Down the aisle just under the tower Opal Verrons paused for an instant

startled, thinking of prison walls, and of the dead man lying at

Saybrook Inn that night. Suddenly the words of the telegram flashed

across her: "What disposition do you want made of the body?" The body!

The body! Oh! Her eyes grew wide with horror. She ought to

answer that telegram and give them his home address. But why should

she? What had she to do with him now? Dead. He was Dead. He had

passed to another world. She shuddered. She looked around and shrank

back toward Shafton, but Laurie was wrapt in the vision of Saint

Cecilia seated at the organ under the single electric light that the

janitor had left burning over her head. She resembled a saint with a

halo more than ever, and his easily excited senses were off chasing

this new flower of fancy.

Behind the organ pipes the session sat with the reputation of a man in

their ruthless fingers, tossing it back and forth, and deliberating

upon their own damning phrases, while the minister sat with stern white

face, and sought to hold them from taking an action that might brand a

human soul forever. Marilyn needed no more than those harsh words to

know that her friend of the years was being weighed in the balance.

Many a Sabbath afternoon in his childhood had Mark Carter spent with

her playing the stone block play of David and Jonathan, and then eaten

bread and milk and apple sauce and sponge cake with her and heard the

evening prayers and songs and said good-night with a sweet look of the

Heavenly Father's child on his handsome little face. Many a time as an

older boy had he sung hymns with her and listened to her read the

Bible, and talked it over with her afterward. He had not been like that

when she went away. Could he so have changed? And Cherry Fenner! The

little girl who had been but ten years old when she went away to

college, Cherry a precocious little daughter of a tailor in Economy,

who came over to take music lessons from her. Cherry at the Blue Duck!

And with Mark! Could it be true? It could not be true! Not in the sense

that Mr. Harricutt was trying to make out. Mark might have been there,

but never to do wrong. The Blue Duck was a dance hall where liquor was

sold on the quiet, and where unspeakable things happened every little

while. Oh, it was outrageous! Her fingers made the bells crash out her

horror and disgust, and her appeal to a higher power to right this

dreadful wrong. And then a hopeless sick feeling came over her, a

whirling dizzy sensation as if she were going to faint, although she

never fainted. She longed to drop down upon the keys and wail her heart

out, but she might not. Those awful words or more like them were going

on behind the organ there, and the door was open--or even if the door

was not open they could be heard, for the room behind the organ was

only screened by a heavy curtain! Those two strangers must not hear! At

all costs they must not hear a thing like this! They did not know Mark

Carter of course, but at any rate they must not hear! It was like

having him exposed in the public square for insult. So she played on,

growing steadier, and more controlled. If only she could know the rest!

Or if only she might steal away then, and lie down and bear it alone

for a little! So this was what had given her father such a white drawn

look during his sermon! She had seen that hard old man go across the

lawn to meet him, and this was what he was bringing her father to bear!




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