"I might go and see them now."
"No; stay, now you're here, though I know I shall not do justice to the
situation." But she was able to possess him of it with impartiality, even
with a little humour, all the more because she was at heart intensely
partisan and serious. "No one knows what Mr. Gerrish intends to do next.
He has kept quietly about his business; and he told some of the ladies who
tried to interview him that he was not prepared to talk about the course
he had taken. He doesn't seem to be ashamed of his behaviour; and Ralph
thinks that he's either satisfied with it, and intends to let it stand as
a protest, or else he's going to strike another blow on the next business
meeting. But he's even kept Mrs. Gerrish quiet, and all we can do is to
unite Mr. Peck's friends provisionally. Ralph's devoted himself to that,
and he says he has talked forty-eight hours to the day ever since."
Is he--"
"Yes; perfectly! I could hardly believe it when I saw him at church on
Sunday. It was like seeing one risen from the dead. What he must have
gone through, and Ellen! She told me how Mr. Peck had helped him in the
struggle. She attributes everything to him. But of course you think he had
nothing to do with it."
"What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Wouldn't that naturally be the attitude of Science?"
"Toward religion? Perhaps. But I'm not Science--with a large S. May be
that's the reason why I left the case with Mr. Peck," said the doctor,
smiling. "Putney didn't leave off my medicine, did he?"
"He never got well so soon before. They both say that. I didn't think you
could be so narrow-minded, Dr. Morrell. But of course your scientific
bigotry couldn't admit the effect of the moral influence. It would be too
much like a miracle; you would have to allow for a mystery."
"I have to allow for a good many," said the doctor. "The world is full of
mysteries for me, if you mean things that science hasn't explored yet. But
I hope that they'll all yield to the light, and that somewhere there'll be
light enough to clear up even the spiritual mysteries."
"Do you really?" she demanded eagerly. "Then you believe in a life
hereafter? You believe in a moral government of the--"
He retreated, laughing, from her ardent pursuit. "Oh, I'm not going to
commit myself. But I'll go so far as to say that I like to hear Mr. Peck
preach, and that I want him to stay. I don't say he had nothing to do with
Putney's straightening up. Putney had a great deal to do with it himself.
What does he think Mr. Peck's chances are?"