When Theron woke next morning, Alice seemed to have dressed and left the room--a thing which had never happened before.
This fact connected itself at once in his brain with the recollection of her having made an exhibition of herself the previous evening--going forward before all eyes to join the unconverted and penitent sinners, as if she were some tramp or shady female, instead of an educated lady, a professing member from her girlhood, and a minister's wife.
It crossed his mind that probably she had risen and got away noiselessly, for very shame at looking him in the face, after such absurd behavior.
Then he remembered more, and grasped the situation.
He had fainted in church, and had been brought home and helped to bed.Dim memories of unaccustomed faces in the bedroom, of nauseous drugs and hushed voices, came to him out of the night-time.Now that he thought of it, he was a sick man.
Having settled this, he went off to sleep again, a feverish and broken sleep, and remained in this state most of the time for the following twenty-four hours.
In the brief though numerous intervals of waking, he found certain things clear in his mind.One was that he was annoyed with Alice, but would dissemble his feelings.
Another was that it was much pleasanter to be ill than to be forced to attend and take part in those revival meetings.
These two ideas came and went in a lazy, drowsy fashion, mixing themselves up with other vagrant fancies, yet always remaining on top.
In the evening the singing from the church next door filled his room.The Soulsbys' part of it was worth keeping awake for.He turned over and deliberately dozed when the congregation sang.
Alice came up a number of times during the day to ask how he felt, and to bring him broth or toast-water.On several occasions, when he heard her step, the perverse inclination mastered him to shut his eyes, and pretend to be asleep, so that she might tip-toe out again.
She had a depressed and thoughtful air, and spoke to him like one whose mind was on something else.Neither of them alluded to what had happened the previous evening.
Toward the close of the long day, she came to ask him whether he would prefer her to remain in the house, instead of attending the meeting.
"Go, by all means," he said almost curtly.
The Presiding Elder and the Sunday-school superintendent called early Tuesday morning at the parsonage to make brotherly inquiries, and Theron was feeling so much better that he himself suggested their coming upstairs to see him.
The Elder was in good spirits; he smiled approvingly, and even put in a jocose word or two while the superintendent sketched for the invalid in a cheerful way the leading incidents of the previous evening.
There had been an enormous crowd, even greater than that of Sunday night, and everybody had been looking forward to another notable and exciting season of grace.These expectations were especially heightened when Sister Soulsby ascended the pulpit stairs and took charge of the proceedings.
She deferred to Paul's views about women preachers on Sundays, she said; but on weekdays she had just as much right to snatch brands from the burning as Paul, or Peter, or any other man.She went on like that, in a breezy, off-hand fashion which tickled the audience immensely, and led to the liveliest anticipations of what would happen when she began upon the evening's harvest of souls.
But it was something else that happened.At a signal from Sister Soulsby the steward got up, and, in an unconcerned sort of way, went through the throng to the rear of the church, locked the doors, and put the keys in their pockets.
The sister dryly explained now to the surprised congregation that there was a season for all things, and that on the present occasion they would suspend the glorious work of redeeming fallen human nature, and take up instead the equally noble task of raising some fifteen hundred dollars which the church needed in its business.The doors would only be opened again when this had been accomplished.
The brethren were much taken aback by this trick, and they permitted themselves to exchange a good many scowling and indignant glances, the while their professional visitors sang another of their delightfully novel sacred duets.
Its charm of harmony for once fell upon unsympathetic ears.
But then Sister Soulsby began another monologue, defending this way of collecting money, chaffing the assemblage with bright-eyed impudence on their having been trapped, and scoring, one after another, neat and jocose little personal points on local characteristics, at which everybody but the individual touched grinned broadly.She was so droll and cheeky, and withal effective in her talk, that she quite won the crowd over.She told a story about a woodchuck which fairly brought down the house.
"A man," she began, with a quizzical twinkle in her eye, "told me once about hunting a woodchuck with a pack of dogs, and they chased it so hard that it finally escaped only by climbing a butternut-tree.'But, my friend,' I said to him, 'woodchucks can't climb trees--butternut-trees or any other kind--and you know it!'
All he said in reply to me was: 'This woodchuck had to climb a tree!' And that's the way with this congregation.
You think you can't raise $1,500, but you've GOT to."So it went on.She set them all laughing; and then, with a twist of the eyes and a change of voice, lo, and behold, she had them nearly crying in the same breath.
Under the pressure of these jumbled emotions, brethren began to rise up in their pews and say what they would give.
The wonderful woman had something smart and apt to say about each fresh contribution, and used it to screw up the general interest a notch further toward benevolent hysteria.
