The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York

"I'm glad to see you again, Philip. I began to think you were not coming any more. Sit down," said Millard. "How is book-collecting? Anything startling lately?" he added by way of launching the talk, as he usually did on the favorite subject of his companion.

"No, no," said Philip, seating himself.

"I've not seen much of you lately, anywhere," said Millard, making a new start. "But that is my fault. I've pretty much cut general society this spring, and I think for good. I've been busy and tired, and to tell the truth, I don't care much for society any more. You still go out a good deal. Is there anything interesting?"

"Oh, no," said Gouverneur.

Seeing that Philip was preoccupied and that all attempts to give him direction and set him in motion were likely to prove futile, Charley concluded to let him start himself in whatever direction his mood might lead him. He did this the more readily that he himself found talking hard work in his present mood. But by way of facilitating the start, Millard held out to Philip a bronze tray containing some cigars.

"No, thank you, Charley. I don't feel like smoking."

To Millard's mind nothing could have been more ominous than for Philip Gouverneur to refuse to smoke.

"I suppose I might as well begin at once," said Philip. "If I wait I never shall get the courage to say what I want to say. I ought to have waited till morning, but if I once put off a good resolution it is never carried out. So I came down here pell-mell, Charley, resolved not to give myself time to think what a piece of impertinent impudence I was going to be guilty of." Then after a pause he said: "If you turn me out of the apartment neck and heels, I sha'n't be surprised."

"Pshaw, Philip, you excite my curiosity," said Millard, trying to smile, but yet a little aghast at seeing his old friend in this unusual mood, and divining that the subject would be disagreeable.

"I come to speak about Phillida," said Philip.

Ever since Millard's hopes had received their quietus from Mrs. Callender's note in which Phillida declined to receive a visit from him, he had recognized the necessity for getting Phillida out of his mind if he were ever again to have any sane contentment in life. If Phillida did not any longer care for him, it would be unmanly for him to continue brooding over the past. But he found that exhorting himself to manliness would not cure a heartache. There was nothing he could have dreaded so much at this time as a conversation about Phillida, and, of all people he most disliked to speak of her with Philip Gouverneur. He made no reply at all to Philip's blunt statement of the subject on which he proposed to converse. But Gouverneur was too much absorbed in holding himself to his plan of action to take note of his companion's lack of responsiveness.

"I want to ask whether you still love her or not, Charley," said Philip, with a directness that seemed brutal, his gaze fixed on the wall.

"I have no claims upon her," said Millard, "if that is what you want to know."

"That isn't what I want to know. I asked if you still loved her?"

"I don't know whether even you have a right to ask that question," said Millard with manifest annoyance.

"I am her cousin," said Philip, looking up at Millard with eyes strangely unsteady and furtive.

"If there were any charge that I had wronged her, you, as her cousin, might have a right to inquire," said Millard, who fancied that Gouverneur had a personal end in making the inquiry, and who at any rate did not care to be known as a discarded and broken-hearted lover. "I'll tell you plainly that it is a subject on which I don't wish to speak with anybody. Besides it's hardly fair to come to me as Phillida's cousin, when there is reason to believe your feelings toward her are more than cousinly. I have no claims on Phillida, no expectation of a renewal of our engagement, and I certainly have no complaint to make of her. Nobody has any right to inquire further."

Charley Millard got up and walked the floor in excitement as he said this.

"You're plaguey cross, Charley. I never saw you so impolite before. Didn't know you could be. I suppose you're right, by Jupiter! I went too straight at the mark, and you had a right to resent it. But I had to go at it like a man having a tooth pulled, for fear I'd back out at the last moment."

There was a ten seconds' pause, during which Millard sat down. Then Philip spoke again.

"I know, Charley; you have misunderstood. You think I wish to get a disclaimer that will clear the way for me. Charley – " Philip spoke now in a voice low and just a little husky, – "if I loved Phillida and believed she could love me, do you think I'd wait to ask your permission? If I wished to marry her and she loved me, I wouldn't ask any man's permission! And I came here not in my own interest, nor in your interest either. I am here only for Phillida's sake and as her cousin, and I want to know whether you love her."

"If you want me to do anything for her, I am ready. That is all I ought to be required to say," said Millard, softened by Philip's evident emotion, but bent on not betraying his own feelings.

"I suppose that means that you don't care for her," said Gouverneur. Then he went on, looking into the fireplace: "Well, that's an end of it. What an idiot she has been! She has thrown you over and alienated your affections, and made herself the talk of the streets. You wouldn't think such a fine-looking woman could make herself so utterly ridiculous. She is a mortification to her relations, and – "

"Now, Philip, stop," said Millard, with heat. "You are in my house. No man shall say a word against that woman in my hearing while I live. I tell you that even her mistakes are noble. If her relatives are ashamed of such as she is, I am sorry for her relatives." Millard made an effort to say more, but his utterance was choked.

Philip laughed a sardonic little laugh.

"Charley, before God, I was not sincere in a word I said against Phillida. I lied with deliberate purpose. Now I know that you love her. That's what I wanted to find out. I only denounced her to get at your feelings. You wouldn't tell me, I had to resort to a ruse."

"Do you think it – do you think it's the thing to pry into my feelings?" said Millard, still speaking hotly.

"Yes, I do, under the circumstances. In return I'll tell you something worth your listening to, if you'll only cool off enough to hear it."

Millard's curiosity was excited by this, but he made no reply; he only sat still with Philip's eyes fixed upon him.

"Phillida loves you," said Philip.

Millard looked steadily at the smallish figure of his old friend, not shrunken into the chair as usual now, but sitting upright and looking straight at him with a strange look he had never seen before.

"Philip," he said softly, "how do you know this? Tell me, for God's sake!"

"I must not betray confidence," said Philip. "You know me, your friend and Phillida's. I am here to-night – I might say heart-broken, I can hardly say disappointed. I don't blame Phillida for not caring for me except as a cousin, or for preferring you. On the whole, if I were in her place I'd do the same, by George!"

Philip laughed again, that little laugh which pained his friend.

"Why did you come to tell me this, Philip?" Millard was sitting now with his elbows on the table, and the fingers of his right hand supporting his cheek, as he regarded Philip steadily.

"Well, if one can not contrive to do what one wants, he should, I suppose, do the second best thing. The only thing for me to do – the thing that'll be a comfort for me to look back on – is to render Phillida some service. In short, to save her life and make her happy."

"How do you propose to do that?" asked Millard.

"I've already done it, old fellow," said Philip, with a mixture of triumph and regret in his voice. "Dr. Gunstone said to Aunt Callender, after talking with Phillida, that unless her engagement with you were renewed she would probably not recover. I wouldn't have told you this for the world if I had found you didn't love her. She'd better die now than marry you and discover that you married her from pity."

Millard went to his desk and took out the note from Mrs. Callender in which Phillida had refused to see him. He handed it to Philip.

"I got that last week, and it seemed final," he said huskily. "I have found life almost more than I could carry since, Philip."

Philip read the note and then returned it to Millard.

"That's some of her confounded scruples," he said. "She told me that she had ruined your life. She thinks you wish to marry her from pity, and she'd rather die like a brave girl than consent to that. But she loves you and nobody else."

"I wish I were sure of it," said Millard.

Philip sat a good while silent.

"Charley," he said, "the end I have in view justifies the breach of confidence, I hope. I have the assurance of her feelings toward you from her own lips, and that not many hours ago. She would have died rather than tell me had she thought it possible I would tell you. And I would have died rather than betray her if I hadn't believed your feelings toward her unchanged."

Saying this he helped himself to a cigar from the tray on the table and lighted it, and then rose to leave.

"What can I do, Philip? I seem absolutely shut out from making any further advances by this note," demanded Millard.

"You mustn't expect any further aid or advice from me. I've done all you can expect," said Gouverneur. "Good-by."

And without shaking hands he went out of the door into the main hall. Millard followed him and, as they reached the elevator, said with emotion:

"Philip, you have done one of the bravest acts."

"Pshaw! Charley," said Philip, half-peevishly and looking over his shoulder at his companion as he pressed the button, "don't put any heroics on it. There isn't enough of me to play such a part. Such talk makes me feel myself more ridiculous than ever."

XL.

THE RESTORATION

How many scores of devices for securing a conversation with Phillida, Millard hit upon during the night that followed Gouverneur's visit, he could not have told. He planned letters to her in a dozen different veins, and rejected them all. He thought of appealing to Mrs. Callender once more, but could not conceive of Mrs. Callender's overruling Phillida. His mind perpetually reverted to Agatha. If only he might gain her co-operation! And yet this notion of securing the assistance of a younger sister had an air of intrigue that he did not like.

About nine o'clock the next morning there was handed to Mrs. Callender a note from Millard inclosing an unsealed note which Mr. Millard desired Mrs. Callender if she saw fit to hand to Miss Agatha. Mrs. Callender gave it to Agatha without opening it.

Agatha: I wrote to your mother the other day begging permission to call on your sister, and received a reply expressing Miss Callender's desire to avoid an interview. That ought to have put an end to my hope of securing your sister's forgiveness, and for a while it did. But on reflection I am led to believe that her decision was based, not on a lack of affection for me, but on a wrong notion of my feeling toward her. She probably believes that I am actuated by gratitude for her attention to my relatives, or by pity for her sufferings as an invalid. She holds certain other erroneous notions on the subject, I think. I give you the assurance with all the solemnity possible that my devotion to her is greater to-day than ever. Her affection is absolutely indispensable to my happiness. I will undertake to convince her of this if I am once permitted to speak to her. Now if you think that she would be the better for a renewal of our old relations will you not contrive in some way that I may see her this afternoon at three o'clock, at which hour I shall present myself at your door?

I hope your mother will pardon my writing to you; persuasion exerted by a sister has less the air of authority than that of a parent. I leave you to show this letter or not at your own discretion, and I put into your hands my whole future welfare, and what is of a thousand times greater importance in your eyes and in mine, Phillida's happiness. Whatever may be your feelings toward me I know that Phillida can count on your entire devotion to her interests.

Charley.

The only thing that seemed to Millard a little insincere about this rather stiff note was the reason assigned for writing to Agatha. Her persuasions, as Millard well knew, did not have less of authority about them than her mother's. But this polite insincerity on a minor point he had not seen how to avoid in a letter that ought to be shown to Mrs. Callender.

Agatha gave her mother the note to read, telling her, however, in advance that she proposed to manage the case herself. Mrs. Callender was full of all manner of anxieties at having so difficult a matter left to one so impetuous as Agatha. For herself she could not see just what was to be done, and two or three times she endeavored to persuade Agatha to let her consult Phillida about it. A consultation with Phillida had been her resort in difficulties ever since the death of her husband. But Agatha reminded her that Mr. Millard had intrusted the matter to her own keeping, and expressed her determination not to have any more of Phillida's nonsense.

Phillida observed that Agatha was not giving as much attention to preparations for the journey as she expected her to. Nor could Phillida understand why the parlor must be swept again before their departure, seeing it would be snowed under with dust when they got back. But Agatha put everything in perfect order, and then insisted on dressing her sister with a little more pains than usual.

"I wouldn't wonder if Mrs. Hilbrough calls this afternoon," said the young hypocrite. "Besides I think it is good for an invalid to be dressed up a little – just a little fixed up. It makes a person think of getting well and that does good, you know."

Agatha refrained from an allusion to faith-cure that rose to her lips, and finding that Phillida was growing curious she turned to a new subject.

"Did mama tell you what Miss Bowyer says about your case, Philly?"

"No."

"Mrs. Beswick told mama that she had it from Mr. Martin. Miss Bowyer told Mr. Martin the other day that she knew you would get well because she had been giving you absent treatment without your knowledge or consent. Didn't you feel her pulling you into harmony with the odylic emanations of the universe?"

Phillida smiled a little and Agatha insisted on helping her to creep into the parlor. She said she could not pack the trunk with Philly looking on. But when she got her sister into the parlor she did not seem to care to go back to the trunks.

The door-bell rang at three and Agatha met Charley in the hall.

"She doesn't know a word of your coming," said Agatha in a low voice. "I will go and tell her, to break the shock, and then bring you right in."

She left Millard standing by the hat table while she went in.

"Phillida, who do you think has come to see you? It's Charley Millard. I took the liberty of telling him you'd see him for a short time."

Then she added in a whisper: "Poor fellow, he seems to feel so bad."

Saying this she set a chair for him, and without giving Phillida time to recover from a confused rush of thought and feeling she returned to the hall saying, "Come right in, Charley."

To take off the edge, as she afterward expressed it, she sat for three minutes with them, talking chaff with Millard, and when she had set the conversation going about indifferent things, she remembered something that had to be done in the kitchen, and was instantly gone down-stairs.

The conversation ran by its own momentum for a while after Agatha's departure, and then it flagged.

"You're going away," said Millard after a pause.

"Yes."

"I know it is rude for me to call without permission, but I couldn't bear that you should leave until I had asked your forgiveness for things that I can never forgive myself for."

Phillida looked down a moment in agitation and then said, "I have nothing to forgive. The fault was all on my side. I have been very foolish."

"I wouldn't quarrel with you for the world," said Millard, "but the fault was mine. What is an error of judgment in a person of your noble unselfishness! Fool that I was, not to be glad to bear a little reproach for such a person as you are!"

To Phillida the world suddenly changed color while Charley was uttering these words. His affection was better manifested by what he had just said than if he had formally declared it. But the fixed notion that he was moved only by pity could not be vanquished in an instant.

"Charley," she said, "it is very good of you to speak such kind words to me. I am very weak, and you are very good-hearted to wish to comfort me."

"You are quite mistaken, Phillida. You fancy that I am disinterested. I tell you now that I am utterly in love with you. Without you I don't care for life. I have not had heart for any pursuit since that evening on which we parted on account of my folly. But if you tell me that you have ceased to care for me, there is nothing for me but to go and make the best of things."

Phillida was no longer heroic. Her sufferings, her mistakes, her physical weakness, and the yearning of her heart for Millard's affection were fast getting the better of all the reasons she had believed so conclusive against the restoration of their engagement. Nevertheless, she found strength to say: "I am quite unfit to be your wife. You are a man that everybody likes and you enjoy society, as you have a right to." Then after a pause and an evident struggle to control herself she proceeded: "Do you think I would weight you down with a wife that will always be remembered for the follies of her youth?"

Phillida did not see how Charley could answer this, but she was so profoundly touched by his presence that she hoped he might be able to put matters in a different light. When she had finished speaking he contracted his brows into a frown for a moment. Then he leaned forward with his left hand open on one knee and his right hand clinched and resting on the other.

"I know I gave you reason to think I was cowardly," he said; "but I hope I am a braver man than you imagine. Now if anybody should ever condemn you for a little chaff in a great granary of wheat it would give me pain only if it gave you pain. Otherwise it would give me real pleasure, because I would like to bear it in such a way that you'd say to yourself, 'Charley is a braver man than I ever thought him.'" Millard had risen and was standing before her as he finished speaking. There was a pause during which Phillida looked down at her own hands lying in her lap.

"Now, Phillida," he said, "I want to ask one thing – "

"Don't ask me anything just now, Charley," she said in a broken voice full of entreaty, at the same time raising her eyes to his. Then she reached her two hands up toward him and he came and knelt at her side while she put her arms about his neck and drew him to her, and whispered, "I never understood you before, Charley. I never understood you."

XLI.

AS YOU LIKE IT

The next morning Agatha went over to Washington Square to let Philip know that the trip southward had been postponed for a week or so. And Philip knew that the trip southward would never take place at all, but that drives with Charley in Central Park would prove much better for the invalid.

"Oh, yes, it's all right then. I expected it," he said.

"Yes," said Agatha, "it's all right. I managed it myself, Cousin Philip. I brought them together."

"Did you, Agatha?" he said with a queer smile. "That was clever."

"Yes, and they have not thanked me for it. Phillida wishes to see you. She told me to tell you."

"I don't doubt she can wait," said Philip smiling, "seeing me is not important to her just now. Give her my love and congratulations, and tell her I'll come in the day before she starts to Hampton. There'll be time enough before she gets off, Agatha." This last was said with a laugh that seemed to Agatha almost happy.

Phillida's recovery was very rapid; it was all the effect of driving in the Park. Perhaps also the near anticipation of a trip to Europe had something to do with it, for Millard had engaged passage on the Arcadia the first week in June. To Mrs. Callender this seemed too early; it gave the mother and her dressmaker no end of worry about the wardrobe.

Two weeks after her reconciliation with Charley, Phillida demonstrated her recovery by walking alone to her aunt's in Washington Square. She asked at the door to see Mr. Philip, and when she learned that he was in his book-room she sent to ask if she mightn't come up.

"Busy with my catalogue," said Philip as Phillida came in. He had been busy making a catalogue of his treasures for two years, but he could not get one to suit him. "I hate to print this till I get a complete 'De Bry,' and that'll be many a year to come, I'm afraid. I couldn't afford the cost of a complete set this year nor next, and it's hardly likely that there'll be one for sale in ten years to come. But it will give me something to look forward to."

All this he said hurriedly as though to prevent her saying something else. While speaking he set a chair for Phillida, but she did not sit down.

"Cousin Philip," she said, "you might just as well hear what I've got to say first as last."

"Hear? Oh, I'm all attention," he said, "but sit down," and he set the example, Phillida following it with hesitation.

"If you had pulled me out of the water," she began, "and saved my life, you'd expect me to say 'thank you,' at least. Charley has told me all about how you acted. We think you're just the noblest man we have ever known."

"Ah, now, Phillida," protested Philip, quite bewildered for want of a lighted cigar to relieve his embarrassment, "you make me feel like a fool. I'm no hero; it isn't in me to play any grand parts. I shall be known, after I'm dead, by the auction catalogue of my collection of rare books, and by nothing else. 'The Gouverneur Sale' will long be remembered by collectors. That sort of distinction fits me. But you and Charley are making me ridiculous with all this talk."

"Phil, you dear fellow," said Phillida, passionately, rising and putting her hands on his shoulder, "you saved me from life-long misery, and may be from death, at a fearful sacrifice of your own feelings. I'll remember it the longest day I live," and she leaned over and kissed him, and then turned abruptly away to go down-stairs.

Philip trembled from head to foot as he rose and followed Phillida to the top of the stairs, trying in vain to speak. At last he said huskily: "Phillida, I want to explain. I am no hero. I had made a fool of myself as I knew I should if I ever – ever spoke to you as I did that day. Now, of all things I don't like to be ridiculous. I thought that evening if I could be the means of bringing you two together it would take the curse off, so to speak. I mean that it would make me cut a less ridiculous figure than I did and restore my self-respect. I wanted to be able to think of you and Charley happy together without calling myself bad names, you know."

"Yes, yes," replied Phillida. "I know. You never did a generous thing in your life without explaining it away. But I know you too well to be imposed on. I shall always say to myself, 'There's one noble and disinterested man under the sky, and that's my brave Cousin Philip.' Good-by." And standing on the first step down she reached him her hand over the baluster rail, looked at him with a happy, grateful face which he never forgot, and pressed his hand, saying again, "Good-by, Philip," and then turned and went down-stairs.

And Philip went back and shut his library door and locked it, and was vexed with himself because for half an hour he could not see to go on with his cataloguing. And that evening his mother was pleased to hear him whistling softly an air from the "Mikado" – he had not whistled before in weeks. She was equally surprised when a little later he consented to act as Charley's best man. To her it seemed that Philip ought to feel as though he were a kind of pall-bearer at his own funeral. But he was quite too gay for a pall-bearer. He and Agatha had no end of fun at the wedding; she taking to herself all the credit for having brought it about.