Phyllis of Philistia. Frank Frankfort Moore

insult her own; but without a moment’s delay, without a word of consultation with her father, she sat down at her desk and wrote a letter to George Holland, asking him to release her from her promise to marry him; and adding that if he should decline to do so it would make no difference to her; she would consider the engagement between them at an end all the same.

      She felt, when that letter was posted, as if a great weight were lifted from her mind—from her heart. Then a copy of “Revised Versions” arrived for her from the author, and with the ink still wet upon the pen with which she had written that letter to him, she caught up the book and covered it with kisses.

      Had he seen that action her lover would have been thoroughly satisfied. A young woman must be very deeply in love with a man when she kisses the cover of a book which he has just published. That is what George Holland would have thought, having but a superficial acquaintance with the motives that sway young women.

      Later in the day he had replied to her letter, and had appointed four o’clock on the following afternoon as the hour when he trusted she would find it convenient to see him, in order to give him an opportunity of making an explanation which he trusted would enable her to see that “Revised Versions,” so far from being the dreadful book she seemed to imagine it to be, was in reality written with a high purpose.

      She had not shrunk from an interview with him. She had sent him a line to let him know that she would be at home at four o’clock; and now she sat in her drawing room and observed, without emotion, that in five minutes that hour would strike.

      The clock struck, and before the last tone had died away, the footman announced the Rev. George Holland.

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO ACCUSE HIM OF READING THE BIBLE DAILY.

       Table of Contents

      Phyllis shook hands with her visitor. He sought to retain her hand, as he had been in the habit of doing, as he stood beside her with something of a proprietary air. He relinquished her hand with a little look of surprise—a sort of pained surprise. She was inexorable. She would not even allow him to maintain his proprietary air.

      “Do sit down, Mr. Holland,” she said.

      “What! ‘Mr. Holland’ already? Oh, Phyllis!”

      He had a good voice, full of expression—something beyond mere musical expression. People (they were mostly women) said that his voice had soul in it, whatever they meant by that.

      She made no reply. What reply could she make? She only waited for him to sit down.

      “Your letter came as a great shock to me, Phyllis,” said he, when he had seated himself, not too close to her. He did not wish her to fancy that he was desirous of having a subtle influence of propinquity as an ally. “A great shock to me.”

      “A shock?” said she. “A shock, after you had written that book?”

      “I fancied you would understand it, Phyllis—you, at least. Of course I expected to be misrepresented by the world—the critics—the clerics—what you will—but you——You had not read it when you wrote that letter to me—that terrible letter. You could not have read it.”

      “I had only read one notice of it—that was enough.”

      “And you could write that letter to me solely as the evidence of one wretched print? Oh, Phyllis!”

      Pain was in his voice. It may have been in his face as well, but she did not see it; his face was averted from her.

      “Yes,” she said quietly; “I wrote that letter, Mr. Holland. You see, the paper gave large extracts from the book. I did not come to my conclusion from what the newspaper article said, but from what you had said in your book—from the quoted passages.”

      “They did not do me justice. I did not look for justice at their hands. But you, Phyllis——”

      “I have read your book now, Mr. Holland——”

      “Ah, let me plead with you, Phyllis—not ‘Mr. Holland,’ I entreat of you.”

      “And my first thought on reading it was that I had not written to you so strongly as I should have done.”

      “My dear Phyllis, do not say that, I beg of you. You cannot know how you pain me.”

      “To be misunderstood by you—you.”

      She got upon her feet so quickly that it might almost be said she sprang up.

      “You must have misunderstood me greatly, Mr. Holland, if you fancied that you could write such a book as you wrote and not get such a letter from me. The Bible—Ruth—and you a clergyman—reading it daily in the church——Oh! I cannot tell you all that I thought—all that I still think.”

      He did not correct the mistake she had made. She had no right to accuse him of reading the Bible daily in his church. He was not in the habit of doing that—it was his curates who did it. He watched her as she stood at a window with her back turned to him. Her hands were behind her. Her breath came audibly, for she had spoken excitedly.

      Then he also rose and came beside her.

      “I wrote that book, as I believed you would perceive when you had read it, in order to remove from the minds of the people—those people who have not given the matter a thought—the impression—I know it prevails—that our faith—the truth of our religion—is dependent upon the acceptance as good of such persons as our very religion itself enables us to pronounce evil. My aim was to show that our faith is not built upon such a foundation of impurity—of imperfection. The spirit which prevails nowadays—the modern spirit—it is the result of the development of science. This scientific spirit necessitates the consideration of all the elements of our faith from the standpoint of reason.”

      “Faith—reason?”

      “If the Church is to appeal to all men, its method must be scientific. It is sad to think of all that the Church has lost in the past through the want of wisdom of those who had its best interests at heart, and believed they were doing it good service by opposing scientific research. They fancied that the faith would not survive the light of truth. They professed to believe that the faith was strong enough to work miracles—to change the heart of man, and yet that it would be jeopardized by the calculations of astronomers. The astronomers were prohibited from calculating; the geologists were forbidden to unearth the mysteries of their science, lest the discovery of the truth should be detrimental to the faith. They believed that the truth was opposed to the faith. Warning after warning the Church received that the two were one; that man would only accept the truth, whether it came from the lips of the churchman or from the investigations of science. Grudgingly the Church became tolerant of the seekers after truth—men who were not greatly concerned in the preservation of the mummy dust of dogma. But how many thousand persons are there not, to-day, who think that the Church is on one side, and the truth on the other? The intolerant attitude of the Church, still maintained in these days, when the spirit of science pervades every form of thought, has been productive of probably the largest body that ever existed in the country, of sensible men and women, who never enter a church door. They want to know whatsoever things are true; they do not want to be dredged with the mummy dust of dogma.”

      “But the Bible—the Bible!”

      “It is necessary for me to tell you all that I feel on this subject; all that I have felt for several years past—ever since I left the divinity school behind me, and went into the world of thinking men and women. It is necessary to tell these men and women in unmistakable language