The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong, And member of the inner shrine, where men Observe the rituals of the golden calf; A dilettante, and writer for the press Upon such themes as optimism, order, Obedience, beauty, law, while Elenor Murray's Life was being weighed by Merival Preached in disparagement of Merival Upon a fatal Sunday, as it chanced, Too near to doom's day for the clergyman. For, as the word had gone about that waste In lives preoccupied this Merival, And many talked of waste, and spoke a life Where waste had been in whole or part--the pulpit Should take a hand, thought Ferguson. And so The Reverend Percy Ferguson preached thus To a great audience and fashionable: "The hour's need is a firmer faith in Christ, A closer hold on God, belief again In sin's reality; the age's vice Is laughter over sin, the attitude That sin is not!" And then to prove that sin Is something real, he spoke of money sins That bring the money panics, of the beauty That lust corrupts, wound up with Athen's story, Which sin decayed. And touching on this waste, Which was the current talk, what is this waste Except a sin in life, the moral law Transgressed, God mocked, the order of man's life, And God's will disobeyed? Show me a life That lives through Christ and none shall find a waste. This clergyman some fifteen years before Went on a hunt for Alma Bell, who taught The art department of the school, and found Enough to scare the school directors that She burned with lawless love for Elenor Murray. And made it seem the teacher's reprimand In school of Elenor Murray for her ways Of strolling, riding with young men at night, Was moved by jealousy of Elenor Murray, Being herself in love with Elenor Murray. This clergyman laid what he found before The school directors, Alma Bell was sent Out of the school her way, and disappeared.... But now, though fifteen years had passed, the story Of Alma Bell and Elenor Murray crept Like poisonous mist, scarce seen, around LeRoy. It had been so always. And all these years No one would touch or talk in open words The loathsome matter, since girls grown to women, And married in the town might have their names Relinked to Alma Bell's. And was it true That Elenor Murray strayed as a young girl In those far days of strolls and buggy rides?