Charred Wood Part 26

"I question a little," replied Father Murray, "if that last statement is true--that you have no religion. You know, Mark, I am beginning to think you have a great deal of religion. I wish that some who think that they have very much could learn how to make what is really their very little count as far as you have made yours count. It dawned upon me to-night that there is a good reason why the most religious people never make the best diplomats. Now, you would have been a failure in that career."

"I think, Father Murray, that your good opinion of me is at least partly due to the fact that I may yet be your nephew. Ruth is like a daughter to you; and so I gain in your esteem because of her."

"Yes," answered the priest thoughtfully, "Ruth is like a daughter to me. And it is a strange feeling for a priest to have--that he has someone looking up to him and loving him in that way. Though a priest is const.i.tuted the same as other men, long training and experience have made his life and mental att.i.tude different from those of men of more worldly aspirations. A priest is bound to his work more closely than is any other person in the world. Duty is almost an instinct with him.

That is why he seldom s.h.i.+nes in any other line, no matter how talented he may be. Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin almost had to unfrock themselves in order to become statesmen. Cardinal Wolsey left a heritage that at best is of doubtful value--not because he was a priest as well as a lord chancellor, but because as lord chancellor he so often forgot that he was a priest. There are many great priest-authors, but few of them are among the greatest. A priest in politics does not usually hold his head, because politics isn't his place. There are priest-inventors; but somehow we forget the priest in the inventor, and feel that the latter t.i.tle makes him a little less worthy of the former--rather illogical, is it not? The Abbot Mendel was a scientist, but it is only now that he is coming into his own; and how many know him only as Mendel, forgetting his priestly office?

Liszt was a cleric, but few called him Abbe. A priest as a priest can be nothing else. In fact, it is almost inevitable that his greatness in anything else will detract from his priesthood. Now the Church, my dear Mark, has the wisdom of ages behind her. She never judges from the exceptions, but always from the rule. She gets better service from a man who has sunk his temporal interests in the spiritual. She is the sternest mistress the ages have produced; she wants whole-hearted service or none at all. I like thinking of Ruth as my daughter; but I am not averse, for the good of my ministry, to having someone else take the responsibility from off my shoulders."

"But," said Mark, "how could a wife and children interfere with a priest's duties to his flock?"

"The church does not let them interfere," answered Father Murray. "She holds a man to his sworn obligations taken in marriage. A husband must 'cleave to his wife.' How could a priestly husband do that and yet fulfill his vow to be faithful to his priesthood until death? His wife would come first. What of his priesthood? Besides, a father has for his children a love that would tend to nullify, only too often, the priest's obligations toward the children of his flock. A man who offers a supreme sacrifice, and is eternally willing to live it, must be supremely free. In theory, all clergymen must be prepared to sacrifice themselves for their people, for 'the Good Shepherd gives up his life for his sheep.' In practice, no one expects that except of the priest; but from him everyone expects it."

"Do you really think," asked Mark, "that those outside the Church expect such a sacrifice?"

Father Murray did not hesitate about his answer.

"Expect it? They demand it. Why, my dear Mark, even as a Presbyterian minister I expected it of the men I almost hated. I never liked priests then. Instinctively I cla.s.sed them as my enemies, even as my personal enemies. Deep down in my heart I knew that, with the Catholic Church eliminated from Christianity, the whole fabric tottered and fell, and Christ was stamped with the mark of an impostor and a failure--His life, His wonders, and His death, shams. Instinctively I knew, too, that without the Catholic Church the Christian world would fall to the level of Rome at its worst, and that every enemy of Christ turned his face against her priests. I knew that every real atheist, every licentious man, most revolutionists, every anarchist, hated a priest. It annoyed me to think that they didn't hate me, the representative, as I thought, of a purer religion. But they did not hate me at all. They ignored the sacredness of my calling, and cla.s.sed me with themselves because of what they thought was the common bond of enmity to the priest. I resented that, for, while I was against their enemy, I certainly was not with them. The anomaly of my position increased my bitterness toward priests until I came almost to welcome a scandal among them, even though I knew that every scandal reacted on my own kind. But each rare scandal served to throw into clearer relief the high honor and stern purity of the great ma.s.s of those men who had forsaken all to follow Christ. And my vague feeling of satisfaction was tempered by an insistent sense of my own injustice which would not be denied, for I knew that I was demanding of the Catholic priest greater things than I demanded of any other men. Even while I judged--and, judging, condemned--I knew that I was measuring him by his own magnificent standard, the very seeking of which made him worthy of honor. To have sought the highest goal and failed is better than never to have sought at all. So long as life lasts, no failure is forever; it is always possible to arise and return to the path. And a fall should call forth the charity of the beholder, leading him closer to G.o.d. But there is no charity for the Catholic priest who stumbles--no return save in s.p.a.ces hidden from the world. The most arrant criminals, the most dangerous atheists, the most sincere Protestants, demand of the priest not only literal obedience to his vows, but a sublime observance of their spirit. Why, Mark, you demand it yourself--you know you do."

For a moment Mark did not answer.

"Yes," he said, after a pause, "I do demand it. I only wondered if others felt as I do. This job of trying to a.n.a.lyze one's own emotions and thoughts is a difficult one. I have been trying to do it for years. Frankly, there are things I cannot grasp. Let me put one of them before you now."

"Go on," said Father Murray. "I am glad the conversation is off the worry."

"You remember, Father," said Mark, "the day I met you in your study that eventful Sunday in London?"

The priest nodded.

"I had decided then to go out of the church, as I told you, to get away from my faith. I thought that I had come to that decision with a clear conscience, but I know now that I had merely built up a false one and that that was why I sought you out--not to give up, but to defy you, and defy my own heart at the same time. I thought that if I could justify myself before such a man as you it would set things at rest within me for the remainder of my days. I did not justify myself.

Ever since that day I have been attracted by the open doors of Catholic churches. I never pa.s.s one without seeing that open door. The minute I seriously think of religion the picture of an open church door is in front of me; it has become almost an obsession. I seem to see a hand beckoning from that door; some day I shall see more than the hand--my mother's face will be behind it. I can't get away from it--and I can't understand why."

Father Murray's eyes were serious.

"Why, my dear Mark," he answered, "you ought to know that you can't get away. Do you suppose anybody ever got away from G.o.d? Do you suppose any man ever could close his eyes to the fact of His existence? Then how is it possible for you to get away from that which first told you of G.o.d, and which so long represented to you all that you knew about Him? There is in the Catholic faith a strange something which makes those who have not belonged to it vaguely uneasy, but which makes those who have once had it always unsatisfied without it. There is an influence akin to that of the magnetic pole, only it draws _everything_. It intrudes itself upon every life. There seems to be no middle course between loving it and hating it; but, once known, it cannot be ignored. It has had its chain around _you_, Mark, and you are only now realizing that you can't cast it off."

Mark Griffin was silent. For some minutes not a word was exchanged between the two men. Then Mark arose and, without looking at his friend, said good night and left the room.

A minute later he returned.

"Father," he said, "you are very hopeful about Ruth. I am trying to share your hope. If everything comes out right and she is not lost to me, will you--heretic or unfaithful son though I may still be, whichever you are pleased to call me--will you still be a friend and, should she accept me, join our hands?"

Father Murray walked over and put his hand on Mark's shoulders.

"I am afraid, Mark, that it is again the Faith instinct. Of course I will marry you--that I expected to do. I could not be a mere onlooker to give her away. When you get her, Mark, you will get her from me, not only with an uncle's blessing, but with another as strong as Mother Church can make it and as binding as eternity."

CHAPTER XVIII

SAUNDERS SCORES

It lacked but five minutes to the hour of ten next morning when the card of the Minister's secretary was handed to Father Murray. The priest sent down a polite request for the visitor to come to his room, and at once telephoned for Mark. Both men arrived at the same moment and were introduced at the door. Father Murray, at Saunders' own request, kept the detective in the background. Saunders had, in the meantime, been learning all he could about the Ministry and its interior--"for emergencies," he explained to Mark.

The secretary proceeded to business without delay.

"I have come on behalf of His Excellency," he said, "and to express his regrets."

"I scarcely expected regrets," answered the priest; "for at ten o'clock I was to have a definite answer."

"It is impossible, Reverend Sir, to give you that. His Excellency bade me offer full a.s.surance that a definite answer will not long be delayed; but a somewhat unforeseen situation was found in Baltimore--a situation that was unforeseen by you, though rather expected by His Excellency."

"I cannot imagine," Father Murray spoke rather tartly, "what that situation could be."

"Let me explain then." The secretary talked as one sure of his ground.

"I take it that neither Baron Griffin nor yourself, Reverend Sir, would be at all interested in the movements of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess?"

"Not particularly," answered the priest.

"Then I am sorry to say that the dead girl in Baltimore is surely your niece. The other--"

"At the Ministry--" Mark put in.

"Wherever she is," parried the secretary. "The other is the Grand d.u.c.h.ess."

"Perhaps, Mr. Secretary," quietly suggested Father Murray, "you will admit that I ought to know my own niece?"

"There is a great resemblance, Reverend Sir, between the two ladies. I have seen the dead girl, and have examined her belongings. Her apparel was made, it is true, in Paris; but your niece has recently been there.

Her bag bears the initials, 'R.A.' The mesh bag is plainly marked in gold cut initials with the same letters. The dressing case is also marked 'R.A.' Even the handkerchiefs are thus marked."

"As she was a guest of my niece, and of course left Killimaga very hurriedly after the abduction," said Father Murray, "it is quite probable that the Grand d.u.c.h.ess took the first clothes and other effects that came to hand. She may even have purposely used things belonging to Miss Atheson in order not to have anything in her possession that might betray her ident.i.ty."

"True, that is possible," the secretary admitted; "but it is not probable enough to satisfy His Excellency. Without a doubt, he ought to satisfy himself. In the meantime, while the doubt remains, it is clear that your answer cannot be given."

"Suppose we place this matter, then," said the priest, "where the answer will come in response to a demand? There is still the British Emba.s.sy and the Department of State."

"It will be plain to you, Reverend Sir," said the secretary, "that such a course would not be of a.s.sistance. Frankly, we do not want publicity; but, certainly, neither does your Department of State. In fact, I think that this affair might offer considerable embarra.s.sment to the President himself at this time. And you? Would you wish the reporters to hear of it and have it published with all possible embellishments and sent broadcast? A few days will not be long in pa.s.sing. I can vouch for the fact that the lady is quite comfortable.

Why not see it from His Excellency's point of view?"

"Just what is that point of view?"

"I will be frank. You gentlemen know the situation. His Excellency's entire career is at stake. If this lady is the Grand d.u.c.h.ess and she does not go back to her throne--"

"Her throne?" Mark broke out in astonishment.

"Her father is dead. She is the reigning Grand d.u.c.h.ess, though she does not know it yet. You see the situation? His Excellency must be sure."

"But how does he mean to arrive at certainty?" asked Father Murray.

"That will be our task."