Dr. Dayton laughed again. “My dear friend,” he said, laying his hand on the bishop’s shoulder, “the fact is that your warmly affectionate nature lays you peculiarly open to the attacks of designing people. Only yesterday this woman sold a black dress that Mrs. Caiaphas had given her to a poor sewing-woman on the flat above. A great many little things make me think that these Kettles are more sly than simple. The poor people in the parish have seen that they were–if I may so phrase it–pets of yours and of Mrs. Caiaphas’s, and many things that you might have known have been kept from you because they were afraid to tell.”
Poor Bishop Caiaphas felt that the new broom had swept out a corner that was especially dear to him. Added to this was that singular bitterness that one feels in finding that one’s impulses of charity and generosity have been imposed upon. He tried to excuse Martha Kettle, but he felt that if what Dr. Dayton said were true, Martha could never be the same to him again. “Well,” he said, after a pause, “I don’t quite see the heinousness of this offence. The clothes were given to her, and she could do as she chose with them. I had rather she had worn them herself, but, after they were given to her, I don’t see that I could dictate what she should do with them.”
“Just so,” said Dr. Dayton; “but, if you will forgive me, I think it would have been wiser not to have given her so much. However, that is only a little matter–a straw that may show the drift of the wind. What I chiefly came to you about was concerning this man Tom Kettle. I have only spoken of this other little thing because I have questioned in my own mind whether this family that you have helped so liberally, and who have deceived you so entirely in small things, may not have deceived you in great things. This is why I asked you if you were sure that Tom Kettle was really blind. Day before yesterday he met this Healer that the poor people are making such a hubbub about. He came back with his eyesight as sharp as is mine at this very minute. He claims that he was miraculously cured. Is it not possible that these people have been deceiving you all this time, and that the man never was blind? I don’t know how you yourself feel about all this business, bishop,” he continued, “but to me such trifling with things sacred is very revolting.”
“Very,” said Bishop Caiaphas. Then he sat in thoughtful silence for a while. “This is very dreadful to me, Dayton,” he said, at last–“very dreadful, indeed. I cannot even yet believe that the parents of this man are really as deceitful as you suspect them to be. I think they erred in turning my charity into a matter of sordid gain, but I do not think they could have deceived me in such a thing as Tom’s blindness. I confess, however, that you have sadly shaken my confidence in them.”
“You do not believe this man’s story, do you? You don’t believe that Tom Kettle has been miraculously cured?”
“I cannot believe it–of course, I cannot believe it.”
“Then what other alternative is there but to believe that these people have been deceiving you all these years? Tom Kettle himself is a thorough-going rogue. He is doing a great mischief now, for I find the poor people throughout the parish are actually inclined to listen to his story. I find they are talking a great deal about it, and it is my opinion that if some immediate means are not taken to deal very drastically with this case that is so palpably thrust upon us, we shall have still more of these poor, misguided people flocking away from the Church to follow after Christ.”
The bishop still sat thoughtfully. “What would you recommend?” he said, after a while.
“Well, if you ask my advice, I should recommend that you appoint a committee to examine into this man’s story; and if we find–as I am sure we shall find–that he is playing a trick upon the community, that he–and, if need be, his parents–be dismissed from the communion of the Church.”
“Oh, Dayton,” said the bishop, “could you do such a thing as that? Could you come between a man and his God?”