Suddenly he was apologizing humbly:
"I'm very much ashamed of myself. You're an older man and venerable,
and I--I oughtn't to have forgotten that."
"You ought not."
"I'll do any penance you say, if you'll only marry Charity and me."
"Don't speak of that again."
He thought of his old friend and attorney, money. He put that
forward.
"I'll pay anything."
"Mr. Dyckman!"
"I'll give the church a solid gold reredos or contribute any sum
to any alms--"
"Please go. I cannot tolerate any more."
Jim left the old man in such agitation that a reporter named Hallard,
who shadowed him, feeling in his journalistic bones that a big story
would break about him soon, noted his condition and called on Doctor
Mosely. He was still shaken with the storm of defending his ideals
from profanation, and Hallard easily drew from him an admission that
Mr. Dyckman was bent upon matrimony, also a scathing diatribe on the
remarriage of divorced persons as one of the signs of the increasing
degeneracy of public morals.
* * * * *
Hallard's paper carried a lovely exclusive story the next morning
in noisy head-lines. The other newspapers enviously plagiarized
it and set their news-sleuths on Jim's trail. The clergy of all
denominations took up the matter as a theme of vital timeliness.
Jim and Charity were beautifully suited to the purposes of both
sorts; the newspapers that pulpiteered the news and wrote highly
moral editorials for sensation's sake; and the pulpiteers who
shouted head-lines and yellow journalism from their rostrums,
more for the purpose of self-advertisement than for any devotion
to Christly principles of sympathy and gentle comprehension.
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