All this was the more annoying to Mr. Hazard because his orthodoxy was his strong point.  Like most vigorous-minded men, seeing that there was no stopping-place between dogma and negation, he preferred to accept dogma.  Of all weaknesses he most disliked timid and half-hearted faith.  He would rather have jumped at once to Strong’s pure denial, than yield an inch to the argument that a mystery was to be paltered with because it could not be explained.  The idea that these gossiping parishioners of his should undertake to question his orthodoxy, tried his temper.  He knew that they disliked his intimacy with artists and scientific people, but he was not afraid of his parish, and meant that his parish should be a little afraid of him.  He preferred to give them some cause of fault-finding in order to keep them awake.  His greatest annoyance came from another side.  If such gossip should reach Esther’s ears, it would go far towards driving her beyond his control, and he knew that even without this additional alarm, it was with the greatest difficulty he could quiet and restrain her.  The threatened disaster was terrible enough when looked at as a mere question of love, but it went much deeper.  He was ready to override criticism and trample on remonstrance if he could but succeed in drawing her into the fold, because his lifelong faith, that all human energies belonged to the church, was on trial, and, if it broke down in a test so supreme as that of marriage, the blow would go far to prostrate him forever.  What was his religious energy worth if it did not carry him successfully through such stress, when the strongest passion in life was working on its side?

At the hour when Strong was making his disastrous attempt to relieve Esther of her scruples, Mr. Hazard was listening to these exasperating criticisms from his parish.  It was his habit to come every day at noon to pass an hour with Esther, and as he entered the house to-day he met Strong leaving it, and asked him to spare the time for a talk the same evening.  He wanted Strong’s advice and help.

A brace of lovers in lower spirits than Hazard and Esther could not have been easily found in the city of New York or its vicinity this day, and the worst part of their depression was that each was determined to hide it from the other.  Esther could not tell him much more than he already knew, and would not throw away her charm over him by adding to his anxieties, while he knew that any thing he could tell her would add to her doubts and perhaps drive her to some sudden and violent step.  Luckily they were too much attached to each other to feel the full awkwardness of their attitude.

“It is outrageously pleasant to be with you,” he said.  “One’s conscience revolts against such enjoyment.  I wonder whether I should ever get enough.”

“I shall never give you a chance,” said she.  “I shall be strict with you and send you off to your work before you can get tired of me.”