Bayard re-read this message thoughtfully. He could hardly have told why it perplexed him. Up and down the shores and streets of Windover no cry of misery or of guilt had ever yet lifted itself to him in vain. Such appeals were common enough. Often it would happen that a stranger would stop him in the street, and use much the same naÏve language: “I hear when you talk to folks they stop drinking. I wish you’d talk to me.” Contrary to his custom in such matters, he showed this slip of paper to Mrs. Granite.

“Mr. Bayard, sir,” she said, with that prompt feminine fear which sometimes takes the place of reliable good sense, “don’t you go a step!”

Bayard did not reply. He turned away musing, and paced up and down between the larkspurs. True, the place was lonely, and the hour late. But the vagaries of disgraced men are many, and nothing was more possible than that some fisherman, not wholly sober, and not half drunk, should take it into his befuddled brain that an interview with the minister located at a safe distance from nagging wife, crying child, or jeering messmate, or, let us say, far removed from the jaws of Trawl’s door, should work the magic or the miracle for which the morally defective are always waiting.

“I see no reason why I should not comply with this request,” he said decidedly.

“Mr. Bayard, sir,” urged Mrs. Granite, “it’s a thing I don’t like to be her who tells you, but it’s time somebody did. There’s them in this town wouldn’t stop at nothing, they have that feeling to you.”

“To me?” cried Bayard, opening his hazel eyes as wide as a child’s.

“Rum done it,” stammered Mrs. Granite, instinctively using the three familiar words which most concisely covered the ground. “It’s your temperance principles. They ain’t pop’lar. They affect your standing in this community.”

This was the accepted phrase in Windover for all such cases made and provided. It was understood to contain the acme of personal peril or disgrace. To talk to a man about “your standing in this community” was equivalent to an insult or a scandal. Poor Mrs. Granite, an affectionate and helpless parrot, reËchoed this terrible language, and trembled. She felt as if she had said to the minister, Your social ruin is complete for all time, throughout the civilized world.

“Not that it makes any difference to us,” sobbed Mrs. Granite; “we set just as much by you. But your standing is affected in this community. There’s them that hates you, sir, more shame to ’em, more’n the Old Boy himself. Mr. Bayard, Mr. Bayard, don’t you go to Ragged Rock alone, sir, this time o’ night to meet no tom-fool of a drunkard anxious about his soul. He don’t own such a thing to his name! All he’s got is a rum-soaked sponge, he’s mopped up whiskey with all his born days!”

“Your drinks (if not your metaphors) are getting a little mixed, dear Mrs. Granite,” laughed Bayard.

“Sir?” said Mrs. Granite.

“But still I must say, there is some sense in your view of the case—Ah, here’s Jane; and Ben with her. We’ll put the case to—No. I have it. Mrs. Granite, to please you, I will take Ben Trawl along with me. Will that set you at rest?—Here, Trawl. Just read this message, will you? Something about it looks a little queer, and Mrs. Granite is so kind as to worry about me. What do you make of it?”

“Oh, you’ve got home so soon, have you?” said Trawl rather sullenly.

In the evening his eyebrows met more heavily than ever across his forehead; they looked as if they had been corked for some ugly masquerade. He glanced from under them, coldly, at the minister; read the note, and was about to tear it into strips.

“I’ll take it, thank you,” said Bayard quietly, holding out his hand.

“Mr. Bayard,” said Jane, who had not spoken before, “I hope you will pay no attention to this message.”

She spoke in a voice so low as to be almost inarticulate.

“Oh, I’ll go with him, if he’s afraid,” said Trawl, with that accent which falls just so far short of a sneer that a man may not decently notice it.

“I incline to think it is wise to take a witness to this adventure,” replied Bayard serenely. “But I need not trouble you, Mr. Trawl. Pray don’t exert yourself to oblige me.”

“It’s no exertion,” said Ben, with a change of tone. “Come along!”

He strode out into the street and Bayard, after a moment’s hesitation, did the same, shutting the garden gate behind him. Jane Granite opened it, and followed them for a little way; she seemed perplexed and distressed; she did not speak, but trotted silently, like a dog, in the dark.

“Go back!” said Trawl, stopping short. Jane slunk against a fence, and stopped.

“Go back, I say!” cried Trawl.

“It is natural that she should want to come. She feels anxious about you,” observed Bayard kindly.

“Go back to your mother, and stay there!” commanded Trawl, stamping his foot.

Jane turned and obeyed, and vanished. The two men walked on in silence. They came quickly through the village and down the Point, turning thence to cross the downs that raised their round shoulders, an irregular gray outline against the sky. Bayard glanced back. It looked black and desolate enough ahead of him. Below and behind him the life of the summer-seekers stirred softly, like the figures in a gay game, or old-fashioned walking-dance. The hotels blazed cheerfully; the piazzas were full and merry; in the parlors people were playing and singing. He could not see the lights of the Flying Jib from where he stood; this disappointed him, and he walked on. The music from the Mainsail piano followed him. There was a parlor concert—a woman’s voice—a soprano solo—ah! The great serenade!

“Komm, beglÜcke mich!”

The strain seemed to chase him, like a cry, like an entreaty, almost like a sob. His heart leaped, as if soft arms had been thrown around him. He stopped and listened, till the song had ceased.

“That is good music,” he said aloud, not knowing what he said, but oppressed by the dogged silence which his escort maintained.

“Good enough,” said Ben roughly. The two walked on, and neither said anything more. It was now quite dark and still around them. The rough, broken surface of the rocky downs made traveling difficult; but both men were familiar with the way, and lost no time upon it. The sky was cloudy, and the sea was dark. The ebbing tide met the deserted beach with a sigh. The headlights in the harbor looked far off, and of the town not a glimmer could be seen. Ben strode on in sullen silence. Bayard watched him with some discomfort, but nothing like a sensation of fear had yet reached his nerves.

“This fellow chose a lonely place for a pastoral visit,” he observed at length, as they approached the little beach made memorable by the wreck of the Clara Em.

“Wanted to stump you,” said Ben, with an unpleasant laugh. “Wanted to dare you, you know—to see if you’d show game. It’s a way they have, these toughs who meddle with parsons. They like to make out a big story, and tell it round the saloons. Probably the whole thing’s a put-up job.”

“That is more than possible, of course. But I’d rather investigate three put-up jobs than neglect one real need of one miserable man. That is my business, you see, Ben. Yours is to ruin people. Mine is to save them. We each attend to our own affairs, that’s all.”

“D—— you!” cried Ben, suddenly facing about. “That’s just it! You don’t attend to your own affairs! You meddle with mine, and that’s what’s the matter! I’ll teach you to mind your own business!”

Before Bayard could cry out or move, he felt the other’s hands at his throat.