Chapter 42

John Storm had scarcely heard them. He had a strange feeling that everything was happening hundreds of miles away.

“What am I to do?” he asked himself again. Between twelve and one o'clock he was back in the city, walking aimlessly on and on. He did not choose the unfrequented thoroughfares, and when people looked into his face he thought, “If anybody asks me who I am I'll tell him.” It was eight hours since he had eaten anything, and he felt weak and faint. Coming upon a coffee-house, he went in and ordered food. The place was full of young clerks at their midday meal. Most of them were reading newspapers which they had folded and propped up on the tables before them, but two who sat near were talking.

“These predictions of the end of the world are a mania, a monomania, which recurs at regular intervals of the world's history,” said one. He was a little man with a turned-up nose.

“But the strange thing is that people go on believing them,” said his companion.

“That's not strange at all. This big, idiotic, amphorous London has no sense of humour. See how industriously it has been engaged for the last month in the noble art of making a fool of itself!” And then he looked around at John Storm, as if proud of his tall language.

John did not listen. He knew that everybody was talking about him, yet the matter did not seem to concern him now, but to belong to some other existence which his soul had had.

At length an idea came to him and he thought he knew what he ought to do. He ought to go to the Brotherhood and ask to be taken back. But not as a son this time, only as a servant, to scour and scrub to the end of his life. There used to be a man to sweep out the church and ring the church bell--he might be allowed to do menial work like that. He had proved false to his ideal, he had not been able to resist the lures of earthly love, but God was merciful. He would not utterly reject him.

His self-abasement was abject, yet several hours had passed before he attempted to carry out this design. It was the time of Evensong when he reached the church, and the brothers were singing their last hymn:

Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly.

He stood by the porch and listened. The street was very quiet; hardly anybody was passing.

Hide me, O my Saviour hide, Till the storms of life be past.

His heart surged up to his throat, and he could scarcely bear the pain of it. Yes, yes, yes! Other refuge had he none!

Suddenly a new thought smote him, and he felt like a man roused from a deep sleep. Glory! He had been thinking only of his own soul and his soul's salvation, and had forgotten his duty to others. He had his duty to Glory above all others and lie could not and must not escape from it. He must take his place by her side, and if that included the abandonment of his ideals, so be it! He had been proved unworthy of a life of holiness; he must lower his flag, he must be content to live the life of a man.

But he could not think what he ought to do next, and when night fell he was still wandering aimlessly through the streets. He had turned eastward again, and even in the tumultuous thoroughfares of the Mile End he could not help seeing that something unusual was going on. People in drink were rolling about the streets, and shouting and singing as if it had been a public holiday. “Glad you ain't in kingdom-come to-night, old gal!” “Well, what do _you_ think?”

At twelve o'clock he went into a lodging-house and asked if he could have a bed. The keeper was in the kitchen talking with two men who were cooking a herring for their supper, and he looked up at his visitor in astonishment.

“Can I sleep you, sir? We ain't got no accommodation for gentlemen----” and then he stopped, looked more attentively, and said:

“Are you from the Settlement, sir?”

John Storm made some inarticulate reply.

“Thort ye might be, sir. We often 'as 'em 'ere sempling the cawfee, but blessed if they ever wanted to semple a bed afore. Still, if _you_ down't mind----”

“It will be better than I deserve, my man. Can you give me a cup of coffee before I turn in?”

“With pleasure, sir! Set down, sir! Myke yourself at 'ome. Me and my friends were just talkin' of a gentleman of your cloth, sir--the pore feller as 'as got into trouble acrost Westminster way.”

“Oh, you were talking of him, were you?”

“Sem 'ere says the biziness pize.”

“It _must_ py, or people wouldn't do it,” said the man leaning over the fire.

“Down't you believe it. That little gime down't py. Cause why? Look at the bloomin' stoo the feller's in now. If they ketch 'im 'e'll get six months 'ard.”

“Then what's 'e been doin' it for? I down't see nothink in it if it down't py.”.

“Cause he believes in it, thet's why!--What do you think, sir?”

“I think the man has come by a just fall,” said John. “God will never use him again, having brought him to shame.”

“Must hev been a wrong un certingly,” said the man over the fire.

When John Storm awoke in his cubicle next morning he saw his way clearer. He would deliver himself up to the warrant that was issued for his arrest, and go through with it to the end. Then he would return to Glory a free man, and God would find work for him even yet, after this awful lesson to his presumption and pride.

“That feller as was took ter the awspital is dead,” said somebody in the kitchen, and then there was the crinkling of a newspaper.

“Is 'e?” said another. “The best thing the Father can do is to 'ook it then. Cause why? Whether 'e done it or not they'll fix it on ter 'im, doncher know!”

John's head spun round and round. He remembered what Brother Andrew had said of Charlie Wilkes, and his heart, so warm a moment ago, felt benumbed as by frost. Nevertheless, at nine o'clock he was going westward in the Underground. People looked at him when he stepped into the carriage. He thought everybody knew him, and that the world was only playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse. The compartment was full of young clerks smoking pipes and reading newspapers.

“Most extraordinary!” said one of them. “The fellow has disappeared as absolutely as if he had been carried up into a cloud.”

“Why extraordinary?” said another in a thin voice. This one was not smoking, and he had the startled eyes of the enthusiast. “Elijah was taken up to heaven in the body, wasn't he? And why not Father Storm?”

“What?” cried the first, taking his pipe out of his mouth.

“Some people believe that,” said the thin voice timidly.

“Oh, you want a dose of medicine, you do,” said the first speaker, shaking out his ash and looking round with a knowing air. The young men got out in the City; John went on to Westminster Bridge.

It was terrible. Why could he not take advantage of the popular superstition and disappear indeed, taking Glory with him! But no, no, no!

Through all the torment of his soul his religion had remained the same, and now it rose up before him like a pillar of cloud and fire. He would do as he had intended, whatever the consequences, and if he was charged with crimes he had not committed, if he was accused of the offences of his followers, he would make no defence; if need be he would allow himself to be convicted, and being innocent in this instance God would accept his punishment as an atonement for his other sins! Glorious sacrifice! He would make it! He would make it! And Glory herself would be proud of it some day.

With the glow of this resolution upon him he turned into Scotland Yard and stepped boldly up to the office. The officer in charge received him with a deferential bow, but went on talking in a low voice to an inspector of police who was also standing at the other side of a counter.

“Strange?” he was saying. “I thought he was seen getting into the train at Euston.”

“Don't know that he wasn't either, in spite of all he says.”

“Thinking of the dog.”

“Well, the dog, too,” said the inspector, and then seeing John, “Hello! Who's here?”

The officer stepped up to the counter. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.

John knew that the supreme moment had come, and he felt proud of himself that his resolution did not waver. Lifting his head, he said in a low and rapid voice, “I understand that you have a warrant for the arrest of Father Storm.”

“We _had_, sir,” the officer answered.

John looked embarrassed. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that Father Storm is now in custody.”

John stared at the man with a feeling of stupefaction. “In custody! Did you say in custody?”

“Precisely! He has just given himself up.”

John answered impetuously, “But that is impossible.”

“Why impossible, sir? Are you interested in this case?”

A certain quivering moved John's mouth. “I am Father Storm himself.”

The officer was silent for a moment. Then he turned to the inspector with a pitying smile. “Another of them,” he said significantly. The psychology of criminals had been an interesting study to this official.

“Wait a minute,” said the inspector, and he went hurriedly through an inner doorway. The officer asked John some questions about his movements since yesterday. John answered vaguely in broken and rather bewildering sentences. Then the inspector returned.

“You are Father Storm?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know of anybody who might wish to personate you?”

“God forbid that any one should do that!”

“Still, there is some one here who says----”

“Let me see him.”

“Come this way quietly,” said the inspector, and John followed him to the inner room. His pride was all gone, his head was hanging low, and he was a prey to extraordinary agitation.

A man in a black cassock was sitting at a table making a statement to another officer with an open book before him. His back was to the door, but John knew him in a moment. It was Brother Andrew.

“Then why have you given yourself up?” the officer asked, and Brother Andrew began a rambling and foolish explanation. He had seen it stated in an evening paper that the Father had been traced to the train at Euston, and he thought it a pity--a pity that the police--that the police should waste their time----

“Take care!” said the officer. “You are in a position that should make you careful of what you say.”

And then the inspector stepped forward, leaving John by the door.

“You still say you are Father Storm?”

“Of course I do,” said Brother Andrew indignantly. “If I was anybody else, do you think I should come here and give myself up----”

“Then who is this standing behind you?”

Brother Andrew turned and saw John with a start of surprise and a cry of terror. He seemed hardly able to believe in the reality of what was before him, and his restless eyeballs rolled fearfully. John tried to speak, but he could only utter a few inarticulate sounds.

“Well?” said the inspector. And while John stood with head down and heaving breast, Brother Andrew began to laugh hysterically and to say:

“Don't you know who this is? This is my lay brother! I brought him out of the Brotherhood six months ago, and he has been with me ever since.”

The officers looked at each other. “Good heavens!” cried Brother Andrew in an imperious voice, “don't you believe me? You mustn't touch this man. He has done nothing--nothing at all. He is as tender as a woman and wouldn't hurt a fly. What's he doing here?”

The officers also were dropping their heads, and the heartrending voice went on: “Have you arrested him? You'll do very wrong if you arrest----But perhaps he has given himself up! That would be just like him. He is devoted to me and would tell you any falsehood if he thought it would----But you must send him away. Tell him to go back to his old mother--that's the proper place for him. Good God! do you think I'm telling you lies?”

There was silence for a moment. “My poor lad, hush, hush!” said John in a tone full of tenderness and authority. Then he turned to the inspector with a pitiful smile of triumph. “Are you satisfied?” he asked.

“Quite satisfied, Father,” the officer answered in a broken voice, and then Brother Andrew began to cry.

X.

When Glory awoke on the morning after the Derby and thought of John she felt no remorse. A sea of bewildering difficulty lay somewhere ahead, but she would not look at it. He loved her, she loved him, and nothing else mattered. If rules and vows stood between them, so much the worse for such enemies of love.

She was conscious that a subtle change had come over her. She was not herself any longer, but somebody else as well; not a woman merely, but in some sort a man; not Glory only, but also John Storm. Oh, delicious mystery! Oh, joy of joys! His arms seemed to be about her waist still, and his breath to linger about her neck. With a certain tremor, a certain thrill, she reached for a hand-glass and looked at herself to learn if there was any difference in her face that the rest of the world would see. Yes, her eyes had another lustre, a deeper light, but she lay back in the cool bed with a smile and a long-drawn sigh. What matter whatever happened! Gone were the six cruel months in which she had awakened every morning with a pain at her breast. She was happy, happy, happy!

The morning sun was streaming across the room when Liza came in with the tea.

“Did ye see the Farver last night, Miss Gloria?”

“Oh, yes; that was all right, Liza.”

The day's newspaper was lying folded on the tray. She took it up and opened it, remembering the Derby, and thinking for the first time of Drake's triumph. But what caught her eye in glaring head-lines was a different matter: “The Panic Terror--Collapse of the Farce.”

It was a shriek of triumphant derision. The fateful day had come and gone, yet London stood where it did before. Last night's tide had flowed and ebbed, and the dwellings of men were not submerged. No earthquake had swallowed up St. Paul's; no mighty bonfire of the greatest city of the world had lit up the sky of Europe, and even the thunderstorm which had broken over London had only laid the dust and left the air more clear.

“London is to be congratulated on the collapse of this panic, which, so far as we can hear, has been attended by only one casualty--an assault in Brown's Square, Westminster, on a young soldier, Charles Wilkes, of the Wellington Barracks, by two of the frantic army of the terror-stricken. The injured man was removed to St. Thomas's Hospital, while his assailants were taken to Rochester Row police station, and we have only to regret that the clerical panic-maker himself has not yet shared the fate of his followers. Late last night the authorities, recovering from their extraordinary supineness, issued a warrant for his arrest, but up to the time of going to press he had escaped the vigilance of the police.”

Glory was breathing audibly as she read, and Liza, who was drawing up the blind, looked back at her with surprise.

“Liza, have you mentioned to anybody that Father Storm was here last night?”

“Why, no, miss, there ain't nobody stirring yet, and besides----”

“Then don't mention it to a soul. Will you do me that great, great kindness?”

“Down't ye know I will, mum?” said Liza, with a twinkle of the eye and a wag of the head.

Glory dressed hurriedly, went down to the drawing-room, and wrote a letter. It was to Sefton, the manager. “Do not expect me to play to-night. I don't feel up to it. Sorry to be so troublesome.”

Then Rosa came in with another newspaper in her hand, and, without saying anything, Glory showed her the letter. Rosa read it and returned it in silence. They understood each other.

During the next few hours Glory's impatience became feverish, and as soon as the first of the evening papers appeared she sent out for it. The panic was subsiding, and the people who had gone to the outskirts were returning to the city in troops, looking downcast and ashamed. No news of Father Storm. Inquiry that morning at Scotland Yard elicited the fact that nothing had yet been heard of him. There was much perplexity as to where he had spent the previous night.

Glory's face tingled and burned. From hour to hour she sent out for new editions. The panic itself was now eclipsed by the interest of John Storm's disappearance. His followers scouted the idea that he had fled from London. Nevertheless, he had fallen. As a pretender to the gift of prophecy his career was at an end, and his crazy system of mystical divinity was the laughing-stock of London.

“It does not surprise us that this second Moses, this mock Messiah, has broken down. Such men always do, and must collapse, but that the public should ever have taken seriously a movement which----” and then a grotesque list of John's followers--one pawnbroker, one waiter, one “knocker-up,” two or three apprentices, etc.

As she read all this, Glory was at the same time glowing with shame, trembling with fear, and burning with indignation. She dined with Rosa alone, and they tried to talk of other matters. The effort was useless. At last Rosa said:

“I have to follow this thing up for the paper, dear, and I'm going to-night to see if they hold the usual service in his church.”

“May I go with you?”

“If you wish to, but it will be useless--he won't be there.”

“Why not?”

“The Prime Minister left London last night--I can't help thinking there is something in that.”

“He will be there, Rosa. He's not the man to run away. I know him,” said Glory proudly.

The church was crowded, and it was with difficulty they found seats. John's enemies were present in force--all the owners of vested interests who had seen their livelihood threatened by the man who declared war on vice and its upholders. There was a dangerous atmosphere before the service began, and, notwithstanding her brave faith in him, Glory found herself praying that John Storm might not come. As the organ played and the choir and clergy entered the excitement was intense, and some of the congregation got on to their seats in their eagerness to see if the Father was there. He was not there. The black cassock and biretta in which he had lately preached were nowhere to be seen, and a murmur of disappointment passed over friends and enemies alike.

Then came a disgraceful spectacle. A man with a bloated face and a bandage about his forehead rose in his place and cried, “No popery, boys!” Straightaway the service, which was being conducted by two of the clerical brothers from the Brotherhood, was interrupted by hissing, whistling, shouting, yelling, and whooping indescribable. Songs were roared out during the lessons, and cushions, cassocks, and prayer-books were flung at the altar and its furniture. The terrified choir boys fled downstairs to their own quarters, and the clergy were driven out of the church.

John's own people stole away in terror and shame, but Glory leaped to her feet as if to fling herself on the cowardly rabble. Her voice was lost in the tumult, and Rosa drew her out into the street.

“Is there no law in the land to prevent brawling like this?” she cried, but the police paid no heed to her.

Then the congregation, which had broken up, came rushing out of the church and round to the door leading to the chambers beneath it.

“They've found him,” thought Glory, pressing her hand over her heart. But no, it was another matter. Immediately afterward there rose over the babel of human voices the deep music of the bloodhound in full cry. The crowd shrieked with fear and delight, then surged and parted, and the dog came running through with its stern up, its head down, its forehead wrinkled, and the long drapery of its ears and flews hanging in folds about its face. In a moment it was gone, its mellow note was dying away in the neighbouring streets, and a gang of ruffians were racing after it. “That'll find the feller if he's in London!” somebody shouted; it was the man with the bandaged forehead--and there were yells of fiendish laughter.

Glory's head was going round, and she was holding on to Rosa's arm with a convulsive grasp.

“The cowards!” she cried. “To use that poor creature's devotion to its master for their own inhuman ends--it's cowardly, it's brutal, it's----Oh, oh, oh!”

“Come, dear,” said Rosa, and she dragged Glory away.

They went back through Broad Sanctuary. Neither spoke, but both were thinking: “He has gone to the monastery. He intends to stay there until the storm is over.” At Westminster Bridge they parted. “I have somewhere to go,” said Rosa, turning down to the Underground. “She is going to Bishopsgate Street,” thought Glory, and they separated with constraint.

Returning to Clement's Inn, Glory found a letter from Drake:

“Dear Glory: How can I apologize to you for nay detestable behaviour of last night? The memory of what passed has taken all the joy out of the success upon which everybody is congratulating me. I have tried to persuade myself that you would make allowances for the day and the circumstances and my natural excitement. But your life has been so blameless that it fills me with anguish and horror to think how I exposed you to misrepresentation by allowing you to go to that place, and by behaving to you as I did when you were there. Thank God, things went no farther, and some blessed power prevented me from carrying out my threat to follow you. Believe me, you shall see no more of men like Lord Robert Ure and women like his associates. I despise them from my heart, and wonder how I can have tolerated them so long. Do let me beg the favour of a line consenting to allow me to call and ask your forgiveness. Yours most humbly,

“F. H. N. Drake.”

Glory slept badly that night, and as soon as Liza was stirring she rang for the newspaper.

“Didn't ye 'ear the dorg, mum?” said Liza.

“What dog?”

“The Farver's dorg. It was scratching at the front dawer afore I was up this morning. 'It's the milk,' sez I. But the minute I opened the dawer up it came ter the drawerin' room and went snuffling rahnd everywhere.”

“Where is it now?”

“Gorn, mum.”

“Did anybody else see it? No? You say no? You're sure? Then say nothing about it, Liza--nothing whatever--that's a good girl.”

The newspaper was full of the mysterious disappearance. Not a trace of the Father had yet been found. The idea had been started that he had gone into seclusion at the Anglican monastery with which he was associated, but on inquiry at Bishopsgate Street it was found that nothing had been seen of him there. Since yesterday the whole of London had been scoured by the police, but not one fact had been brought to light to make clearer the mystery of his going away. With the most noticeable face and habit in London he had evaded scrutiny and gone into a retirement which baffled discovery. No master of the stage art could have devised a more sensational disappearance. He had vanished as though whirled to heaven in a cloud, and that was literally what the more fanatical of his followers believed to have been his fate. Among these persons there were wild-eyed hangers-on telling of a flight upward on a fiery chariot, as well as a predicted disappearance and reappearance after three days. Such were the stories being gulped down by the thousands who still clung with an indefinable fascination to the memory of the charlatan. Meantime the soldier Wilkes had died of his injuries, and the coroner's inquiry was to be opened that day.

“Unfeeling brutes! The bloodhound is an angel of mercy compared to them,” thought Glory, but the worst sting was in the thought that John had fled out of fear and was now in hiding somewhere.

Toward noon the newsboys were rushing through the Inn, crying their papers against all regulations, and at the same moment Rosa came in to say that John Storm had surrendered.

“I knew it!” cried Glory; “I knew he would!”

Then Rosa told her of Brother Andrew's attempt to personate his master, and with what pitiful circumstances it had ended.

“Only a lay brother, you say, Rosa?”

“Yes, a poor half-witted soul apparently--must have been, to imagine that a subterfuge like that would succeed in London.”