‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but it was a narrow squeeze.’
‘It was,’ he replied, ‘but I like being squeezed. It suits me. Then I always do my best.’
‘Jonathan,’ said his sister, ‘I’m beginning to admire you. If I didn’t know you so well, you’d take me in too—almost.’
‘My dear Davidina, that is the last thing I have ever wished to do,’ he said. ‘Hopeless adventures do not appeal to me.’
She laughed, and let the argument drop to say: ‘By the way, what are you now? What do you call yourself?’
‘I still call myself Jonathan Trimblerigg,’ was his reply. ‘I don’t propose taking a title, even if it were offered me.’
‘It’s fifteen years since Uncle Phineas died,’ said Davidina, ‘and I’ve a reason for asking.’
So? Here was Davidina proposing to broach the subject on which till now no word had ever been uttered between them. It did not exactly surprise him; he had always believed that Davidina had a conscience; but often he had wondered if, convinced in her own mind upon the point at issue, she would trouble to tell him of it—unless spitefully to enjoy his disappointment.
But there was no longer any question of disappointment now. In the fold of True Belief, Mr. Trimblerigg knew that he could not have done anything like what he had now accomplished, or have attained to such a standing or such prospects. Nevertheless—had the bait been larger—for there the door stood open waiting for him—who knows? The great fusion of the Free Churches, in a form to include True Belief, might have come earlier, and he might have remained Free Evangelical in practice and yet qualified in the letter and in the spirit for that deferred benefit which he was now denying himself.
‘I asked,’ said Davidina, ‘because I see that next Sunday you are going down to preach to your old congregation at Mount Horeb.’