Jerome went back to Wellfield that afternoon, firmly resolved to write to Sara Ford, and ask her to set him free. When it came to the point, he ‘could’ not do it. He could picture only too vividly what such a letter would mean to her. It was Saturday afternoon. He would wait until to-morrow, when he would go up to Brentwood to the morning service, and would see Somerville and consult with him. Perhaps he might even tell him the whole truth. He did not know. He went often to the services at Brentwood now. They soothed him, and he found a satisfaction in going there. Indeed, when one reflects upon the fact that there are many natures partaking of the characteristics of his, one sees how to these natures some form of religion, of an infallible institution outside themselves, and yet within their reach, is an absolute necessity; and one begins to perceive more clearly why agnosticism has never been popular.
Wellfield could never have been an agnostic. He and such as he have not the mental and moral toughness of fibre which enables a man to contemplate the mystery of the heavens above and the earth beneath; of the life and the death, and the pain and the evil that are upon the earth, of his own feelings and speculations, and their origin, and the purpose and destiny of them–and then, while reverently owning ‘I know nothing, and I will assert nothing, upon these things,’ has yet the courage to live up to an ethical code as high, as pure, and as stern as that of St. John or of Christ–expecting nothing from a life to come, as to the existence of which he is in absolute ignorance. The more part of mankind want none of this; they want a religion, a thing that will let them sin, and prescribe to them how they must get forgiven. Such a religion was found in perfection at Brentwood, and thither Jerome repaired.
There was an unusually splendid service that morning. A great dignitary–a cardinal–preached. The sermon set forth eloquently the rewards of faith and obedience. He assumed that all present had overcome the initiatory difficulties, that they were all entirely faithful and entirely obedient; and then he proceeded to depict their happiness even here upon earth, not to mention the joys which awaited them in heaven.
Wellfield listened; he saw others listening: a haughty-looking woman in widow’s weeds, just on the other side of the aisle. She was Mrs. Latheby of Latheby, whose only son was being educated at Brentwood. He knew her well by sight; her pride and reserve were proverbial. Yet she wiped tears from her eyes as she listened to the sermon. There was a profound silence–a silence full of suppressed emotion, as the sermon progressed. Faith and obedience; nothing to do but submit that private judgment which is usually so ill-trained, and which invariably causes such trouble, and ye shall have rest unto your souls.
That was the burden of the discourse–that was what echoed with so seductive a sound in Wellfield’s ears.
After the service he saw Somerville; he was presented to Mrs. Latheby, who remembered his mother, and told him so; adding with the regretful smile which lent such pathos and sweetness to her proud and still beautiful face:
‘Ah, Mr. Wellfield, if that beautiful mother of yours had been here to-day, how happy she would have been in what she had heard ... and it gives me a melancholy pleasure to think that had she lived to bring you up, you might have been standing here, one of us, not a looker-on, out in the cold.’
‘You are far too good, madam, to think of me at all,’ he replied, moved somewhat by her words, and yet under the influence of the emotion which the cardinal’s word-picture had aroused.
‘I must ever take an interest in the only son of Annunciata Wellfield,’ she answered; ‘and I want you to come and see me–will you?’
‘I shall only be too honoured.’