CHAPTER XIII.
A RIVAL FOR EDITH.
Dick Rowan came home in the spring of '52 to begin a new life. In the first place, he was to have a ship of his own. Mr. Williams had a beautiful ship almost ready to launch, and he was to be the master of it. He was to name it, too, that had been promised him; but what name he meant to bestow was as yet a secret to all but himself. What could it be but the Edith Yorke? He had other matters to settle, too; he must become a Catholic. He had promised Edith that he would, if, on reading, he found he could do so conscientiously. He had read a good deal, more than he liked, indeed, and saw nothing to object to. Besides, the fact that it was Edith's religion and the religion of his father's boyhood was a strong argument in its favor. There was one other affair to settle, the thought of which made the color drop out of his cheeks, and his heart rise in excited throbs. He had studied it over and over during this last voyage, and his mind was made up. Edith was almost seventeen years old, and he meant to speak to her. She must know now, if she ever would, whether she was willing to be his wife.
Perhaps something said to him by Captain Cary had hastened his decision. The captain had seen what his studies were, and been vexed by them.
"You are going too far, Dick," he expostulated. "A man never should change his religion for a girl's sake. She won't like you any the better for it. Besides, Dick, I can't help saying it, you are making a fool of yourself. She will marry Carl Yorke."
Dick stared, reddened, then grew pale. "I think not," he said decidedly. "Don't say that again, captain."
The first thing to be attended to, then, was his religion. He must be a Catholic when he met Edith. Besides, if religion gives strength, he would feel better prepared to put his fortune to the test. He went, therefore, to a clergyman immediately.
"I do not wish to read any more, sir," he said. "I do not like the way in which learned men prove their arguments to be true. It is too ingenious. It always seems to me that the other side could be just as well proved, if one were clever enough. I am willing to believe whatever is true. I cannot swear to any doctrine, except the existence of a God and the divinity of Christ. Those two truths I would stand by with my life. For the rest, I can only say that I place my mind and heart passively in the hands of God, and ask him to direct them. I can do no more, except to say that, if I do not believe, neither do I disbelieve anything that has been proposed to me. Perhaps my head isn't a very good one; I dare say it is not. I certainly do not like subtleties. It seems to me that all necessary truth may be known and believed by a very ordinary intellect with very moderate study. What I want in religion is what I find in the faces of some of the poor people whom I see here at Mass in the early morning, and I don't believe they got that out of books, or got it themselves in any way."
"You are right," the priest said. "What you saw in their faces was faith, a pure gift of God. But you believe baptism to be necessary to salvation?"
"I am inclined to think so, but not sure," was the reply. "If I were sure, then I should already have faith, which is what I come to ask for. If it is necessary, I wish for it."
The priest mused. This was not a very fervent penitent certainly; but he was a sincere one, and in his fine, earnest face the father read a latent fervor and power of strong conviction which would be all the more precious when aroused.