Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, he really would have preferred to have his protégée marry, if she married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he possessed.
"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there are no atheists—that every man who does good, defends goodness, and contends against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you. That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal instinct."
John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy. You are her choice. You have a right to her."
"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a desirable post among the missionaries in China."
"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a dull fixity of gaze.
Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly. The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set on aiding me in the Orient."
The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to each other?
"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than sorry, Mr. Trott."
John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many natural circumstances and had to be borne.
"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do not return to America frequently?"