I could have killed him, and he knew it. Yet that certainty of right and wrong which is the power of his type did not desert him. I had a sub-conscious appreciation of it, so keen is my accursed sense of such things, even in my fury.
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “I am!” Oh, he was not afraid or ashamed! He was of the stuff that has kindled fires and fed them since the world began. And he went on as if he had been in his pulpit—or at the stake: “I have wished that this parish should administer both rebuke and reparation. I have long regretted that heathen rites should be tolerated in a Christian community—as also that a proper charity should not be shown to all, irrespective of creed. I therefore took steps, after asking counsel of God, to attain both ends. I cut down this tree because it was a public scandal, an occasion of stumbling to Christians and sinners alike. The very children of our village were beginning to be infected by its heresy. And I shall adorn the house of God with these spoils, thus to expiate a sin and to consecrate anew a work of God which has been devoted to unholy uses. But I have not wished to be hasty in the matter, to be needlessly harsh and wounding. Furthermore, it has been my desire to make good a neglect which has rested too long on the Christian conscience of this community. I have accordingly taken steps to mark with fitness the last resting-place of an unfortunate young woman who apparently from her birth was more sinned against than sinning.”
He pointed behind him. Where the laurel had been I saw now a slab of grey granite. And cut into it I read these words:
DAPHNE MARVIN
1894-1911
“He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her.”
WHITE BOMBAZINE
I
And, like all serious patrons of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, we devoted our last afternoon to the Spring Academy. Of course it turned out to be as academysh as ever, and the medals had as usual gone to people who deserved them less than I. We therefore amused ourselves by playing our favourite Academy game. The Academy game consists in stalking haughtily by the obvious pictures, eyes averted and noses on high, and in darting with delight upon some forlorn hope, worrying over it until everybody else comes to stare—when you silently steal away. The success of this game, I must admit, depends largely upon Nick. For he has inches, hath Nick, and an air that overalls cannot bottle up.
We had thus decoyed the multitude from the first Hallgarten picture to a skied futurism that nobody could make head or tail of, and were casting eagle eyes about for our next pounce, when what should I spy but the familiar signature of Zephine Stumpf! I was feeling silly anyway, and the sudden recollection of Zephine was too much for me. I collapsed on to a sofa.
“What is it?” asked Nick, ready for the coming pounce.
I could only wag my head hysterically and wave at the wall in front of us. It was enough for Nick, however, who always had superhuman intelligence and a catalogue.