“Comfort!” sneered the other, with his least agreeable expression; for Hermon Worcester had many, in frequent use.
“Well,” said Emanuel, “yes. There are times when even a heretic may need something of that sort. But I was about to say that I think it idle for us to talk. My plans are now quite formed.”
“Indeed, sir!” said Mr. Worcester, stopping short.
“I have been invited by a minority of my people to start a new work in Windover, of which they propose that I shall become the leader.”
“Not the pastor!” observed Mr. Worcester.
“Yes, the pastor,—that was the word. It will be a work quite independent of the old church.”
“And of the old faith, eh?”
“Of the old traditions, some of them,” replied Emanuel gently; “not of the old truth, I hope. I cannot hope for your sympathy in this step. I have decided to take it. It strikes me, Uncle, that we had better not discuss the matter.”
“His mother before him!” cried Hermon Worcester, violently striding up and down the velvet carpet of the library, “I went through it with his mother before him,—this abhorrent indifference to the demands of birth and training, this scandal, this withdrawal from the world, this publicity given to family differences, the whole miserable business! She for love, and you for—I suppose you call it religion! I can’t go through it again, and I won’t! It is asking too much of me!”