Hills of Han: A Romantic Incident. Samuel Merwin

      Doane closed his eyes again; and compressed his lips.

      Withery, anxiously watching him, saw that the healthy color was leaving his face.

      After a silence that grew steadily in intensity, Doane at last opened his eyes, and spoke, huskily, but with grim force.

      “Of course, Henry, you're right. Right enough. These things are details. They're on my nerves, that's all. I'm going to tell you …” He sat up, slowly swung his feet to the floor, clasped his hands. … “I'll spare you my personal history of the past few years. And, of course, captious criticism of the church is no proper introduction to what I'm going to say. During these recent years I've been groping through my own Gethsemane. It has been a terrible time. There have been many moments when I've questioned the value of the struggle. If I had been as nearly alone as it has seemed, sometimes … I mean, if there hadn't been little Betty to think of …”

      “I understand,” Withery murmured.

      “In a way I've come through my Valley. My head has cleared a little. And now I know only too clearly; it is very difficult; in a way, the time of doubt and groping was easier to bear … I know that I am in the wrong work.”

      Withery, with moist eyes, studied the carpet.

      “You are sure?” he managed to ask.

      He felt rather than saw his friend's slow nod.

      “It's a relief, of course, to tell you.” Doane was speaking with less effort now; but his color had not returned. “There's no one else. I couldn't say it to Hidderleigh. To me that man is fundamentally dishonest.”

      Withery found it difficult to face such extreme frankness. His mind slipped around it into another channel. He was beginning to feel that Grigg mustn't be let off so easily. There were arguments. …

      “One thing that has troubled me, even lately,” he said, hunting for some common ground of thought and speech, “is the old denominational differences back home. I can't take all that for granted, as so many of our younger workers do. It has seemed to me that the conference last year should have spoken out more vigorously on that one point. We can never bring missionary work into any sort of unity here while the denominational spirit is kept alive at home.”

      Doane broke out, with a touch of impatience: “We approach the shrewdest, most keenly analytical people or; earth, the Chinese, with something near a hundred and fifty conflicting varieties of the one true religion. Too often, Henry, we try to pass to them our faith but actually succeed only in exhibiting the curious prejudices of narrow white minds.”

      This was, clearly, not a happy topic. Withery sighed.

      “This—this attitude that you find yourself in—is really a conclusion, Grigg?”

      “It is a conclusion.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “I don't know.”

      “It would be a calamity if you were to give up your work here, in the midst of reconstruction.”

      “No man is essential, Henry But of course, just now, it would lie difficult. I have thought, often, if Boatwright had only turned out a stronger man. …”

      “Grigg, one thing! You must let me speak of it. … Has the possibility occurred to you of marrying again?”

      Doane sprang up at this; walked the floor,

      “Do you realize what you're saying, Henry!” he cried out.

      “I understand, Grigg, but you and I are old enough to know that in the case of a vigorous man like yourself—”

      Doane threw out a hand.

      “Henry, I've thought of everything!”

      A little later he stopped and stood over his friend.

      “I have fought battles that may as well be forgotten,” he said deliberately. “I have won them, over and over, to no end whatever. I have assumed that these victories would lead in time to a sort of peace, even to resignation. They have not. Each little victory now seems to leave me further back. I'm losing, not gaining, through the years. It was when I finally nerved myself to face that fact that I found myself facing it all—my whole life. … Henry, I'm full of a fire and energy that no longer finds an outlet in my work. I want to turn to new fields. If I don't, before it's too late, I may find myself on the rocks.”

      Withery thought this over. Doane was still pacing the floor. Withery, pale himself now, looked up.

      “Perhaps, then,” he said, “you had better break with it.”

      Doane stopped at the window; stared out. Withery thought his face was working.

      “Have you any means at all?” he asked.

      Doane moved his head in the negative. … “Oh, my books. A few personal things.”

      “Of course”—Withery's voice softened—“you've given away a good deal.”

      “I've given everything.”

      “Hum! … Have you thought of anything else you might do?”

      Doane turned. “Henry, I'm forty-five years old. I have no profession, no business experience beyond the little administrative work here. Yet I must live, not only for myself, but to support my little girl. If I do quit, and try to find a place in the business world, I shall carry to my grave the stigma that clings always to the unfrocked priest.” He strode to the door. “I tell you, I've thought of everything! … We're getting nowhere with this. I appreciate your interest. But … I'm sorry, Henry. Sleep if you can. Good night.”

      They met, with M. Pourmont and the others, at breakfast.

      There was a moment, on the steps of the gate house, overlooking the narrow busy street, when they silently clasped hands.

      Then Henry Withery crawled in under the blue curtains of his cart and rode away, carrying with him a mental picture of a huge man, stooping a little under the red lintel of the doorway, his strong face sternly set.