“It was eleven years before you were born. You were the only child?”
“No—two others, older; they died.”
The bishop reflected, his luminous eyes on the boy’s face. “You are like her. I’m glad.”
“So am I,” the lad smiled, and waited in an agony now of anxiety to know what it all meant. A minute, two minutes, and he still waited.
“Let me think,” the bishop crossed his legs with deliberation, and puffed a cloud of smoke and gazed at it, absorbed, as it rolled toward the hollyhocks. “Let me think.”
“Yes, sir,” and the lad shut his lips, as it might be to shut in something which kicked and struggled. The bees hummed; the bishop smoked as if hours were nothing, nor yet a young man exploding with curiosity. At length he put the pipe down on the table and pushed it from him.
“I’d better tell you the whole story,” he said gravely. “I have never told it before. Thirty-five years ago—eleven years before you were born—I was a lawyer, alone in the world, as I am now.” He stopped a moment, and suddenly smiled at the listener. The lad flushed as if he had been caressed. “As now. I met—a young girl—and fell in love with her. It was—the only time in my life. She was much younger than I. I can see now that she never cared as I did—my impetuousness forced her—but I did not see that then. We were engaged. Then, the autumn after, a man—a stranger—came. He had letters to me from a cousin of mine. My cousin spoke highly of his ability and of his social qualities. He gave him also letters to a Mr. Seaton, the president of a large mine, the Scylla Mine. I felt—his—charm at once. He was a big fellow, very handsome, very attractive. I did what I could for him—it was a good deal, for I knew many people. Through me he went into a business—temporarily, for we both thought his best chance would be with Seaton. But Seaton was off in China and would not be home till spring. Other chances came, one or two almost as good as the Scylla, but I felt sure that with my influence to back him he would be taken into the mine, and it ought to mean a career. Then I began to see that—she,” the bishop spoke a bit difficultly, “was attracted by him. She did not realize at first, and I tried not to believe it. But I grew to—” The speaker hesitated and then looked the boy gently, frankly in the face. “I loved her. I grew to hate—the man. It poisoned everything—hate does, you know. One day alone in my office I was brooding over it, and Seaton came in, the president, you remember, of the Scylla Mine, just home from China.”
“‘You know this man?’ he asked me.
“I said ‘yes,’ quietly enough, and Seaton explained that they wanted a superintendent, that Jerome, my cousin, had written enthusiastically of this man, but that he did not put entire trust in Jerome’s enthusiasm. He had heard,” the bishop hesitated, “he had heard something not altogether favorable about—about the man.”
The boy listened, bewildered. What was this story—why should he know it?