that judgelike air, reproving her by his
silence.
“I cannot believe,” he said at last, as a del
icate wave of color came up into her cheeks
under the merciless analysis of his long glance,
“that you are as thoroughly adamantinized as
you think you are yourself.”
“I wish I was altogether so,” she answered
with puzzling dispassionateness in her voice.
“One begins to enjoy life rationally only after
one has been disciplined out of the chimerical
faith of youth, and recovers from the suffering
which a belief in its possibilities necessarily en
tails.”
Evidently Miss Heywood and himself were
no more in unison, now that he acknowledges
her worth and was ready to hold her in proper
esteem, than in the old masquerading past. This
half careless cynicism puts them further apart,
if possible, than their former cold intercourse,
which he had so often remembered with a
smile because of its absurdity. He finally, how
ever, struck a chord which vibrated tenderly
and truly, and Miss Heywood’s surfaceness dis
appeared; and she seemed, for the first time,
like the girl who wrote the book he had read
with such profound enjoyment.
“I have called to ask a favor of you, Miss
Lynne, and as I am a novice in that line I sin
cerely hope you will see proper to grant it
without argument.”
Her heart does not bound under the added
softness of his tone, from the simple fact that
the intellect was too well balanced above it
for it to be allowed that exercise. She knows
that no man, not even he, could appear so
masterfully easy, if the favor to be granted
had anything to do with Cupid’s kingdom. For
her answer she inclined her head, and, serenely
lifting her eyes from the roses and carnations
strewn at her feet, which she has been clas
sifying mentally, she awaited, without any sign
of trepidation, his next words.
“You mean, perhaps, that I shall take your
silence for consent?”
“Yes, assuredly.”
“Do not promise rashly for while the favor,
if granted, will undoubtedly make me very
happy, I am afraid it will involve no ordinary
sacrifice on your part. ’ ’
She blushed at that swiftly, sweetly, and he
was just a little pale as he hastened to explain.
“You will allow me to acknowledge first, that
your purpose in rebuilding the Gordon chapel
By Odessa Strickland Payne, Author of the “Mission Girl", “Esther FerralVs Experiment", Etc.
The Golden Age For November 16, 1911.
was not only a great surprise, but also a bitter
disappointment, for I had no other thought
than to have the work done at some time my
self. I considered it a kind of family institu
tion, and” he saw her lips quiver and made a
note of it as he went on, “while I know that
you were dearer to my brother than any one
else, I still feel that you have assumed one of
my neglected duties, and as far as it may be
possible, I should like to atone for it.”
“And you would have me give up one of the
holiest ambitions of my life to satisfy your fam
ily pride?”
“Would you do it?”
“No. Had you a higher motive I might
think of it. If you had loved John better than
I, who had no life outside of his approval, or
had you owed more to him than I, whom under
Providence he taught and made all that I am
of good, you might not then have made your
appeal in vain.”
Do you design the church only as a memorial
monument ? ’ ’
“No,” and the sweet voice was rebukingly
solemn, “how could I so wrong him in thought
and deed as to put him above the Lord he wor
shipped?”
“Forgive me,” he said, and his strong, chis
eled face grew as soft as a woman’s, and he
drew his breath almost like a sigh. “You are
mistaken in supposing 1 wish to take the work
out of your hands. I recognize your right to do
it, for you were first to John, and the fact re
mains unalterable by my nearer relationship,
however much I may regret it. But to come to
my proposition; your contract for the building
covers only the finishing of the body of the
church, does it not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I should be glad of the privilege of
putting in the pulpit and pews, also a com
munion service, which has been an heir-loom in
our family for generations; the property once
of the brother of my great-grandfather, a Bish
op of the Episcopal Church. All the Gordons
who have died conscious and at home, have used
it for their last earthly sacrament, it is said—
you remember?”
Her eyes met his, ‘ ‘ Oh, why do you part with
it, surely so sacred a memorial you ought to
keep.”
“Because,” he said coldly as he rose, “my
family history will terminate with me. Do you
consent to allow me to finish, as my taste dic
tates, the interior of the chapel?”
She felt that it was due him, and half be
cause she was so unspeakably sorry for him,
she did not think of herself-—she answered
warmly.
“Unconditionally, and without reservation.”
He smiled as he drew one kid glove over his
strong white band.
“And so we understand each other, the body
of the church is yours, the soul inside is mine?”
“Ah,” she said archly with a glance, whose
brightness woke up wondrously the latent beau
ty of her grave face; “you have the advantage
of me in metaphor, but not altogether, I think,
in reality.”
“Perhaps not, but we shall see who will come
off laureled.” He took his hat and walked to
the door. As he stood there framed by it, with
the sunshine streaming behind his grand figure,
the stern noble face softened for the moment,
Lynne turned suddenly away. He saw that she
looked quite pale as she faced him again, but
while he had no suspicion that he had anything
to do with the fact, he came back to her and
offered his hand, and said kindly, “Any day
that you would like to revisit Berly Heights, I
will send the carriage for you, and promise in
addition that no one shall introdue upon you
after your arrival.”
“Thanks,” she said quietly, “I should like
to spend the eighteenth of December in the
study. ’ ’
“Very well, I shall not forget.” He bowed
and was gone. It was not until driving home
that he guessed why she had selected the day
she did for her visit.
“How she loved him!” he said as going up
the terraced walk he paused to look one instant,
at the darkened desolate wing over whose
threshold’s no cripple’s step ever faltered now,
and in whose “sunset windows” no child with
the light of dreams in her eyes sat. The years
had brought to her womanhood and to him—a
grave.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
September, a rare day of dreamy colorful
quiet. Sunday by the bells and by the calendar.
In the deep green dark of the woodlands, here
and there, an autumn torch flickered gold and
red, but for all that it was still summer, linger
ing with the ripe loveliness which she always
does in our semi-tropical land. The previous
week Lynne, very much to her delight, had re
ceived a note from Hayden and his brother con
tractors, stating that the church would be com
pleted by the Sabbath following. After consult
ing with Dr. Bard, Lynne had written to a bish
op of the church to which she belonged, asking
him if he would consent to dedicate the building
on that day. The bishop was an old friend of the
Gordon family and had visited Beryl Heights
frequently when Lynne had lived there, conse
quently she felt no hesitation in addressing
him. She had not selected him on account of
his high ecclesiastical position, but because she
felt that the people needed a spiritual uplifting,
such as he could give. He was a man of colos
sal intellect, with the soul of a poet and the
heart of a little child —kingly kind and true.
The brightest star that gleamed in the century
crown of Methodism while he lived, and mourn
ed by a nation when he died.
Lynne arose early the morning appointed for
the dedication. She had dreamed of Schiller,
and as she stood at the open window of her
room up stairs, she felt a mysterious sense of
nearness to him that she had never experienced
since his death, and it was not hard for her
to believe that from out the vastness of God’s
infinite, where he was, he sent her his loving
approval this day. And what a day it was;
how the sun shone, and the birds sang as if they
knew all about it —the strong triumphant joy
the tender unregretful sadness that alternated
in her soul. She took her Bible from the center
table, and still standing, read the fourteenth
chapter of St. John and the last of Revelation,
then she knelt and worshipped with her face
towards the East.
Dr. Bard’s roekaway was at the gate by 10
o’clock. The dear old Coeur de Lion looked at
Lynne critically as she came down the walk and
paused at the edge of the oak-shadowed side
walk. Her dress was a little incongruous, but
marvellously becoming. The broad, pictur
esquely rolled up white hat, with black velvet
bands and long ostrich plume, was certainly
suitable for street wear, and it in no way mar
red but enhanced the effect of the crepe-trim
med cashmere that trailed its unobstrusive
length behind her tall figure. Lynne knew
when she ordered the hat that, being in mourn
ing, she could not, with any degree of proprie
ty, wear it when visiting or on fashionable
promenades, but for all that she had bought it,
and Miss Hester always smiled when Lynne ap
peared with it on, for it was proof positive of
of good mood.
Dr. Bard assisted Lynne to a seat by his sis
ter, who had already made the ascent without
masculine aid, and then walked back into the
yard, presently returning with a cluster of star
jasmines.
(Continued on Page 14.)
3
