Richard Stoughton was of an extremely impressionable temperament, and time had not yet hardened the shell that surrounds the soul. It seemed to him at that moment as though the inspired word of God had spoken to him alone in that consecrated temple, and had warned him to seek higher things; to avoid, for the sake of a great reward, the mud-holes and pitfalls in the path before him. He knelt in prayer with a reverential fervor that was new to him.
From the Gospel for the day, St. Luke xi. 14, the rector had taken his text: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.” Richard listened to the sermon with an interest that was almost painful. The preacher was a man not yet in middle life, who had already won a high position for his eloquence and fearlessness. There was no prosy reiteration of self-evident truths that have lost their influence through long service in the pulpit in the words that he poured forth. He was a man of the times; and he applied the faith that was in him to the topics of the hour, and drove his lesson home with a skill and courage that were intensely effective. He seemed to recognize that he was a warrior in the front ranks of the church militant, and there was no half-heartedness in the blows that he struck. The prosperity of a sermon, like that of a jest, lies in the ear of him that hears it. Richard Stoughton was in a receptive mood, and the ringing words of the preacher touched chords in his nature that had long ceased to vibrate. He bent his head at the benediction with a sense of renewed reverence and faith that was both welcome and inspiring.
When or how he lost track of John Fenton he never knew. He remembered, later on, that as he had left the church he had caught a glimpse of his friend walking down the avenue by the side of Gertrude Van Vleck, but at the moment the sight had made no impression on him. The dominant thought in his mind found expression in the words that seemed to rise uncontrollably to his lips:—
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
It was a cold night in early spring. It seemed as if the winter had forgotten something, and had returned to look for it. Its search being futile, it had relieved its feelings by howling up and down the streets, feebly tweaking the noses of pedestrians in its senile disappointment.
As an atmospheric crazy-quilt, early spring in New York is a success. The modern craving for variety is fully satisfied in the metropolis, so far as the weather is concerned, from the last of February to the first of June. Between those dates no New Yorker is astonished at anything that may be hurled at him from the skies, from a sunstroke to a blizzard.
John Fenton had had a fire lighted in his grate, and was puffing his after-dinner cigar before the blaze, bewailing inwardly the fact that he was due at the office of the Trumpet within the hour. He would have preferred to spend the evening revising his general theories of life than in correcting proofs at high pressure in the overwrought atmosphere of a newspaper office.
He had much to think about and a weighty decision to make. He had been drifting in a current that had carried him far in a direction that he had long ago determined never to take again. For the moment, he could not say whether he was happy or discontented. For the first time in his life, as he fully realized, he was thoroughly in love; but, as he pondered the situation calmly, there seemed to be insuperable obstacles in the path that led toward happiness.