CHAPTER XXI

DICK'S RETURN

The deepest stillness of night had settled down on Riverside Drive, when
Dick Swinton came cautiously along the cross-town street, and paused near
the corner, looking suspiciously to left and to right. Convinced, at
last, that no one was about, he advanced toward his home in the shadow of
the houses, going warily. At the beginning of the rectory grounds, he
stopped and leaned against the wall, peering into the shadows for signs
of a watching figure. All was silent as the grave. He slipped to the side
gate without meeting anyone. Still going cautiously, he entered without a
sound. The place was in shadow, but from a window on the ground floor a
narrow beam of light shot out on the drive and across the lawn. It came
from between the half-closed curtains of his father's study.

The rector was at work. It was Friday. Dick had chosen the day and the
hour because he knew that it was his father's custom to sit up far into
the night, preparing his Sunday sermon. Sunday morning's discourse was
prepared on Friday evening; the evening homily on Saturday.

He crept to the window, and looked in. The light from the lamp was
shining on his father's hair. How white it was! The iron-gray streaks
were quite gone. And yet how little time had elapsed! The rector's Bible
was at his elbow, lying open, and the desk was covered with sheets of
manuscripts, spread about in unmethodical fashion. At the moment when
Dick looked in, the rector picked up his Bible, and laid it open before
him on the desk.

"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth them
shall have mercy."

John Swinton arose from the table, and closed the book abruptly. His
study fire had burned low, yet the sermon was only half-finished.

For weeks past, his life had been a hideous burden. It was unendurable.
Every time he opened his Bible, he read his own condemnation; and, as he
slowly paced his study, he muttered text after text, always dealing with
the one thing--confession.

He was between the devil and the deep sea. His wife's arguments for
silence were unanswerable. The call of his conscience was unanswerable,
too, except in one way--by confession. He was a living lie; his
priesthood, a mockery. There was not a father or a mother in his
congregation who would not turn from him in horror, if it were known that
he shielded the guilty beneath the pall of the honorable dead.

As the rector walked up and dow