“Disturbed!” cried Doctor Sherman. “Disturbed!”
His voice told how preposterously inadequate was the word. He did not lift his eyes, but sat silent a moment, his white hands crushing one another, his face bent upon the rotted wood beneath his feet.
“It’s that business to-morrow!” he groaned; and at that he suddenly sprang up and confronted Blake. His fine face was wildly haggard and was working in convulsive agony. “My God,” he burst out, “when I look back at myself as I was four years ago, and then look at myself as I am to-day—oh, I’m sick, sick!” A hand gripped the cloth over his breast. “Why, when I came to Westville I was on fire to serve God with all my heart and never a compromise! On fire to preach the new gospel that the way to make people better is to make this an easier world for people to be better in!”
That passion-shaken figure was not a pleasant thing to look upon. Blake turned his eyes back to the glistening river and the sun, and steeled himself.
“Yes, I remember you preached some great sermons in those days,” he commented in his cold voice. “And what happened to you?”
“You know what happened to me!” cried the young minister with his wild passion. “You know well enough, even if you were not in that group of prominent members who gave me to understand that I’d either have to change my sermons or they’d have to change their minister!”
“At least they gave you a choice,” returned Blake.
“And I made the wrong choice! I was at the beginning of my career—the church here seemed a great chance for so young a man—and I did not want to fail at the very beginning. And so—and so—I compromised!”
“Do you suppose you are the first man that has ever made a compromise?”