Keziah Coffin Part 29

"Grace Van Horne!" she cried. "Mr. Ellery meets Grace Van Horne on Sunday afternoons? Where?"

"Down in them pines back of Peters's pastur', on the aidge of the bank over the beach. He's met her there every Sunday for the last six weeks--longer, for what I know. I've watched 'em."

"You HAVE? YOU have! You've dared to spy on--I think you're lyin' to me.

I don't believe it."

"I ain't lyin'! It's so. I'll bet you anything they're there now, walkin' up and down and talkin'. What would I want to lie for? You come with me this minute and I'll show 'em to you."

In the desire to prove his veracity he was on his way to the door. But Keziah stepped in front of him.

"'Bish Pepper," she said slowly and fiercely, shaking a forefinger in his face, "you go straight home and stay there. Don't you breathe a word to a livin' soul of what you say you've seen. Don't you even think it, or--or dream it. If you do I'll--I'll march straight to Laviny and tell her that you asked me to marry you. I will, as sure as you're shakin' in front of me this minute. Now you swear to me to keep still. Swear!"

"How--HOW'll I swear?" begged Kyan. "What do you say when you swear?

I'll say it, Keziah! I'll say anything! I'll--"

"All right. Then mind you remember. Now clear out quick. I want to think. I MUST think. GO! Get out of my sight!"

Kyan went, glad to escape, but frightened to the soul of him. Keziah watched him until he turned from the main road into the lighthouse lane.

Then, certain that he really was going straight home, she re-entered the parsonage and sat down in the nearest chair. For ten minutes she sat there, striving to grasp the situation. Then she rose and, putting on her bonnet and shawl, locked the dining-room door, and went out through the kitchen. On the step she looked cautiously back to see if any of the neighbors were at their windows. But this was Sunday, the one day when Trumet people sat in their front parlors. The coast was clear. She hurried through the back yard, and down the path leading across the fields. She was going to the pine grove by the sh.o.r.e, going to find out for herself if Kyan's astonis.h.i.+ng story was true.

For if it was true, if the Rev. John Ellery was meeting clandestinely the adopted daughter of Eben Hammond, it meant--what might it not mean, in Trumet? If he had fallen in love with a Come-Outer, with Grace Van Horne of all people, if he should dare think of marrying her, it would mean the utter wreck of his career as a Regular clergyman. His own society would turn him out instantly. All sorts of things would be said, lies and scandal would be invented and believed. His character would be riddled by the Trumet gossips and the papers would publish the result broadcast.

And Grace! If she loved a Regular minister, what would happen to her?

Captain Eben would turn her from his door, that was certain. Although he idolized the girl, Keziah knew that he would never countenance such a marriage. And if Nat stood by Grace, as he would be almost sure to do, the breach between father and son would widen beyond healing. If it were merely a matter of personal selection, Mrs. Coffin would rather have seen her parson marry Grace than anyone else on earth. As it was, such a match must not be. It meant ruin for both. She must prevent the affair going further. She must break off the intimacy. She must save those two young people from making a mistake which would--She wrung her hands as she thought of it. Of her own sorrow and trouble she characteristically thought nothing now. Sacrifice of self was a part of Keziah's nature.

The pines were a deep-green blotch against the cloudy sky and the gloomy waters of the bay. She skirted the outlying clumps of bayberry and beach plum bushes and entered the grove. The pine needles made a soft carpet which deadened her footfalls, and the shadows beneath the boughs were thick and black. She tiptoed on until she reached the clearing by the brink of the bluff. No one was in sight. She drew a breath of relief.

Kyan might be mistaken, after all.

Then she heard low voices. As she crouched at the edge of the grove, two figures pa.s.sed slowly across the clearing, along the bush-bordered path and into the shrubbery beyond. John Ellery was walking with Grace Van Horne. He was holding her hand in his and they were talking very earnestly.

Keziah did not follow. What would have been the use? This was not the time to speak. She KNEW now and she knew, also, that the responsibility was hers. She must go home at once, go home to be alone and to think.

She tiptoed back through the grove and across the fields.

Yet, if she had waited, she might have seen something else which would have been, at least, interesting. She had scarcely reached the outer edge of the grove when another figure pa.s.sed stealthily along that narrow path by the bluff edge. A female figure treading very carefully, rising to peer over the bushes at the minister and Grace. The figure of Miss Annabel Daniels, the "belle" of Trumet. And Annabel's face was not pleasant to look upon.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH CAPTAIN EBEN RECEIVES A CALLER

At the edge of the bluff, just where the pines and the bayberry bushes were thickest, where the narrow, crooked little footpath dipped over the rise and down to the pasture land and the salt meadow, John Ellery and Grace had halted in their walk. It was full tide and the miniature breakers plashed amid the seaweed on the beach. The mist was drifting in over the bay and the gulls were calling sleepily from their perch along the breakwater. A night hawk swooped and circled above the tall "feather gra.s.s" by the margin of the creek. The minister's face was pale, but set and determined, and he was speaking rapidly.

"I can't help it," he said. "I can't help it. I have made up my mind and nothing can change it, nothing but you. It rests with you. If you say yes, then nothing else matters. Will you say it?"

He was holding both her hands now, and though she tried to withdraw them, he would not let her.

"Will you?" he pleaded.

"I can't," she answered brokenly. "I can't. Think of your church and of your people. What would they say if--"

"I don't care what they say."

"Oh! yes, you do. Not now, perhaps, but later you will. You don't know Trumet as I know it. No, it's impossible."

"I tell you there is only one impossible thing. That is that I give you up. I won't do it. I CAN'T do it! Grace, this is life and death for me.

My church--"

He paused in spite of himself. His church, his first church! He had accepted the call with pride and a determination to do his best, the very best that was in him, for the society and for the people whom he was to lead. Some of those people he had learned to love; many of them, he felt sure, loved him. His success, his popularity, the growth of the organization and the praise which had come to him because of it, all these had meant, and still meant, very much to him. No wonder he paused, but the pause was momentary.

"My church," he went on, "is my work and I like it. I believe I've done some good here and I hope to do more. But no church shall say whom I shall marry. If you care for me, Grace, as I think and hope you do, we'll face the church and the town together, and they will respect us for it."

She shook her head.

"Some of them might respect you," she said. "They would say you had been led into this by me and were not so much to blame. But I--"

"They shall respect my wife," he interrupted, snapping his teeth together, "or I'll know the reason why."

She smiled mournfully.

"I think they'll tell you the reason," she answered. "No, John, no!

we mustn't think of it. You can see we mustn't. This has all been a mistake, a dreadful mistake, and I am to blame for it."

"The only mistake has been our meeting in this way. We should have met openly; I realize it, and have felt it for sometime. It was my fault, not yours. I was afraid, I guess. But I'll not be a coward any longer.

Come, dear, let's not be afraid another day. Only say you'll marry me and I'll proclaim it openly, to-night--Yes, from the pulpit, if you say so."

She hesitated and he took courage from her hesitation.

"Say it," he pleaded. "You WILL say it?"

"I can't! I can't! My uncle--"

"Your uncle shall hear it from me. We'll go to him together. I'll tell him myself. He wors.h.i.+ps you."

"Yes, I know. He does wors.h.i.+p me. That's why I am sure he had rather see me dead than married to you, a Regular, and a Regular minister."

"I don't believe it. He can't be so unreasonable. If he is, then you shouldn't humor such bigotry."

"He has been my father for years, and a dear, kind father."

"I know. That's why I'm so certain we can make him understand. Come, dear! come! Why should you consider everyone else? Consider your own happiness. Consider mine."

She looked at him.

"I am considering yours," she said. "That is what I consider most of all. And, as for uncle, I know--I KNOW he would never consent. His heart is set on something else. Nat--"

"Nat? Are you considering him, too? Is HE to stand between us? What right has he to say--"