"How ignorant we are!" he said, folding it. "I sometimes think that we who try to minister to the needs of the poor in spirit do not even know the rudiments of our trade. We are pretty helpless with men like Wheaton. They are apparently strong; they yield to no temptations, so far as any man knows; they are exemplary characters. I suppose that they are living little tragedies all the time. The moral coward is more to be pitied than the open criminal. You know where to find the criminal; but the moral coward is an unknown quantity. Life is a strange business, John, and the older I get the less I think I know of it." He sighed and handed back the letter.
"But he's doing better than we might have expected him to," said Saxton. "A man's entitled to happiness if he can find it. He undoubtedly chose the easier part in running away. I can't imagine him coming back here to face the community after all that had happened."
"I don't know that I can either. Preaching is easier than practising, and I'm not sure that I gave him the best advice at the ranch house that morning."
"Well, it was the only thing to do," Saxton answered. "I suppose neither you nor I was sure he told the truth; it was a situation that was calculated to make one skeptical. It isn't clear from his letter that the whole thing has impressed him in any great way. He's anxious to have us think well of him—a kind of retrospective vanity."
"But his punishment is great. It's not for us to pass on its adequacy. I must be going, John," and Saxton gathered up the battered cases and went out to the car with him.
Bishop Delafield always brought Warry back vividly to John, and as they waited on the corner he remembered his first meeting with the bishop, in Warry's rooms at The Bachelors'. And that was very long ago!
CHAPTER XLII AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
The days that followed brought uncertainty and doubt to the heart and mind of John Saxton. He had seen Evelyn several times before she left home, on occasions when he went to the house with Fenton for conferences with her father. He had intended saying good-by to her, but the Porters went hurriedly at last and he was not sorry; it was easier that way. But Mrs. Whipple, who was exercising a motherly supervision over John, had exacted a promise from him to come to Orchard Lane during the time that she and the general were to be with the Porters in their new cottage. When he went East, Saxton settled down at his club in Boston, and pretended that it was good to be at home again; but he went about with homesickness gnawing his heart. He had reason to be happy and satisfied with himself. He had practically concluded the difficult work which he had been sent to Clarkson to do; he had realized more money from their assets than the officers of the trust company had expected; and they held out to him the promise of employment in their Boston office as a reward. So he walked the familiar streets planning his future anew. He had succeeded in something at last, and he would stay in Boston, having, he told himself, earned the right to live there. The assistant secretaryship of the trust company, which had been mentioned to him, would be a position of dignity and promise. He had never hoped to do so well. Moreover, it would be pleasant to be near his sister, who lived at Worcester. There were only the two of them, and they ought to live near together.