"I'm alive! I'm alive!" she cried out.
"I'm alive! I'm alive!" she cried out.
"I'm alive! I'm alive!" she cried out, "I've got ter be took care ofnow! That's why I like wot shetells about it. So does the women. We ain't no more reason ter be sure of wot the curick says than ter be sure o' this. Dunno as I 've got ter choose either way, but if I 'ad, I'd choose the cheerflest."
Dart had sat staring at her—so had Polly—so had the thief. Dart rubbed his forehead.
"I do not understand," he said.
"'T ain't understanding! It's believin'. Bless yer,shedoesn't understand. I say, let's go an' talk to 'er a bit. She don't mind nothin', an' she'll let us in. We can leave Polly an' 'im 'ere. They can make some more tea an' drink it."
It ended in their going out of the room together again and stumbling once more down the stairway'scrookedness. At the bottom of the first short flight they stopped in the darkness and Glad knocked at a door with a summons manifestly expectant of cheerful welcome. She used the formula she had used before.
"'S on'y me, Miss Montaubyn," she cried out. "'S on'y Glad."
The door opened in wide welcome, and confronting them as she held its handle stood a small old woman with an astonishing face. It was astonishing because while it was withered and wrinkled with marks of past years which had once stamped their reckless unsavoriness upon its every line, some strange redeeming thing had happened to it and its expression was that of a creature to whom the opening of a door couldonly mean the entrance—the tumbling in as it were—of hopes realized. Its surface was swept clean of even the vaguest anticipation of anything not to be desired. Smiling as it did through the black doorway into the unrelieved shadow of the passage, it struck Antony Dart at once that it actually implied this—and that in this place—and indeed in any place—nothing could have been more astonishing. What could, indeed?
"Well, well," she said, "come in, Glad, bless yer."
"I've brought a gent to 'ear yer talk a bit," Glad explained informally.
The small old woman raised her twinkling old face to look at him.
"Ah!" she said, as if summing up what was before her. "'Ethinks it's worse than it is, doesn't 'e, now? Come in, sir, do."
This time it struck Dart that her look seemed actually to anticipate the evolving of some wonderful and desirable thing from himself. As if even his gloom carried with it treasure as yet undisplayed. As she knew nothing of the ten sovereigns, he wondered what, in God's name, she saw.
The poverty of the little square room had an odd cheer in it. Much scrubbing had removed from it the objections manifest in Glad's room above. There was a small red fire in the grate, a strip of old, but gay carpet before it, two chairs and a table were covered with a harlequinpatchwork made of bright odds and ends of all sizes and shapes. The fog in all its murky volume could not quite obscure the brightness of the often rubbed window and its harlequin curtain drawn across upon a string.
"Bless yer," said Miss Montaubyn, "sit down."
Dart sat and thanked her. Glad dropped upon the floor and girdled her knees comfortably while Miss Montaubyn took the second chair, which was close to the table, and snuffed the candle which stood near a basket of colored scraps such as, without doubt, had made the harlequin curtain.
"Yer won't mind me goin' on with me bit o' work?" she chirped.
"Tell 'im wot it is," Glad suggested.
"They come from a dressmaker as is in a small way," designating the scraps by a gesture. "I clean up for 'er an' she lets me 'ave 'em. I make 'em up into anythink I can—pin-cushions an' bags an' curtings an' balls. Nobody'd think wot they run to sometimes. Now an' then I sell some of 'em. Wot I can't sell I give away."
"Drunken Bet's biby plays with 'er ball all day," said Glad.
"Ah!" said Miss Montaubyn, drawing out a long needleful of thread, "Bet,shethinks it worse than it is."
"Could it be worse?" asked Dart. "Could anything be worse than everything is?"
"Lots," suggested Glad; "might 'ave broke your back, might 'ave a fever, might be in jail for knifin' someone. 'E wants to 'ear you talk, Miss Montaubyn; tell 'im all about yerself."
"Me!" her expectant eyes on him. "'E wouldn't want to 'ear it. I shouldn't want to 'ear it myself. Bein' on the 'alls when yer a pretty girl ain't an 'elpful life; an' bein' took up an' dropped down till yer dropped in the gutter an' don't know 'ow to get out—it's wot yer mustn't let yer mind go back to."
"That's wot the lidy said," called out Glad. "Tell 'im about the lidy. She doesn't even know who she was." The remark was tossed to Dart.
"Never even 'eard 'er name," withunabated cheer said Miss Montaubyn. "She come an' she went an' me too low to do anything but lie an' look at 'er and listen. An' 'Which of us two is mad?' I ses to myself. But I lay thinkin' and thinkin'—an' it was so cheerfle I couldn't get it out of me 'ead—nor never 'ave since."
"What did she say?"
"I couldn't remember the words—it was the way they took away things a body's afraid of. It was about things never 'avin' really been like wot we thought they was. Godamighty now, there ain't a bit of 'arm in 'im."
"What?" he said with a start.
"'E never done the accidents and the trouble. It was us as went out of the light into the dark. If we'dkep' in the light all the time, an' thought about it, an' talked about it, we'd never 'ad nothin' else. 'T ain't punishment neither. 'T ain't nothin' but the dark—an' the dark ain't nothin' but the light bein' away. 'Keep in the light,' she ses, 'never think of nothin' else, an' then you'll begin an' see things. Everybody's been afraid. There ain't no need. You believethat.'"
"Believe?" said Dart heavily.
She nodded.
"'Yes,' ses I to 'er, 'that's where the trouble comes in—believin'.' And she answers as cool as could be: 'Yes, it is,' she ses, 'we've all been thinkin' we've been believin', an' none of us 'as. If we 'ad what'd there be to be afraid of? If webelieved a king was givin' us our livin' an' takin' care of us who'd be afraid of not 'avin' enough to eat?'"
"Who?" groaned Dart. He sat hanging his head and staring at the floor. This was another phase of the dream.
"'Where is 'E?' I ses. ''Im as breaks old women's legs an' crushes babies under wheels—so as they'll be resigned?' An' all of a sudden she calls out quite loud: 'Nowhere,' she ses. 'An' never was. But 'Im as stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth, 'Im as is the Life an' Love of the world, 'E's 'ere! Stretch out yer 'and,' she ses, 'an' call out, "Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth," an' ye'll 'ear an'see.An' never you stop sayin' it—let yer 'eart beat it an' yer breath breathe it—an' yer'll find yer goin' about laughin' soft to yerself an' lovin' every-thin' as if it was yer own child at breast. An'no'arm can come to yer. Try it when yer go 'ome.'"
"Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth."
"Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth."
"Did you?" asked Dart.
Glad answered for her with a tremulous—yes it was atremulous—giggle, a weirdly moved little sound.
"When she wakes in the mornin' she ses to 'erself, 'Good things is goin' to come to-day—cheerfle things,' When there's a knock at the door she ses, 'Somethin' friendly's comin' in.' An' when Drunken Bet's makin' a row an' ragin' an' tearin' an' threatenin' to 'ave 'er eyes out of 'er fice, she ses, 'Lor, Bet, yer don'tmean a word of it—yer a friend to every woman in the 'ouse.' When she don't know which way to turn, she stands still an' ses, 'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,' an' then she does wotever next comes into 'er mind—an' she says it's allus the right answer. Sometimes," sheepishly, "I've tried it myself—p'raps it's true. I did it this mornin' when I sat down an' pulled me sack over me 'ead on the bridge. Polly'd been cryin' so loud all night I'd got a bit low in me stummick an'—" She stopped suddenly and turned on Dart as if light had flashed across her mind. "Dunno nothin' about it," she stammered, "but Isaidit—just like she does—an'youcome!"
Plainly she had uttered whateverwords she had used in the form of a sort of incantation, and here was the result in the living body of this man sitting before her. She stared hard at him, repeating her words: "Youcome. Yes, you did."
"It was the answer," said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, "that's wot it was."
Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.
"You believe it," he said.
"I'm livin' on believin' it," she said confidingly. "I ain't got nothin' else. An' answers keeps comin' and comin'."
"What answers?"
"Bits o' work—an' things as 'elps. Glad there, she's one."
"Aw," said Glad, "I ain't nothin'. I likes to 'ear yer tell about it. She ses," to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes—"she ses 'E's in the room—same as 'E's everywhere—in this 'ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to 'Im."
"What!" cried Dart, startled again.
The strange Majestic Awful Idea—the Deity of the Ages—to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had allthe infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure. But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a—a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.
For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.
"It's what the curick ses," she enlarged radiantly. "Though 'e don't believe it, pore young man; 'e on'y thinks 'e does. 'It's for 'igh an' low,' 'e ses, 'for you an' me as well as for them as is royal fambleys.The Almighty 'E'severywhere!' 'Yes,' ses I, 'I've felt 'Im 'ere—as near as y' are yerself, sir, I 'ave—an' I've spoke to 'Im.'"
"What did the curate say?" Dart asked, amazed.
"Seemed like it frightened 'im a bit. 'We mustn't be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,' 'e ses, for 'e's a kind young man as ever lived, an' often ses 'my dear' to them 'e's comfortin'. But yer see the lidy 'ad gave me a Bible o' me own an' I'd set 'ere an' read it, an' read it an' learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed—an' I'd got ter feel like it was someone talkin' to me an' makin' me understand. So I ses, ''T ain't boldness we're warned against; it's not lovin' an' trustin' enough, an' notaskin' an' believin'true. Don't yer remember wot it ses: "I, even I, am 'e that comforteth yer. Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an' the son of man that shall be made as grass, an' forgetteth Jehovah thy Creator, that stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth?" an' "I've covered thee with the shadder of me 'and," it ses; an' "I will go before thee an' make the rough places smooth;" an' "'Itherto ye 'ave asked nothin' in my name; ask therefore that ye may receive, an' yer joy may be made full."' An' 'e looked down on the floor as if 'e was doin' some 'ard thinkin', pore young man, an' 'e ses, quite sudden an' shaky, 'Lord, I believe, 'elp thou my unbelief,' an' 'eses it as if 'e was in trouble an' didn't know 'e'd spoke out loud."
"Where—how did you come upon your verses?" said Dart. "How did you find them?"
"Ah," triumphantly, "they was all answers—they was the first answers I ever 'ad. When I first come 'ome an' it seemed as if I was goin' to be swep' away in the dirt o' the street—one day when I was near drove wild with cold an' 'unger, I set down on the floor an' I dragged the Bible to me an' I ses: 'There ain't nothin' on earth or in 'ell as'll 'elp me. I'm goin' to do wot the lidy said—mad or not.' An' I 'eld the book—an' I 'eld my breath, too, 'cos it was like waitin' for the end o' the world—an' after a bit I 'earsmyself call out in a 'oller whisper, 'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth. Show me a 'ope.' An' I was tremblin' all over when I opened the book. An' there it was! 'I will go before thee an' make the rough places smooth, I will break in pieces the doors of brass and will cut in sunder the bars of iron.' An' I knowed it was a answer."
"You—knew—it—was an answer?"
"Wot else was it?" with a shining face. "I'd arst for it, an' there it was. An' in about a hour Glad come runnin' up 'ere, an' she'd 'ad a bit o' luck—"
"'Twasn't nothin' much," Glad broke in deprecatingly, "on'y I'd got somethin' to eat an' a bit o' fire."
"An' she made me go an' 'ave a 'earty meal, an' set an' warm meself. An' she was that cheerfle an' full o' pluck, she 'elped me to forget about the things that was makin' me into a madwoman.Shewas the answer—same as the book 'ad promised. They comes in different wyes the answers does. Bless yer, they don't come in claps of thunder an' streaks o' lightenin'—they just comes easy an' natural—so's sometimes yer don't think for a minit or two that they're answers at all. But it comes to yer in a bit an' yer 'eart stands still for joy. An' ever since then I just go to me book an' arst. P'raps," her smile an illuminating thing, "me bein' the low an' pore in spirit at the beginnin', an' settin' 'ere all alone by meself day in an' day out, just thinkin' it all over—an' arstin'—an' waitin'—p'raps light was gave me 'cos I was in such a little place an' in the dark. But I ain't pore in spirit now. Lor', no, yer can't be when yer've on'y got to believe. 'An' 'itherto ye 'ave arst nothin' in my name; arst therefore that ye may receive an' yer joy be made full.'"
"Am I sitting here listening to an old female reprobate's disquisition on religion?" passed through Antony Dart's mind. "Why am I listening? I am doing it because here is a creature whobelieves—knowing no doctrine, knowing no church. Shebelieves—she thinks sheknowsher Deity is by her side. She is not afraid. To her simpleness the awfulUnknown is the Known—andwithher."
"Suppose it were true," he uttered aloud, in response to a sense of inward tremor, "suppose—it—were—true?" And he was not speaking either to the woman or the girl, and his forehead was damp.
"Gawd!" said Glad, her chin almost on her knees, her eyes staring fearsomely. "S'pose it was—an' us sittin' 'ere an' not knowin' it—an' no one knowin' it—nor gettin' the good of it. Sime as if—" pondering hard in search of simile, "sime as if no one 'ad never knowed about 'lectricity, an' there wasn't no 'lectric lights nor no 'lectric nothin'. Onct nobody knowed, an' all the sime it was there—jest waitin'."
Her fantastic laugh ended for her with a little choking, vaguely hysteric sound.
"Blimme," she said. "Ain't it queer, us not knowin'—if it's true."
Antony Dart bent forward in his chair. He looked far into the eyes of the ex-dancer as if some unseen thing within them might answer him. Miss Montaubyn herself for the moment he did not see.
"What," he stammered hoarsely, his voice broken with awe, "what of the hideous wrongs—the woes and horrors—and hideous wrongs?"
"There wouldn't be none ifwewas right—if we never thought nothin' but 'Good's comin'—good's 'ere.' If we everyone of us thought it—every minit of every day."
She did not know she was speaking of a millennium—the end of the world. She sat by her one candle, threading her needle and believing she was speaking of To-day.
He laughed a hollow laugh.
"Ifwewere right!" he said. "It would take long—long—long—to make us all so."
"It would be slow p'raps. Well, so it would—but good comes quick for them as begins callin' it. It's been quick forme," drawing her thread through the needle's eye triumphantly. "Lor', yes, me legs is better—me luck's better—people's better. Bless yer, yes!"
"It's true," said Glad; "she gets on somehow. Things comes. She never wants no drink. Me now,"she applied to Miss Montaubyn, "if I took it up same as you—wot'd come to a gal like me?"
"Wot ud yer want ter come?" Dart saw that in her mind was an absolute lack of any premonition of obstacle. "Wot'd yer arst fer in yer own mind?"
Glad reflected profoundly.
"Polly," she said, "she wants to go 'ome to 'er mother an' to the country. I ain't got no mother an' wot I 'ear of the country seems like I'd get tired of it. Nothin' but quiet an' lambs an' birds an' things growin.' Me, I likes things goin' on. I likes people an' 'and organs an' 'buses. I'd stay 'ere—same as I toldyou," with a jerk of her hand toward Dart.
"An' do things in the court—ifI 'ad a bit o' money. I don't want to live no gay life when I'm a woman. It's too 'ard. Us pore uns ends too bad. Wisht I knowed I could get on some'ow."
"Good'll come," said Miss Montaubyn. "Just you say the same as me every mornin'—'Good's fillin' the world, an' some of it's comin' to me. It's bein' sent—an' I'm goin' to meet it. It's comin'—it's comin'.'" She bent forward and touched the girl's shoulder with her astonishing eyes alight. "Bless yer, wot's in my room's in yours; Lor', yes."
Glad's eyes stared into hers, they became mysteriously, almost awesomely, astonishing also.
"Is it?" she breathed in a hushed voice.
"Yes, Lor', yes! When yer get up in the mornin' you just stand still an'arstit. 'Speak, Lord,' ses you; 'speak, Lord—'"
"Thy servant 'eareth," ended Glad's hushed speech. "Blimme, but I'm goin' to try it!"
Perhaps the brain of her saw it still as an incantation, perhaps the soul of her, called up strangely out of the dark and still new-born and blind and vague, saw it vaguely and half blindly as something else.
Dart was wondering which of these things were true.
"We've never been expectin' nothin' that's good," said Miss Montaubyn. "We're allus expectin' the other. Who isn't? I was allus expectin' rheumatiz an' 'unger an'cold an' starvin' old age. Wot was you lookin' for?" to Dart.
He looked down on the floor and answered heavily.
"Failing brain—failing life—despair—death!"
"None of 'em's comin'—if yer don't call 'em. Stand still an' listen for the other. It's the other that'strue."
She was without doubt amazing. She chirped like a bird singing on a bough, rejoicing in token of the shining of the sun.
"It's wot yer can work on—this," said Glad. "The curick—'e's a good sort an' no' 'arm in 'im—but 'e ses: 'Trouble an' 'unger is ter teach yer ter submit. Accidents an' coughs as tears yer lungs is sentyou to prepare yer for 'eaven. If yer loves 'Im as sends 'em, yer'll go there.' ''Ave yer ever bin?' ses I. ''Ave yer ever saw anyone that's bin? 'Ave yer ever saw anyone that's saw anyone that's bin?' 'No,' 'e ses. 'Don't, me girl, don't!' 'Garn,' I ses; 'tell me somethin' as'll do me some good afore I'm dead! 'Eaven's too far off.'"
"The kingdom of 'eaven is at 'and," said Miss Montaubyn. "Bless yer, yes, just 'ere."
Antony Dart glanced round the room. It was a strange place. But somethingwashere. Magic, was it? Frenzy—dreams—what?
He heard from below a sudden murmur and crying out in the street. Miss Montaubyn heard itand stopped in her sewing, holding her needle and thread extended.
Glad heard it and sprang to her feet.
"Somethin's 'appened," she cried out. "Someone's 'urt."
She was out of the room in a breath's space. She stood outside listening a few seconds and darted back to the open door, speaking through it. They could hear below commotion, exclamations, the wail of a child.
"Somethin's 'appened to Bet!" she cried out again. "I can 'ear the child."
She was gone and flying down the staircase; Antony Dart and Miss Montaubyn rose together. The tumult was increasing; people wererunning about in the court, and it was plain a crowd was forming by the magic which calls up crowds as from nowhere about the door. The child's screams rose shrill above the noise. It was no small thing which had occurred.
"I must go," said Miss Montaubyn, limping away from her table. "P'raps I can 'elp. P'raps you can 'elp, too," as he followed her.
They were met by Glad at the threshold. She had shot back to them, panting.
"She was blind drunk," she said, "an' she went out to get more. She tried to cross the street an' fell under a car She'll be dead in five minits. I'm goin' for the biby."
Dart saw Miss Montaubyn step back into her room. He turned involuntarily to look at her.
She stood still a second—so still that it seemed as if she was not drawing mortal breath. Her astonishing, expectant eyes closed themselves, and yet in closing spoke expectancy still.
"Speak, Lord," she said softly, but as if she spoke to Something whose nearness to her was such that her hand might have touched it. "Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth."
Antony Dart almost felt his hair rise. He quaked as she came near, her poor clothes brushing against him. He drew back to let her pass first, and followed her leading.
The court was filled with men,women, and children, who surged about the doorway, talking, crying, and protesting against each other's crowding. Dart caught a glimpse of a policeman fighting his way through with a doctor. A dishevelled woman with a child at her dirty, bare breast had got in and was talking loudly.
"Just outside the court it was," she proclaimed, "an' I saw it. If she'd bin 'erself it couldn't 'ave 'appened. 'No time for 'osspitles,' ses I. She's not twenty breaths to dror; let 'er die in 'er own bed, pore thing!" And both she and her baby breaking into wails at one and the same time, other women, some hysteric, some maudlin with gin, joined them in a terrified outburst.
"Get out, you women," commanded the doctor, who had forced his way across the threshold. "Send them away, officer," to the policeman.
There were others to turn out of the room itself, which was crowded with morbid or terrified creatures, all making for confusion. Glad had seized the child and was forcing her way out into such air as there was outside.
The bed—a strange and loathly thing—stood by the empty, rusty fireplace. Drunken Bet lay on it, a bundle of clothing over which the doctor bent for but a few minutes before he turned away.
Antony Dart, standing near the door, heard Miss Montaubyn speak to him in a whisper.
"May I go to 'er?" and the doctor nodded.
She limped lightly forward and her small face was white, but expectant still. What could she expect now—O Lord, what?
An extraordinary thing happened. An abnormal silence fell. The owners of such faces as on stretched necks caught sight of her seemed in a flash to communicate with others in the crowd.
"Jinny Montaubyn!" someone whispered. And "Jinny Montaubyn" was passed along, leaving an awed stirring in its wake. Those whom the pressure outside had crushed against the wall near the window in a passionate hurry, breathed on and rubbed the panes that theymight lay their faces to them. One tore out the rags stuffed in a broken place and listened breathlessly.
Jinny Montaubyn was kneeling down and laying her small old hand on the muddied forehead. She held it there a second or so and spoke in a voice whose low clearness brought back at once to Dart the voice in which she had spoken to the Something upstairs.
"Bet," she said, "Bet." And then more soft still and yet more clear, "Bet, my dear."
It seemed incredible, but it was a fact. Slowly the lids of the woman's eyes lifted and the pupils fixed themselves on Jinny Montaubyn, who leaned still closer and spoke again.
"'T ain't true," she said. "Notthis. 'T ain'ttrue. Thereis no death," slow and soft, but passionately distinct."There—is—no—death."
"There—is—no—death."
"There—is—no—death."
The muscles of the woman's face twisted it into a rueful smile. The three words she dragged out were so faint that perhaps none but Dart's strained ears heard them.
"Wot—price—me?"
The soul of her was loosening fast and straining away, but Jinny Montaubyn followed it.
"There—is—no—death,"and her low voice had the tone of a slender silver trumpet. "In a minit yer'll know—in a minit. Lord," lifting her expectant face, "show her the wye."
Mysteriously the clouds were clearing from the sodden face—mysteriously. Miss Montaubyn watched them as they were swept away! A minute—two minutes—and they were gone. Then she rose noiselessly and stood looking down, speaking quite simply as if to herself.
"Ah," she breathed, "shedoesknow now—fer sure an' certain."
Then Antony Dart, turning slightly, realized that a man who had entered the house and been standing near him, breathing with light quickness, since the moment Miss Montaubyn had knelt, was plainly the person Glad had called the "curick," and that he had bowed his head and covered his eyes with a hand which trembled.
He was a young man with an eager soul, and his work in Apple Blossom Court and places like it had torn him many ways. Religious conventions established through centuries of custom had not prepared him for life among the submerged. He had struggled and been appalled, he had wrestled in prayer and felt himself unanswered, and in repentance of the feeling had scourged himself with thorns. Miss Montaubyn, returning from the hospital, had filled him at first with horror and protest.
"But who knows—who knows?" he said to Dart, as they stood and talked together afterward, "Faith asa little child. That is literally hers. And I was shocked by it—and tried to destroy it, until I suddenly saw what I was doing. I was—in my cloddish egotism—trying to show her that she was irreverentbecauseshe could believe what in my soul I do not, though I dare not admit so much even to myself. She took from some strange passing visitor to her tortured bedside what was to her a revelation. She heard it first as a child hears a story of magic. When she came out of the hospital, she told it as if it was one. I—I—" he bit his lips and moistened them, "argued with her and reproached her. Christ the Merciful, forgive me! She sat in her squalid little room with her magic—sometimesin the dark—sometimes without fire, and she clung to it, and loved it and asked it to help her, as a child asks its father for bread. When she was answered—and God forgive me again for doubting that the simple good that came to herwasan answer—when any small help came to her, she was a radiant thing, and without a shadow of doubt in her eyes told me of it as proof—proof that she had been heard. When things went wrong for a day and the fire was out again and the room dark, she said, 'I 'aven't kept near enough—I 'aven't trustedtrue. It will be gave me soon,' and when once at such a time I said to her, 'We must learn to say, Thy will be done,' she smiled up at me like a happy baby and answered:'Thy will be done on earthas it is in 'eaven. Lor', there's no cold there, nor no 'unger nor no cryin' nor pain. That's the way the will is done in 'eaven. That's wot I arst for all day long—for it to be done on earth as it is in 'eaven.' What could I say? Could I tell her that the will of the Deity on the earth he created was only the will to do evil—to give pain—to crush the creature made in His own image. What else do we mean when we say under all horror and agony that befalls, 'It is God's will—God's will be done.' Base unbeliever though I am, I could not speak the words. Oh, she has something we have not. Her poor, little misspent life has changed itself into a shining thing, though it shinesand glows only in this hideous place. She herself does not know of its shining. But Drunken Bet would stagger up to her room and ask to be told what she called her 'pantermine' stories. I have seen her there sitting listening—listening with strange quiet on her and dull yearning in her sodden eyes. So would other and worse women go to her, and I, who had struggled with them, could see that she had reached some remote longing in their beings which I had never touched. In time the seed would have stirred to life—it is beginning to stir even now. During the months since she came back to the court—though they have laughed at her—both men and women have begun to see her as a creature weirdlyset apart. Most of them feel something like awe of her; they half believe her prayers to be bewitchments, but they want them on their side. They have never wanted mine. That I have known—known. She believes that her Deity is in Apple Blossom Court—in the dire holes its people live in, on the broken stairway, in every nook and awful cranny of it—great Glory we will not see—only waiting to be called and to answer. DoIbelieve it—do you—do any of those anointed of us who preach each day so glibly 'God iseverywhere'? Who is the one who believes? If there were such a man he would go about as Moses did when 'He wist not that his face shone.'"
They had gone out together andwere standing in the fog in the court. The curate removed his hat and passed his handkerchief over his damp forehead, his breath coming and going almost sobbingly, his eyes staring straight before him into the yellowness of the haze.
"Who," he said after a moment of singular silence, "who are you?"
Antony Dart hesitated a few seconds, and at the end of his pause he put his hand into his overcoat pocket.
"If you will come upstairs with me to the room where the girl Glad lives, I will tell you," he said, "but before we go I want to hand something over to you."
The curate turned an amazed gaze upon him.
"What is it?" he asked.
Dart withdrew his hand from his pocket, and the pistol was in it.
"I came out this morning to buy this," he said. "I intended—never mind what I intended. A wrong turn taken in the fog brought me here. Take this thing from me and keep it."
The curate took the pistol and put it into his own pocket without comment. In the course of his labors he had seen desperate men and desperate things many times. He had even been—at moments—a desperate man thinking desperate things himself, though no human being had ever suspected the fact. This man had faced some tragedy, he could see. Had he been on the verge of a crime—hadhe looked murder in the eyes? What had made him pause? Was it possible that the dream of Jinny Montaubyn being in the air had reached his brain—his being?
He looked almost appealingly at him, but he only said aloud:
"Let us go upstairs, then."
So they went.
As they passed the door of the room where the dead woman lay Dart went in and spoke to Miss Montaubyn, who was still there.
"If there are things wanted here," he said, "this will buy them." And he put some money into her hand.
She did not seem surprised at the incongruity of his shabbiness producing money.
"Well, now," she said, "Iwaswonderin' an' askin'. I'd like 'er clean an' nice, an' there's milk wanted bad for the biby."
In the room they mounted to Glad was trying to feed the child with bread softened in tea. Polly sat near her looking on with restless, eager eyes. She had never seen anything of her own baby but its limp new-born and dead body being carried away out of sight. She had not even dared to ask what was done with such poor little carrion. The tyranny of the law of life made her want to paw and touch this lately born thing, as her agony had given her no fruit of her own body to touch and paw and nuzzle and caress as mother creatures will whether they be women or tigresses or doves or female cats.
"Let me hold her, Glad," she half whimpered. "When she's fed let me get her to sleep."
"All right," Glad answered; "we could look after 'er between us well enough."
The thief was still sitting on the hearth, but being full fed and comfortable for the first time in many a day, he had rested his head against the wall and fallen into profound sleep.
"Wot's up?" said Glad when the two men came in. "Is anythin' 'appenin'?"
"I have come up here to tell you something," Dart answered. "Let us sit down again round the fire. It will take a little time."
Glad with eager eyes on himhanded the child to Polly and sat down without a moment's hesitance, avid of what was to come. She nudged the thief with friendly elbow and he started up awake.
"'E's got somethin' to tell us," she explained. "The curick's come up to 'ear it, too. Sit 'ere, Polly," with elbow jerk toward the bundle of sacks. "It's got its stummick full an' it'll go to sleep fast enough."
So they sat again in the weird circle. Neither the strangeness of the group nor the squalor of the hearth were of a nature to be new things to the curate. His eyes fixed themselves on Dart's face, as did the eyes of the thief, the beggar, and the young thing of the street. No one glanced away from him.
His telling of his story was almost monotonous in its semi-reflective quietness of tone. The strangeness to himself—though it was a strangeness he accepted absolutely without protest—lay in his telling it at all, and in a sense of his knowledge that each of these creatures would understand and mysteriously know what depths he had touched this day.
"Just before I left my lodgings this morning," he said, "I found myself standing in the middle of my room and speaking to Something aloud. I did not know I was going to speak. I did not know what I was speaking to. I heard my own voice cry out in agony, 'Lord, Lord, what shall I do to be saved?'"
The curate made a sudden movement in his place and his sallow young face flushed. But he said nothing.
Glad's small and sharp countenance became curious.
"'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,'" she quoted tentatively.
"No," answered Dart; "it was not like that. I had never thought of such things. I believed nothing. I was going out to buy a pistol and when I returned intended to blow my brains out."
"Why?" asked Glad, with passionately intent eyes; "why?"
"Because I was worn out and done for, and all the world seemed worn out and done for. And among other things I believed I was beginning slowly to go mad."
From the thief there burst forth a low groan and he turned his face to the wall.
"I've been there," he said; "I'm near there now."
Dart took up speech again.
"There was no answer—none. As I stood waiting—God knows for what—the dead stillness of the room was like the dead stillness of the grave. And I went out saying to my soul, 'This is what happens to the fool who cries aloud in his pain.'"
"I've cried aloud," said the thief, "and sometimes it seemed as if an answer was coming—but I always knew it never would!" in a tortured voice.
"'T ain't fair to arst that wye," Glad put in with shrewd logic."Miss Montaubyn she allers knows itwillcome—an' it does."
"Something—not myself—turned my feet toward this place," said Dart. "I was thrust from one thing to another. I was forced to see and hear things close at hand. It has been as if I was under a spell. The woman in the room below—the woman lying dead!" He stopped a second, and then went on: "There is too much that is crying out aloud. A man such as I am—it hasforceditself upon me—cannot leave such things and give himself to the dust. I cannot explain clearly because I am not thinking as I am accustomed to think. A change has come upon me. I shall not use the pistol—as I meant to use it."
Glad made a friendly clutch at the sleeve of his shabby coat.
"Right O!" she cried. "That's it! You buck up sime as I told yer. Y' ain't stony broke an' there's allers to-morrer."
Antony Dart's expression was weirdly retrospective.
"I did not think so this morning," he answered.
"But there is," said the girl. "Ain't there now, curick? There's a lot o' work in yer yet; yer could do all sorts o' things if y' ain't too proud. I'll 'elp yer. So'll the curick. Y' ain't found out yet what a little folks can live on till luck turns. Me, I'm goin' to try Miss Montaubyn's wye. Le's both try. Le's believe things is comin'.Le's get 'er to talk to us some more."
The curate was thinking the thing over deeply.
"Yer see," Glad enlarged cheerfully, "yer look almost like a gentleman. P'raps yer can write a good 'and an' spell all right. Can yer?"
"Yes."
"I think, perhaps," the curate began reflectively, "particularly if you can write well, I might be able to get you some work."
"I do not want work," Dart answered slowly. "At least I do not want the kind you would be likely to offer me."
The curate felt a shock, as if cold water had been dashed over him. Somehow it had not once occurredto him that the man could be one of the educated degenerate vicious for whom no power to help lay in any hands—yet he was not the common vagrant—and he was plainly on the point of producing an excuse for refusing work.
The other man, seeing his start and his amazed, troubled flush, put out a hand and touched his arm apologetically.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "One of the things I was going to tell you—I had not finished—was that Iamwhat is called a gentleman. I am also what the world knows as a rich man. I am Sir Oliver Holt."
Each member of the party gazed at him aghast. It was an enormous name to claim. Even the two femalecreatures knew what it stood for. It was the name which represented the greatest wealth and power in the world of finance and schemes of business. It stood for financial influence which could change the face of national fortunes and bring about crises. It was known throughout the world. Yesterday the newspaper rumor that its owner had mysteriously left England had caused men on 'Change to discuss possibilities together with lowered voices.
Glad stared at the curate. For the first time she looked disturbed and alarmed.
"Blimme," she ejaculated, "'e's gone off 'is nut, pore chap!—'e's gone off it!"
"No," the man answered, "youshall come to me"—he hesitated a second while a shade passed over his eyes—"to-morrow. And you shall see."
He rose quietly to his feet and the curate rose also. Abnormal as the climax was, it was to be seen that there was no mistake about the revelation. The man was a creature of authority and used to carrying conviction by his unsupported word. That made itself, by some clear, unspoken method, plain.
"You are Sir Oliver Holt! And a few hours ago you were on the point of—"
"And a few hours ago you were on the point of—"
"And a few hours ago you were on the point of—"
"Ending it all—in an obscure lodging. Afterward the earth would have been shovelled on to a work-house coffin. It was an awful thing." He shook off a passionate shudder. "There was no wealth on earth that could give me a moment's ease—sleep—hope—life. The whole world was full of things I loathed the sight and thought of. The doctors said my condition was physical. Perhaps it was—perhaps to-day has strangely given a healthful jolt to my nerves—perhaps I have been dragged away from the agony of morbidity and plunged into new intense emotions which have saved me from the last thing and the worst—savedme!"
He stopped suddenly and his face flushed, and then quite slowly turned pale.
"Saved me!" he repeated the words as the curate saw the awed bloodcreepingly recede. "Who knows, who knows! How many explanations one is ready to give before one thinks of what we say we believe. Perhaps it was—the Answer!"
The curate bowed his head reverently.
"Perhaps it was."
The girl Glad sat clinging to her knees, her eyes wide and awed and with a sudden gush of hysteric tears rushing down her cheeks.
"That's the wye! That's the wye!" she gulped out. "No one won't never believe—they won't,never. That's what she sees, Miss Montaubyn. You don't,'edon't," with a jerk toward the curate. "I ain't nothin' butme, but blimme if I don't—blimme!"
Sir Oliver Holt grew paler still. He felt as he had done when Jinny Montaubyn's poor dress swept against him. His voice shook when he spoke.
"So do I," he said with a sudden deep catch of the breath; "it was the Answer."
In a few moments more he went to the girl Polly and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"I shall take you home to your mother," he said. "I shall take you myself and care for you both. She shall know nothing you are afraid of her hearing. I shall ask her to bring up the child. You will help her."
Then he touched the thief, who got up white and shaking and with eyes moist with excitement.
"You shall never see another man claim your thought because you have not time or money to work it out. You will go with me. There are to-morrows enough for you!"
Glad still sat clinging to her knees and with tears running, but the ugliness of her sharp, small face was a thing an angel might have paused to see.
"You don't want to go away from here," Sir Oliver said to her, and she shook her head.
"No, not me. I told yer wot I wanted. Lemme do it."
"You shall," he answered, "and I will help you."
The things which developed in Apple Blossom Court later, the thingswhich came to each of those who had sat in the weird circle round the fire, the revelations of new existence which came to herself, aroused no amazement in Jinny Montaubyn's mind. She had asked and believed all things—and all this was but another of the Answers.