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Brenton stood for a moment giving instructions to the sleepy servants; then, with a tired sigh, she turned and went upstairs, Brenton walking by her side until they came to the darkened room, which she entered on tiptoe. "Now," said Brenton to himself, "she will arouse me from this appalling dream."
Indeed, there came one Sunday morning when the message of good will downed all the other voices, doubts, hopes, or fears, downed them beneath its brave promises of inheritance for him who lives according to its simple law. Brenton, afire with his message, self-forgetful, thrilling with the greatness of his theme, felt his congregation taking fire beneath him.
The present reversal of the situation went upon his nerves. He had remembered Brenton clearly, all these intervening years. More than once, in the intervals of his strenuous life, he had found himself wondering what the gaunt young countryman had become. In the time of it, Reed had had no notion how thoroughly he had liked the fellow, how thoroughly he had believed in his latent possibilities.
Now that she was successfully landed upon the desired level and needed its support no longer, would she kick it aside entirely, with one flick of her slippered foot? As for their marriage: what had it really been? A delicately hand-wrought bond? A machine-made manacle? Indeed, the latter, and unbreakable. Brenton pulled himself up short, horrified at the abyss upon whose verge he found himself.
Brenton spoke slowly, while there flashed before him in swift alignment all the details for which his profession stood: place and popularity and influence, the best of human and social ties, the fulfilled ambitions, the closest sort of contacts with his kind. All these he saw, as rounded out to their fullest measure.
"Acting like this curate chap, and giving his congregation red-hot pap for their Sabbatic food. At least, that's curable; the other isn't." But Reed shook his head. Despite his unvarying point of view, he knew Scott Brenton better. "You don't need to worry about Brenton," he assured them. "He has some common sense and a little logic; both things render him immune."
It's astounding, Opdyke, the way you've picked yourself out of the rut and gone rushing ahead again." "With a difference, though," Reed told him bluntly. "Is the jar full? You like the kind?" "Yes, thanks." And Brenton filled his pipe. After a minute's puffing, "After all, Opdyke, you have pretty well minimized the difference," he observed. "Thanks to Ramsdell and Duncan, yes.
"Olive," he said; "you're not going to misunderstand me, not going to allow Brenton to come in between us?" Suddenly the girl went white; suddenly she bent down to rest her hand on his, in one of the few, few touches she had ever given his fingers since the day he had been brought home and laid there in his room, powerless to withdraw himself from too insistent human contacts.
Professor Opdyke realized it, though, quite clearly; and he laid his plans accordingly. Meanwhile, between the insistent interests that centred in his son, and the persistent efforts of the professor to make good all other lacks, Scott Brenton was finding life a saner and a happier thing than he had ever dreamed. Even his doubtings almost ceased to sting him, nowadays.
The first experimental visit to the private laboratory proved to be such an entire success that others followed it until, by degrees, Brenton slid back into his old fashion of spending many of his odd hours among the balances and test-tubes, among the old, familiar sights, the smells so wholly unforgettable.
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