"I am inclined to believe," Honora said slowly, "that it is not right for us to refuse a friendly intercourse with suitable associates on account of any difference of religion, unless they intrude on us a belief or disbelief which we hold to be sacrilegious."
"Could you love a Jew?" Mrs. Gerald asked, rather abruptly.
Honora considered the matter a little while. "Our Lord loved them, even those who crucified him. I could love them. Besides, I do not believe that the Jews of to-day would practise violence any more than Christians would. We are friendly with Unitarians, yet they are not very different from some Jews. I think we should love everybody but the eternally lost. I could more easily become attached to an upright and conscientious Jew, than to a Catholic who did not practise his religion."
Mr. Schöninger, as soon as he had left the ladies, mended his pace, and strode off rapidly down the hill. In a few minutes he had reached a lighted railroad station, where people were going to and fro.
"Just in time!" he muttered, and ran to catch a train that was beginning to slip over the track. Grasping the hand-rail, he drew himself on to the step of the last car, then walked through the other cars, and, finally, took his seat in that next the engine. Once a week he gave lessons in a town fifteen miles from Crichton, and he usually found it more agreeable to take the night train down than to go in the morning.
In selecting this car he had hoped to be alone; but he had hardly taken his seat when he heard a step following him, and another man appeared and went into the seat in front of him—an insignificant-looking person, with a mean face. He turned about, put his feet on the seat, stretched his arm along the back, and, assuming an insinuating smile, bade Mr. Schöninger good evening. He had, apparently, settled himself for a long conversation.
Mr. Schöninger's habits were those of a scrupulous gentleman, and he had, even among gentlemen, the charming distinction of always keeping his feet on the floor. This man's manners were, therefore, in more than one way offensive, and his salutation received no more encouraging reply than a stare, and a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head.
Mr. Schöninger seemed, indeed, to regret even this slight concession, for he rose immediately with an air of decision, and walked forward to the first seat. The door of the car was open there as they rushed on through the darkness, and, looking forward, it was like beholding the half-veiled entrance of a cavern of fire. A cloud of illuminated smoke and steam swept about and enveloped the engine with a bright atmosphere impenetrable to the sight, and through this loomed the gigantic shadow of a man. This shadow sometimes disappeared for a moment only to appear again, and seemed to make threatening gestures, and to catch and press down into the flames some unseen adversary. Mr. Schöninger's fancy was wide awake, though his eyes were half asleep, and this strange object became to him an object of terror. Painful and anxious thoughts, which he had resolutely put away, left yet a dim and mysterious background, on which this grotesque figure, gigantic and wrapped in fire, was thrown in strong relief. He imagined it an impending doom, which might at any moment fall upon him.
Finding these fancies intolerable at length, he shook himself wide awake, rose, and walked unsteadily up and down the car. In doing so, he perceived that his fellow-passenger had retreated to the last seat, and was, apparently, sleeping, his cap drawn low over his forehead. But Mr. Schöninger's glance detected a slight change in the position of the head as he commenced his promenade, and he could not divest himself of the belief that, from under the low hat-brim, a glance as sharp as his own was following his every movement.
In an ordinary and healthy mood of mind he would have cared little for such espionage; but he was not in such a mood. Circumstances had of late tried his nerves, and it required all his power of self-control to maintain a composed exterior. Did this man suspect his trouble, and search for, or, perhaps, divine, or, possibly, know the cause of it? He would gladly have caught the fellow in his arms, and thrown him headlong into the outer darkness.