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"Well," she told herself, "I've given him fair warning. Now it is time to go and entertain grandmother's guest." A NECESSARY EVIL Julius Caesar, ii. 2. While the advocates of Father Frontford were laboring, the friends of other candidates were not idle.
The thoughts of Maurice went back to the day he had come to do the errand of Father Frontford, and his cheek grew hot. "I hope you will believe," he said eagerly, "that I had really no idea of how very ill your cousin was. She seemed so well when I saw her that it was all unreal to me. I wish I could tell you how sorry I have been for you. I have thought of you."
He would have been glad to retreat at once, his errand being done; but he knew this to be of course impossible. He sat down facing the other, meeting with steadfast eyes the searching look fastened upon him. "Since when," Father Frontford asked, "have you held this determination?" "Since last night." "Is it founded upon any especial circumstance connected with your going with Mrs.
He sat down with a face admirably controlled. Mr. Strathmore showed in his benignant countenance nothing save charity for all and general approval of the remarks of his subordinate. The audience stirred nervously, realizing that the critical moment had come. Father Frontford, pale, ascetic, austere, rose with grave deliberation.
There was in his mind, too, some satisfaction at the tone he had unconsciously adopted. It flattered him to find that he should be almost patronizing his Superior. Father Frontford regarded Maurice with a look in which were mingled surprise, disapprobation, and regret. As the two sat holding each other's eyes, the face of the older man changed and softened.
His obvious excuse was that she was to make a report, and that he, as a visitor in her district, was able to support her in case there were any discussion. The session had been looked forward to with much interest, from the general feeling that there would probably be something like a conflict between the Frontford and Strathmore factions.
He reproached himself that he cared so little; yet his personal misery so absorbed him that his thoughts wandered even from this new cause for self-reproach. After supper that night he was summoned to the Father Superior. "I wish you to do an errand for me," Father Frontford said. "I presume that you have heard of the publication of Mrs. Wilson's letter.
Now that the time for confidences had come, he shrank from words. He reproached himself, and then half peevishly thought: "I seem nowadays to do nothing but to find fault with myself for things that I can't help feeling!" "I am glad Father Frontford said what he did today," Ashe remarked after they had walked in silence for a little. "It was just what I needed.
His melancholy and unrest seemed to him to grow every day more intense and unbearable. That Father Frontford did not more fully realize Philip's condition was probably due to the near approach of the election.
He found Father Frontford at home, but so occupied as to be unable to listen to him. It would have been impossible for Philip to do as Maurice had done, and go to a man like Strathmore; and indeed, he had come to his Father Superior partly because of the sharpness with which he felt that his offending would be judged. Where Maurice would question, Philip would submit blindly and with ardent faith.
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