Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/89

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THE UNALLOWED HARVEST

in the movement to abolish them. There's no earthly power or influence that can accomplish the task unaided by the power and influence of the Church. Oh, I know that Mr. Farrar is going about the work in the right way, and I know that in the end his work will produce splendid results."

She paused, half out of breath, wondering a little at her own temerity, and, with a look partly of defiance, partly of anxiety, she glanced up into her lover's face. He was plainly distressed. He felt that their views were so utterly divergent that the discussion could not be continued without endangering the harmony that should prevail between them. Yet it was hard to hold his peace and permit this girl with whom he was so profoundly in love, whose future was to be so irrevocably bound up in his, to enter on a course of which both his conscience and his judgment so heartily disapproved.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment's pause, "more sorry than I can tell you, that we don't agree in this matter. Unless Mr. Farrar adopts a complete change of policy, I can see serious trouble ahead. And when that trouble comes I should like to have you in harmony with me."

"And I should like to be in harmony with you, Philip; I should like it dearly; but I can't afford to stifle my conscience and ignore my reason—not even for you."

It was plain that her mind was made up, and that neither argument, appeal nor entreaty would move her from the path on which she had set out.

"Well," said Westgate, "don't let's talk about it any more now. The crisis hasn't come yet. Maybe it won't come. I hope to heaven it won't! At any rate there's no use to-day in our borrowing trouble for to-morrow."

They walked on in the mild September sunlight, up the hill, by the pleasant streets that bordered on