Captain Pott's Minister Part 22

"Quite to the contrary, I intend to fight this thing through if it takes a whole year."

"I'm so glad!" There was deep relief in her voice. She hesitated before continuing. "I had a terrible quarrel with Father this evening."

"Why did you do that?"

"I was very angry, and left him to come out here. It is the first time we have ever really fallen out. I've thought over some of the unkind things I said to him, and I am ashamed. I was about to go back to him when you fell on those stones and hurt yourself."

"You are right, Miss Fox. Go back to him. He will see differently, too, now that he has had time to think it all over."

"That is what worries me. He won't see differently, though I know he is in the wrong. I'm afraid we'll quarrel again."

"Then, I should wait. He will come to you in time."

"Father will never do that," she said, sorrowfully. "I hurt him more than I had any right." Searching the minister's face under the dim light, she concluded: "Please, Mr. McGowan, don't blame Father too severely for what happened last night! He is not himself."

"Miss--Elizabeth! Did you quarrel with your father about me?" His heart gave a bound into his throat.

She nodded, looking for the world like a child grown tall. Her eyes did not waver as they met the hungry look in his own.

"About me?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yes."

A wild pa.s.sion swept through him as he listened to the quiet affirmative.

"It began about you and the Athletic Club. Father does not understand about your work among the boys. It ended about you and the action of the church last night."

"But that action was not voted through."

"I know. But the end is not yet."

"Do you think that my relations with the Boys' Club is all that was behind the abortive action last night?"

"I----"

"Would you advise me to give that work up for a while till all this blows over?"

"No, indeed!" she declared strongly. "I think----Well, he says that you are not orthodox. Do you need to preach like that?"

"If my theology is of poor quality, I can't help it. I can preach only what is truth and reality to me."

"But couldn't you be more careful how you do it? Couldn't you be less frank, or something? Should you antagonize your people so?"

"I'm sorry if I have really antagonized any one by what I say. Do you find anything unorthodox in my sermons?"

"That isn't a fair question to ask me. I'm not familiar with such things. I thought you might preach less openly what you believe so strenuously. Coat the pills so they'll go down with the taste of orthodoxy." She smiled faintly. "I hate to see you putting weapons in their hands."

"And do you honestly think I'd be dealing fair with myself or with those to whom I preach to sugar-coat my thoughts with something that looks like poison to me?"

She did not reply, but with a quick look she flashed from her wonderful eyes a message he could not fail to catch even in the semi-darkness. She dropped her hand lightly on his sleeve, and his fingers quickly closed over hers. She drew nearer. He could feel the straying wisps of fair hair against his hot cheek. His emotions taxed all his powers of self-control.

"We must be going," she said, rising. "Oh, I forgot your foot! You must wait here till I send the trap for you along the beach."

"Don't do that. I'll get on very well, if you'll help me a little."

"Please, wait till I send Debbs. You'll hurt yourself."

"Your father might object to my riding in his carriage," he remarked, with a light laugh.

"Mr. McGowan, you must not talk like that. I know you don't like him, but he is really the best father in all the world!"

"Forgive me, Miss Fox. I didn't mean to be rude. I'm afraid I was just trying to be funny. As a matter of fact, I do like your father, but there has been no opportunity----"

"Have you tried very hard to find an opportunity? You've stayed away from our house pretty consistently, and have not asked him one thing about the church work."

"I stayed away because I was requested to."

"That was only for the time he was ill."

"I'd be glad----"

"Why will you grown men act like children sometimes?"

"Miss Fox, please be seated again," requested the minister, a note of authority in his voice. "I have something important to say to you, and the time may not come again."

The girl obeyed, taking her place close beside him on the stone.

"I see you do not understand what has brought this trouble between your father and me. Neither do I, but I don't think that it's a matter of doctrine. Nor do I believe that it's the work I've been doing down at the Inn with the boys. Some cause strikes deeper than both. They are merely excuses. You remember that he made no objection to me in the beginning along these lines, and I preached no less strenuously then, as you call it, than I do now. In fact, had it not been for your father I doubt very much if the installation had gone through last summer. Behind the scenes there is another man, and he is pulling the strings while he directs the play. When I was ordained to the ministry in the New York Presbytery, that man fought me desperately, while he raised no objections to others who were ordained at the same time, and who held views far more radical than mine. That man was at the installation.

When your father told me that he was coming, I made no protest, for I saw that there was a fast friends.h.i.+p between the two. You know what that man tried to do at the installation. You doubtless know, too, that he has been much with your father of late. You also saw him at the meeting last night.

"Miss Fox, if we knew all the facts, we should be able to lay the blame for this trouble and your father's condition right where it belongs."

"You refer to Mr. Means?"

"I do. What it is----"

"Mr. McGowan, if you think any man can influence my father, you do not know him. I dislike Mr. Means, maybe because he is so preachy. But he cannot influence Father."

"I wish I could believe that!"

"You must believe it. You are letting your imagination color your judgment."

"I should like to believe anything you tell me, but I can't believe anything else than that Mr. Means stands behind this whole mess. Just why, I don't know, but it looks very much as though there is a skeleton concealed in his closet, and he's afraid that I'm going to let it out."

"Why did you say that?"

"I don't know. I can't see what connection I could possibly have with the man."