Then Amos knew that the devil was after him indeed. But he bent and laid his bearded lips to the smooth cheek. He said nothing, and in a moment she was gone, flushed and frightened.
"Oh, how silly!" said she to herself. She felt again the light warm touch upon her cheek. "How dreadful to have said such a thing!"
It was of course impossible to describe this foolishness to her father.
Grandfather thought hourly of Matthew. Each day he became more painfully aware that Matthew was young and that temptations were many. He saw him at the end of the week surrounded by all the enticements of a lurid Babylon. Members of the church, astonished at the course pursued by Dr. Levis and permitted—at least they thought it was permitted—by Grandfather, poured into his ears descriptions of orgies indulged in by college students in which wine, women, and song furnished a gay entertainment. Indeed, according to the stories heard by Brother König, wine, women, and song were as necessary to college students as food and sleep. Church-going was unknown without compulsion, and then all were required to attend a single irreligious, inconsistent service where one Sunday Jews preached to Gentiles and the next Gentiles to Jews. Brother König, so keen when the trade of a horse was in question, had heard that on certain Sundays even Catholics set up their altars and tried to proselyte. Matthew, every one believed, had spiritual strength unusual in a young man, but he was, in the local idiom, not that strong.
It was reported also that all evil practices reached their height in the Medical School where Matthew, after an incredibly long stay elsewhere, would eventually spend four years. Brother König could invent little beyond that which he had already imparted, but he stated plainly that there were other things, of which he would not tell.
From Matthew directly Grandfather heard nothing. He wrote to him, but his vaguely addressed envelope did not reach its destination. Meanwhile he came to his assistance in another way. The evenings had grown cool and he and Amos sat within doors, Grandfather in meditation, Amos studying a Latin manuscript which he had found in a room high under the eaves of Saron. It was a discourse on "The Mystic Dove," and was one of the few documents which had escaped prying antiquarians. The quality of the Latin was poor, but Amos was puzzling it out, believing that it had been written by Brother Jabez, one of the most interesting and certainly the most learned of the sect, and that it contained valuable devotional material. Sometimes he read a line to Grandfather, and they discussed it wisely. Alien and worldly historians had described the Kloster, but none had written with understanding and sympathy, and sometimes Amos dreamed of undertaking the task.
Grandfather's plan for the sustaining of Matthew consisted in the offering of prayers each evening at the hour of nine, when, for some reason, he fancied temptations to be at their height. During October the two petitioners made their candle-lit way into the dim and musty Saal and there knelt down before the old benches, and when the Saal grew tomblike in the cold November evenings, they offered their oblations both for Matthew and Ellen in the kitchen, which was filled with the sound of Grandfather's sonorous voice.
Amos also, fresh from the work of the devout and mystic Brother Jabez, prayed for Matthew's well-being, reproaching himself with the neophyte's humility for the pleasure which he took in a neatly rounded petition. He tried to pray for Ellen, but when he did so he seemed to feel her kiss.
November waned, and still each evening the two men besought the Creator of the world to watch over their lamb. Grandfather prayed more fervently and eloquently, with the desperate earnestness of a Jacob who feels the angel slipping from him.