“That is just a case in point,” said Aline. “I despise him, pity him, but one would lose one’s own dignity in hating such a poor thing. Now if one could find some one really strong, really great and wicked, one could hate them. But no one of that sort has ever come my way.”
“Have you thought of Father Martin?”
“I did not hate him. I was afraid of him and I did not think him altogether a good man; but in the main he seemed to act up to his lights. Father Austin, I might have hated, perhaps; but I do not know enough about him. There is some one over there that I love,” she said suddenly, as Father Laurence appeared at the other end of the garden. “I think he is the best man I have ever seen.”
“Better than Ian?” asked Audry.
“I do not know, and it is impossible for me to say. Dear Ian. I used to feel that there was something weak about him, but I think I was wrong. The wonderful thing about him is that he is developed on every side. It is true that we have mainly seen the softer side and also for a great part of the time he has been ill. But I keep discovering new things in his character. In any case he has a far more difficult position than Father Laurence. I should think that really it would be a much easier thing to retire from the world like a priest, than to try and make oneself a more complete and fully developed being and remain in the world. And after all, the world would cease to exist if we were all priests and nuns. To live the worldly life is certainly the lowest, and to come out of the world is higher than that; yet I am not sure that there is not something harder and higher still; and I believe Ian has done it; but here comes Father Laurence.”
The children ran to him, and the three walked round the garden together. It was a rare picture, the fine tall figure, slightly bent, with the wonderful spiritual face, an epitome of the glory of age, and the two exquisite children, just approaching the threshold, on the other side of which they would soon reach the mysteries of adult life.
After they had talked for some time Audry asked, “How do you suppose, Father, that Moll met her death?”
“I cannot say, my children; she may have fallen over by accident, but Master Richard thinks that she threw herself over. You know, little girl, how she hated you,” he said, turning to Aline, “and she must have been bitterly chagrined that everything has gone so well with you. Perhaps he is right, but let us speak of other things.”
He stopped, and for a time no one said anything at all. Then, moved by some motive that he could not explain, he went on,—“Children, I shall soon have to bid you farewell.”
“Oh, why?” they both said in a breath.