Calvary Alley | Page 9

the Clarkes, the massive foundation of which was popularly
supposed to rest upon bottles. It was a piazza especially designed to
offset the discomforts of a Southern August afternoon and to make a
visitor, especially if he happened to be an ecclesiastical potentate with a
taste for luxury, loath to forsake its pleasant shade for the glaring world
without.
"Yes, yes," he agreed for the fourth time, "a very fine boy. I must say I
give myself some credit for your marriage and its successful result."
Mrs. Clarke paused in her tea-pouring and gazed absently off across the
tree tops.
"I suppose I ought to be happy," she said, and she sighed.
"Every heart knoweth its own--two lumps, thank you, and a dash of
rum. I was saying--Oh, yes! I was about to remark that we are all prone
to magnify our troubles. Now here you are, after all these years, still
brooding over your unfortunate father, when he is probably long since
returned to France, quite well and happy."
"If I could only be sure. It has been so long since we heard, nearly
thirteen years! The last letter was the one you got when Mac was born."
"Yes, and I answered him in detail, assuring him of your complete
recovery, and expressing my hope that he would never again burden
you until with God's help he had mastered the sin that had been his
undoing."

Mrs. Clarke shook her head impatiently.
"You and Macpherson never understood about father. He came to this
country without a friend or a relation except mother and me. Then she
died, and he worked day and night to keep me in a good
boarding-school, and to give me every advantage that a girl could have.
Then his health broke, and he couldn't sleep, and he began taking drugs.
Oh, I don't see how anybody could blame him, after all he had been
through!"
"For whatever sacrifices he made, he was amply rewarded," the bishop
said. "Few fathers have the satisfaction of seeing their daughters more
successfully established in life."
"Yes, but what has it all come to for him? Made to feel his disgrace,
aware of Macpherson's constant disapproval--I don't wonder he chose
to give me up entirely."
"It was much the best course for all concerned," said the bishop, with
the assured tone of one who enjoys the full confidence of Providence.
"The fact that he had made shipwreck of his own life was no reason for
him to make shipwreck of yours. I remember saying those very words
to him when he told me of Mr. Clarke's attitude. Painful as was your
decision, you did quite right in yielding to our judgment in the matter
and letting him go."
"But Macpherson ought not to have asked it of me. He's so good and
kind and good about most things, that I don't see how he could have felt
the way he did about father."
The bishop laid a consoling hand on her arm.
"Your husband was but protecting you and himself against untold
annoyance. Think of what it would have meant for a man of Mr.
Clarke's position to have a person of your father's habits a member of
his household!"
"But father was perfectly gentle and harmless--more like an afflicted

child than anything else. When he was without an engagement he
would go for weeks at a time, happy with his books and his music,
without breaking over at all."
"Ah, yes! But what about the influence of his example on your growing
son? Imagine the humiliation to your child."
Mrs. Clarke's vulnerable spot was touched.
"I had forgotten Mac!" she said. "He must be my first consideration,
mustn't he? I never intend for him to bear any burden that I can bear for
him. And yet, how father would have adored him, how proud he would
have been of his voice! But there, you must forgive me for bringing up
this painful subject. It is only when I think of father getting old and
being ill, possibly in want, with nobody in the world--"
"Now, now, my dear lady," said the bishop, "you are indulging in
morbid fancies. Your father knows that with a stroke of the pen he can
procure all the financial assistance from you he may desire. As to his
being unhappy, I doubt it extremely. My recollection of him is of a
very placid, amiable man living more in his dreams than in reality."
Mrs. Clarke smiled through her tears.
"You are quite right. He didn't ask much of life. A book in his hand and
a child on his knee meant happiness for him."
"And those he can have wherever he is," said her spiritual adviser.
"Now I want you to turn away from all these