The One Woman (Dixon, 1903)/Chapter 12
When Gordon announced at the evening service that a million dollars had been subscribed to the new "Temple of Man," and that he had been constituted its sole trustee, the crowd burst into a storm of applause.
In vain he raised his big muscular hand over the tumult.
Troops of young men and women with flushed faces, some laughing, some crying, sprang from their seats, rushed to the platform and seized his hand.
The strains of the national hymn suddenly burst from the crowd, and they rose en masse singing it with triumphant peal. As its last note died away a woman's voice started "Nearer, My God, to Thee," the people caught it instantly and its mighty chorus rolled heavenward. The singing had in it the spontaneous rhythm of hearts transported by resistless feeling. For half an hour they stood and sang the old familiar hymns whose sentences were wet with the tears and winged with the hopes and mysteries of their lives.
Instead of a sermon, Gordon read his resignation as pastor of the Pilgrim Church.
And then, folding his hands behind him, in trumpet tones he cried:
"Next Sunday morning will be the last service I will ever conduct in this church; the Sunday morning following, at eleven o'clock, the first services of the 'Church of the Son of Man' will be held in the old Grand Opera House. It will seat four thousand people. All who wish to join this independent society are cordially invited to be present and bring your friends. The work of building the 'Temple of Man' will begin at once. Within six months we hope to lay its corner-stone."
The meeting was closed at once with the Doxology and Benediction.
The reporters crowded around him for fuller details. He refused to give any further information. They interviewed every officer of the church and congregation from whom any news might be secured, and it was nine o'clock before the excitement had subsided and the crowd left.
The organist and quartet choir lingered to rehearse their music for the following Sunday.
Gordon retired to his study, where he had asked Kate to meet him for an important conference.
The church opened on the cross street and stretched its barn shape through the entire block. The study was beside the pulpit platform, a little beyond the centre of the building. Behind it was the Sunday-school and reading-room, opening on the rear.
Kate had the keys to the reading-room, which was under her direction, and Gordon asked her to come to his study from the rear entrance through the Sunday-school room that she might avoid the suspicion of the reporters. For the same reason he did not wish to be seen at her house. He had left the door of his study unlocked for her, and she entered before the crowd had left the church.
Within a few moments from the time she unlocked the door of the reading-room, Van Meter's detectives informed him that she was in the pastor's study and that he had left the rear door open for her to secretly enter.
The Deacon despatched one of his men with an anonymous note to Ruth informing her that Gordon was in his study alone by secret appointment with Kate Ransom, and giving to her duplicate keys to every door in the church building.
The detective did not see Ruth, but the maid said she was at home, and he handed her the package.
Gordon had telephoned to her briefly the facts of the excitement of the morning, and told her he was so exhausted that he would not return for dinner, but would take his meals at a hotel and come home after the evening service.
When Ruth received the note and keys she was brooding over his absence and peering in the depths of the widening gulf which separated them in such a crisis of his life.
The note threw her into the wildest excitement. All the old fiery temper and jealousy which she had kept smouldering in restraint now burst its bounds.
Flushed and trembling she rushed from the house and soon reached the church.
She opened the door gently, and with soft feline step was about to enter the Sunday-school room to reach his study, when through the glass sliding partition she heard the voice of Van Meter talking in the dark to a detective and a reporter.
She listened intently.
"I wish you had a flashlight camera," he was saying. "His wife will be here in a few minutes and the scene in that room would be worth ten thousand dollars. I have a good photograph of the woman you can use. You can get his anywhere."
"It will be a great scoop on the other fellows who will write up the Temple without the Priestess!" the reporter whispered.
"I'd give a thousand dollars to see his face in the morning when he picks up your paper and reads its headlines," chuckled the Deacon. "His eloquence, his bullfrog voice, his curling locks, his splendid eyes, will all be needed, and will all of them be inadequate to the occasion."
"It will be tough on that beautiful woman, the scandal—by George, it's a pity," the reporter sighed.
"But it will be a great day for the little black-eyed spitfire wife of his he's been neglecting for the past year. Her revenge will be sweet. I've been sorry enough for her."
"I wonder if she will promptly sue for a divorce?"
"Yes; you can write that down without an interview," the Deacon replied.
Ruth had come raging in anger against her husband. But the cold words of these men, whispering in the dark their joy over his downfall, stopped the beat of her heart.
She could see the big cruel headlines in the morning paper, holding her beloved up to shame in the hour of his triumph. Surely this would be what he deserved. But she loved him—yes, good or bad, she loved him. He was the hero of her girl's soul, the father of her beautiful children, and in spite of all his coldness and neglect he was her heart's desire.
And the feeling came crushing down upon her that perhaps she had failed somehow to do her whole duty. She had been wilful and fretful and had not kept in touch and sympathy with his work. She had demanded a perfect love and loyalty, and in agony she asked herself if she had given as much as she had demanded. Had she not thought too much of her own rights and wrongs and too little of his hopes and burdens? And perhaps because of this he was to be crushed at a blow, and his enemies laugh at his calamity and give to her their maudlin pity.
She could hear the sweet strains of the organ in the church and the soprano singing the Gloria.
She held her hand on her heart for a moment, as though it were breaking, and suddenly her soul was born anew.
Out of the shadows of self and self-seeking she lifted up her head into the sunlight of a perfect love, a love that suffereth long and is kind, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own, believeth all things, endureth all things—love that never faileth.
"Lord, have mercy on me, and help me—I must save him!" she cried in agony.
Rapidly retracing her steps, she passed back into the street and around the block to the front of the church.
To her joy she encountered no one. The Deacon was so sure of his triumph he had withdrawn his detectives from the street and had them massed as witnesses in the Sunday-school room. He was sure they would emerge by that way, for it was Gordon's usual way of exit, and the choir was still singing in the church.
With feverish haste she applied the key to the spring lock of the door for the members' entrance and passed noiselessly down the aisle in the shadows under the gallery, unobserved by the choir. Only the lights about the organ were burning.
When she reached the door of the study she paused.
What if she found him with his arms about her and his lips on hers? Could she control herself? Would she not spring on the woman, with all the tiger of her hot Southern blood from centuries of proud ancestry tingling in her tapering fingers, and tear those blue eyes from her head? She must be sure. No; it was over now. She had conquered self. She would save him.
Slipping the key softly into the lock, she entered and stood a moment, her stormy eyes burning a deep, steady fire.
They were studying a map of the city with eager interest in the location of the Temple and did not see or hear her.
As she saw them thus, a sense of gratitude soothed her excitement and gave perfect control of her voice.
"Frank," she said quietly.
"Ruth!" he exclaimed in amazement, striding toward her, while Kate blushed and, with dilated eyes, stared at her, dumb with fear of a scene of violence.
"Yes," she continued in even, rapid tones, "I have come, in love, not anger, to save you both from shame and disgrace. That room behind you is full of detectives and reporters. They are waiting for the choir to leave to find you here alone. They sent for me to give a fitting climax to the scene. They have your photograph already, Miss Ransom, and the reporter is preparing his article on the hidden Priestess of the new Temple."
"Oh, I thank you!" Kate cried, trembling.
"Keep your thanks. I do this from no regard for you. Frankly, I hate you—hate and envy you your terrible beauty that has robbed me of that which I hold dearer than life."
"But I do not hate you, Mrs. Gordon. I have for you only the kindliest feelings," Kate protested.
"I prefer your hatred. But we have no time for talk."
Ruth quickly removed her hat and cloak and handed them to Kate.
"Exchange with me and pass quickly out of the church by the little front door. Keep under the shadows of the gallery and the choir cannot see you."
In a moment it was done, and Gordon faced his wife alone.
"My dear, that was a beautiful deed you have just done."
"Don't say 'my dear' to me again until we have come to an understanding of this meeting," his wife said, closing her lips firmly.
"As you will," he gravely answered.
"When we are at home to-night alone I will hear your explanation."
"What you have told me is of such importance I cannot go home to-night. I must see friends who will reach that newspaper in time to know what Van Meter can have printed. It may keep me the whole night."
"Very well; it will not be the first night I have spent alone," she answered bitterly.
"I will go with you to the elevated station, and will be home certainly early in the morning."
They stepped from the study, and Gordon turned the electric switch, filling the room with a blaze of light.
Van Meter and his men blinked in amazement at the sight of the preacher and his wife quietly walking toward them.
"You contemptible old sneak!" he hissed. "How dare you crawl into this room to spy on me?"
"I thought I had good reasons for being here," he spluttered, nervously clearing his throat.
"Well, you thought a lie as your father, the devil, did before you."
"Apparently a mistake somewhere," stammered the Deacon, looking sheepishly at Mrs. Gordon. "And I'd like to explain to you, sir, that I didn't bring that cat."
"Well, cat or no cat, I give you a parting warning. We will not meet again in this church, and if I ever catch you sneaking around me I'll take a whip and thrash you as I would a cur, you little ferret-eyed imp of hell!"
The Deacon cowered beneath the furious giant figure and beckoned to the detectives.
Gordon and his wife passed by them and out into the night.