Then Carmen fell upon his neck; and there in that moment was begun a friendship that grew daily stronger, and in time bore richest fruit. It soon became known that Hitt was giving a course of lectures that fall in the University, covering the results of his archaeological explorations; so Carmen and Father Waite went often to hear him. And the long breaths of University atmosphere which the girl inhaled stimulated a desire for more. Besides, Father Waite had some time before announced his determination to study there that winter, as long as his meager funds would permit.
“I shall take up law,” he had one day said. “It will open to me the door of the political arena, where there is such great need of real men, men who stand for human progress, patriotism, and morality. I shall seek office––not for itself, but for the good I can do, and the help I can be in a practical way to my fellow-men. I have a little money. I can work my way through.”
Carmen shared the inspiration; and so she, too, with the Beaubien’s permission, applied for admittance to the great halls of learning, and was accepted.
“And now,” began Father Waite that evening, when Hitt and his friend had come, and, to the glad surprise of Carmen, Elizabeth Wall had driven up in her car to take the girl for a ride, but had yielded to the urgent invitation to join the little conference, “my plan, in which I invite you to join, is, briefly, to study this girl!”
Carmen’s eyes opened wide, and her face portrayed blank amazement, as Father Waite stood pointing gravely to her. Nor were the others less astonished––all but the Beaubien. She nodded her head comprehendingly.
“Let me explain,” Father Waite continued. “We are assembled here to-night as representatives, now or formerly, of very diversified lines of human thought. I will begin with myself. I have stood as the embodiment of Christly claims, as the active agent of one of the mightiest of human institutions, the ancient Christian Church. For years I have studied its accepted authorities and its all-inclusive assumptions, which embrace heaven, earth, and hell. For years I sought with sincere consecration to apply its precepts to the dire needs of humanity. I have traced its origin in the dim twilight of the Christian era and its progress down through the centuries, through heavy vicissitudes to absolute supremacy, on down through schisms and subsequent decline, to the present hour, when the great system seems to be gathering its forces for a life and death stand in this, the New World. I have known and associated with its dignitaries and its humble priests. I know the policies and motives underlying its quiet movements. I found it incompatible with human progress. And so I withdrew from it my allegiance.”
Carmen’s thought, as she listened, was busy with another whose experience had not been dissimilar, but about whom the human coils had been too tightly wound to be so easily broken.
“Our scholarly friend, Mr. Hitt,” Father Waite went on, “represented the great protest against the abuses and corruption which permeated the system for which I stood. He, like myself, embodied the eternal warfare of the true believer against the heretic. Yet, without my churchly system, I was taught to believe, he and those who share his thought are damned. But, oh, strange anomaly! we both claimed the same divine Father, and accepted the Christly definition of Him as Love. We were two brothers of the same great family, yet calling each other anathema!”