It was the morning of Trinity Sunday, and Worcester Cathedral was crowded by a congregation which, if it had been an audience in an unconsecrated building, could have been justly described as brilliant.
Trinity Sunday is usually what may, without irreverence, be called more or less of a show Sunday in all churches. To-day all the clerical light and learning of the diocese was gathered together in the grand old Cathedral. The various portions of the service were to be conducted by clergy of high rank and notable social position. No one under the rank of a Canon, at least, would take any part in the proceedings.
The first lesson would be read by the Vicar of Bedminster, who was also a Canon of the Cathedral, and the second by Canon Thornton-Moore, whose acquaintance the reader has already made at Garthorne Abbey. Both of them were men of dignified presence, and both possessed good voices and a careful elocutionary training.
The Epistle and Gospel would be read by the Archdeacon and the Dean. Organ and choir were tuned to a perfection of harmony. And finally the Bishop would preach. After that would come the administration of the Sacrament to those whohad not received it at the early service, for Trinity Sunday is accredited one of those three days on which, at least, the faithful member of the Anglican Church shall communicate. Then, the communion over, the Bishop would hold an Ordination, in consideration of which he had thoughtfully and thankfully curtailed his eloquence in the pulpit.
At this ordination Mark Ernshaw, who had already won fame both as an earnest and utterly self-sacrificing missionary, in the moral and spiritual wilds of East and South London, and also as a preacher who could fill any West End Church to suffocation, was to be admitted to full orders in company with his friend, Vane Maxwell, who was so far unknown to fame save for the fact that he was locally known as one of the dwellers in the Retreat among the hills, and, therefore, as one who had sat at the feet of the far-famed Father Philip, who himself had to-day made one of his rare appearances in the world, and was occupying one of the Canons' stalls in the chancel.
All the Clergy at the Retreat were popularly supposed to have "a past" of some sort, and as Vane had come from there and was also credited with being young and exceedingly good-looking—some of the lady visitors to the Retreat had described him as possessing "an almost saintlike beauty, my dear"—he also was a focus of interest. Moreover, he was known to have taken a brilliant degree at Oxford, and to have had equally brilliant worldly prospects which he had suddenly and unaccountably relinquished to go into the Church.
Thus it came to pass that a very different and much more numerous congregation witnessed this ceremonial than the one which had taken place at the same altar rails a little more than a twelvemonth before.
Of course, all the party from the Abbey were present, including Sir Reginald, who had come down for a few days from town. Enid and her husband had communicated. It was their first communion since their marriage. Then they had gone back to their places to await the ordination.
In one of the front rows of the transept seats there was a tall, well-dressed girl, very pretty, with dark, deep, serious eyes which, in the intervals of the service she had several times raised and turned on Enid and her husband, who were sitting on the same side towards the front, in the body of the Cathedral. She was the very last person in the world, saving only, perhaps, Carol herself, whom Garthorne would have wished to see just then and there, and as soon as he had made sure that Dora Murray really was sitting within a few yards of him he began to be haunted by ugly fears of blackmail and exposure—which showed how very little he had learnt of Dora's character during the time that Carol had shared the flat with her.
But Dora's thoughts were very different, for they were all of fear, mingled with something like horror. She looked at the sweet-faced girl sitting beside Reginald Garthorne, and thought of the ruin and desolation that would fall upon her young life, with all its brilliant outward promise, if she only knew what she could have told her. She looked at her husband and wondered what all these good people—most of whom would have given almost anything for an invitation to his home—what these grave-faced, decorous clergy, too, would think if they could see him as she had seen him only a few months before. There was Sir Arthur Maxwell, too, sitting a little farther on, and beside him Sir Godfrey and Lady Raleigh, though, ofcourse, she did not know them, but she guessed who they were, and close to Sir Arthur sat Sir Reginald, his host for the time being.
The whole of the Abbey party had communicated together. What would happen if she were to go to Sir Arthur after the service, and tell him what Carol had told her, if he were to learn that he had been kneeling at the altar rails beside the betrayer of his wife and the dishonourer of his name?
When she had seen Sir Reginald rise from his seat and go with the rest of the party across the centre transept to the chancel, she needed all her self-control to shut her teeth and clench her hands and prevent herself from leaving her seat and accusing him of his infamy before clergy and congregation. She thought thankfully how good a thing it was that Carol, with her fierce impetuosity and sense of bitter wrong, was not there too. There was no telling what disaster might have happened, how many lives might have been wrecked by the words which she might have flung out at him, red-hot from her angry heart.
In her way Dora was a really religious girl, as many of her class are. So religious, indeed, that she would not have dared to have approached the altar herself; because she knew that for her, wedded as she was to the pleasant careless life she led, repentance and reform were quite out of the question.
She saw no incongruity at all in this. She went to church regularly in London, offered up as simple and as earnest prayers as anyone; lifted up her beautiful voice in the hymns and psalms and responses in honest forgetfulness of the things of yesterday and to-morrow, and, for the time being at least, took the lessons of the sermon to heartwith a simple faith which many of her respectable sisters in the congregation were far from feeling.
In short, though the circumstances were different, she was very much in the position of the average respectable, well-to-do church-going Christian who will strive all the week, often by quite questionable methods, to lay up for himself and his wife and family treasures upon earth, and then on Sunday go to church and listen with the most perfect honesty and the most undisturbed equanimity to the reading of the Sermon on the Mount.
But when she saw Sir Reginald go with his son and his daughter-in-law, with her parents and Vane's father up through the chancel where Vane was sitting, her heart turned sick in her breast. The sacrilege, the blasphemy of it all seemed horrible beyond belief. Again and again the words rose to her lips. Again and again an almost irresistible impulse impelled her to get up, and she was only saved from doing what all that was best in her nature urged her to do, by the knowledge that, after all, she might only be expelled from the Cathedral by the Vergers, and perhaps prosecuted afterwards for brawling. Then her real story would come out.
She was visiting her parents who lived in Worcester, and who believed that she was conducting a little millinery business in London. She had great natural skill in designing head-gear—her own hat, for instance, had been gazed on by many an envious eye since the service began—and she would have bitten her tongue through, rather than say a word which would have undeceived them. And so for this reason as well she held her peace.
Then she had heard the sonorous voice of the officiating priest rolling down the chancel:
"Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in His holy way, draw near with faith and take this Holy Sacrament to your comfort."
"Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in His holy way, draw near with faith and take this Holy Sacrament to your comfort."
Then came the general confession, and as she followed it in her prayer-book she thought of that unconfessed, though, perhaps, not unrepented sin of which she alone, save Sir Reginald, in all that great congregation knew. How could this man kneel there and say these solemn words, before he had confessed his sin to the man he had wronged, to the husband from whom he had stolen a wife, to the son he had deprived of a mother? What horrible mockery and blasphemy it all was! Surely some day some terrible retribution must fall on him for this.
After the Eucharist followed, as usual on such occasions, the Ordination Service. She had never seen Vane before, but when some of the congregation had left after the Communion Service, she left her seat and took a vacant one in front of the chancel, and then, even at some distance, she recognised him immediately by his likeness to Carol. It seemed to her that she had never seen anything so beautiful in human shape when he rose in his surplice and stole and hood to take his place before the Bishop at the altar-rail. And yet how different must her thoughts have been from Enid's, as they both looked upon the kneeling figure and listened to the words which were the actual fulfilment of the vow that he had taken to take up his cross and follow Him who said: "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."
Then, in due course, came the fateful words, more full of fate, so far as they concerned Vane, than any who knew him in the congregation had any idea of.
"Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands from God. Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his Holy Sacraments; in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen!"
"Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained!"
Saving only Vane himself, these words had a deeper meaning for Dora, the Magdalen, the sinner, and the outcast, than they had for anyone else in the congregation, and in one sense they meant even more to her than they could do to him. When he rose from his knees before the altar rails, he would rise invested, as she believed, by the authority of God through the Church, with a power infinitely greater than that of any earthly judge. It was his to forgive or retain, his to pardon or to damn. That, to her simple reasoning, was the absolute meaning of the words as the Bishop had spoken them.
Some day it might happen that Carol would be confronted with the man whom she believed to be her father. What if she were to bring Vane face to face with him and he knew him for what he was, what would he do, not as man, but as priest—forgive or retain, absolve or damn?
When the ordination service was over and the congregation was moving out of the Cathedral,Sir Arthur caught sight of Dora for the first time. They were only a few feet apart, and recognition was inevitable. She looked at him as though she had never seen him before, although she had been present at more than one interview between him and Carol at Melville Gardens, but Sir Arthur at once edged his way towards her, shook hands in that decorous fashion which is usual among departing congregations, and said, in an equally decorous whisper:
"Good morning, Miss Murray! I hope you have not come here by accident, and that you will be able to give me some news of Carol. We have looked for you everywhere."
"Except perhaps in the right place," she murmured, putting her hand into his, "and if you had found us I don't think it would have been of any use. Carol's mind was quite made up. My address is 15, Stonebridge Street, if you wish to write to me. Good morning."
And then they parted, he to go his way and she to go hers, and each with an infinite pity for the other, and yet with what different reasons? It was only a chance meeting, the accidental crossing of two widely diverging life-paths; only one of those instances in which romance delights to mock the commonplace, and yet how much it meant—and how much might it mean when the future had become the present.
Fortunately, Garthorne and Enid had been pressing on in front, and so he had not noticed the meeting between Sir Arthur and Dora, whereby the second possible catastrophe of the day was averted.
Sir Arthur was one of the house-party at the Abbey, for he and Sir Reginald had been to a certain extent colleagues in India, and had keptup their acquaintance, and now that Sir Reginald's son had married the girl whom Sir Arthur had always looked upon as a prospective daughter-in-law, the intimacy had become somewhat closer. Sir Arthur had said frankly at the first that he thought Vane had done an exceedingly foolish thing; but since he had done it and meant to stick to it, there was an end of the matter, and if Vane couldn't or wouldn't marry Enid, he would, after all, rather see her the wife of his old friend's son than anybody else's. He had, therefore, willingly accepted Sir Reginald's invitation to spend a few days at the Abbey and witness his son's admission to the full orders of the priesthood.
Vane and Ernshaw, after exchanging greetings and receiving congratulations, declined Sir Reginald's invitation to dine and sleep at the Abbey, and went straight back to the Retreat with Father Philip.
It happened that, somewhat late that night after their guests had gone to bed, Reginald Garthorne had a couple of rather important letters to write, and sat up to get them finished. When he had sealed and stamped them, he took them to the post-box in the hall. The postman's lock-up bag was standing on the hall table, and, as he knew there wouldn't be any more letters that night, he thought he might as well put what there were there into the bag and lock it with his own key. He took them out in a handful, but before he could put them into the bag they slipped and scattered on to the table. He bent down to gather them up, and there, right under his eyes, was an envelope addressed in Sir Arthur Maxwell's handwriting to Miss Dora Murray, 15 Stonebridge Street, Worcester. He would have given a thousand pounds to know what that thin paper cover concealed. The thought half entered his mind to take it away and steam it, read the letter, and then put it back again; but he was not without his own notions of honour, and he dismissed the thought before it was fully formed. He contented himself with taking out his pencil and copying the address, and as he put the letters into the bag and locked it he said to himself:
"Well, I was wondering at service what in the name of all that's unlucky brought that girl down here just now, and I suppose I shall have to find out. But what the deuce does the old man want writing to her? A nice thing if they were to discover the lost Miss Carol and present her to the world as Vane's half-sister, and then the rest of the story came out. What an almighty fool I was to do that. If I'd only known that Enid really would have me—but it's no use grizzling over that. I shall have to find out what that young woman wants down in this part of the world, and why Sir Arthur should be writing to her, that's quite certain."
Among Garthorne's letters the next morning there chanced to be one from his solicitor in Worcester, and so this made an excellent excuse for him to get away for the day. Enid was going to drive Sir Arthur and Sir Reginald over to the Retreat, so he ordered the dogcart to take him to Kidderminster, whence he took train for Worcester.
He knew enough of Dora's circumstances with regard to her parents to recognise the imprudence of calling upon her without notice, and so he lunched at the Mitre Hotel, and sent a messenger with a note asking her to meet him at three o'clock on the River Walk. The messenger was instructed to wait for an answer if Miss Murray was in.
Miss Murray was in, and when she read the note her first notion was that Garthorne had by some means got an inkling of the truth, or, at the least, had discovered that she was in communication with Sir Arthur Maxwell and wished to know the reason. She made up her mind at once to hold her tongue on both subjects, but at the same time, she felt that it would hardly be wise to refuse to meet him. It must also be admitted that she also was possessed by a pardonable, because feminine, curiosity as to what he wanted with her. She felt,however, that in such a place as Worcester it would be most imprudent for her to meet a man so well known in the County as Reginald Garthorne on one of the public thoroughfares, and so she wrote her answer as follows:—
"Dear Mr. Garthorne,"I have no idea why you should wish to see me, and I do not think that it would be prudent to meet you as you suggest. You know how I am situated here, and so I think it would be best, if you really must speak to me, as you say, for you to come and see me here, not under your own name, of course, as that is much too well known. I would therefore suggest that you should call yourself Mr. Johnson, and I will say that you are a representative of one of the big millinery houses in London, and that you have come to see me on business. I shall wait in for you till three."Yours sincerely,"Dora Murray."
"Dear Mr. Garthorne,
"I have no idea why you should wish to see me, and I do not think that it would be prudent to meet you as you suggest. You know how I am situated here, and so I think it would be best, if you really must speak to me, as you say, for you to come and see me here, not under your own name, of course, as that is much too well known. I would therefore suggest that you should call yourself Mr. Johnson, and I will say that you are a representative of one of the big millinery houses in London, and that you have come to see me on business. I shall wait in for you till three.
"Yours sincerely,"Dora Murray."
Garthorne saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and "Mr. Johnson" announced himself at half past two. Dora received him alone in a little back sitting-room, but his reception was not altogether encouraging, for when he held out his hand and said "Good afternoon, Dora!" she flushed a little, and affecting not to see his hand, she said:
"Miss Murray, if you please, Mr. Garthorne, now and for the future. You seem to have forgotten that, for me, at least, Worcester is not London."
He was so completely taken aback by this utterly unexpected speech, as well as by the unwonted tone in which it was spoken, that his outstretched hand dropped to his side somewhatlimply, and he felt himself straightening up and staring at her in blank astonishment.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Murray," he said, in a tone which sounded a great deal more awkward than he meant it to do. "Of course, I was quite wrong; I ought not to have forgotten."
"There is no necessity for an apology," she said, more distantly than before. "Will you sit down? You want to see me about something, I suppose?"
"Yes," he said, sitting down and fingering the brim of his hat somewhat nervously. "Yes, that is what I have come over to Worcester for. In fact, I have been wanting to see you for some time. In the first place, I had a rather extraordinary letter from Carol some time ago, sending back some money which I, of course, can't accept, so I've brought it with me to ask you to take it and use it in any way that you think fit."
"You mean, of course, in charity?" said Dora, looking him straight in the eyes. "You wouldn't insult me by meaning it in any other way."
"Oh, no, certainly not," he said, more awkwardly than before, and wondering what on earth had produced this extraordinary change in her manner. "I hope you know me well enough to believe me quite incapable of such a thing."
"If you only knew how well I know you!" thought Dora, "I wonder what you'd think?"
But she said aloud, and rather more kindly than before:
"You must forgive me, Mr. Garthorne, I spoke rather hastily then. I quite see what you mean. It's very good of you, and I'm sure that if Carol were here she would tell me to take the money and use it that way—so I will."
"Thank you very much, Miss Murray," he replied, taking an envelope out of his pocket-book."There are the notes and postal orders exactly as she sent them to me. And now, may I ask where she is?"
"I can't answer that, Mr. Garthorne, because I don't know. The night that she sent you that money back she made the acquaintance of a very nice fellow who is something more than a millionaire, and since then they've been taking a sort of irregular honeymoon round the world. The last letter I had from her was from Sydney. She seems very jolly and enjoying herself immensely."
"Glad to hear it," said Garthorne, speaking the thing which was not altogether true. "She's a jolly girl, and deserves the best of luck—which she seems to have got. And the millionaire——?"
Dora shook her head, and said quietly but decisively.
"No, Mr. Garthorne, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him. It would be a breach of confidence if I did, and so I'm sure you won't ask for it. Do you want to ask me about anything else?"
"Yes," he said, hesitatingly, "I do." There was a little pause, during which they looked at each other, he enquiringly and she absolutely impassive. Then he went on: "Of course, you saw us in the Cathedral yesterday, and I think you know Sir Arthur Maxwell personally. You met him once or twice when he went to call on Carol at Melville Gardens."
"Yes."
Then there was another pause, and, as Garthorne didn't seem able to find anything to say, Dora went on speaking very quietly, but with a curious note of restraint in her voice which puzzled him considerably.
"I do know Sir Arthur, and I tried hard topersuade Carol to do what he wanted her to do, although, all the same, I think I should have done as she did if I had been her. I don't know whether you saw Sir Arthur speak to me in the Cathedral as we were coming out, but he did. I have had a letter from him this morning, and he is coming to see me."
"Of course, you are not going to say anything——"
"No, sir, I am not," said Dora, rising from her chair white to the lips and with an ominous glitter in her eyes. She took up the envelope which Garthorne had laid on the table, and tossed it at him. "You know me for what I am in London, and it seems that you only look upon me as an animal to be hired for the amusement of people like you, not as a woman who still has her notions of honour. That is an insult which I cannot pardon. You behaved well, as things go, to Carol, but you have now shown me that, whatever you are in name and family, you are in yourself an unspeakable cad. You came here thinking that I was going to blackmail you because I happened to know something about you which you would not like your wife to know. If you only knew what I could tell you——"
And then she checked herself, and after a little pause, she pointed to the door and said:
"You have got your money, Mr. Garthorne, and there is the door. You will oblige me by leaving the house as soon as possible."
"But really, Miss Murray——" he began, as he rose, not a little bewildered, from his chair.
"Stop!" she said. "In mercy to yourself and your wife, stop! There is the door; go, and remember that from now we are strangers, and if ever you meet Carol again—no, I won't say that.God grant that you never may see her again, for if you do——"
"Well, and suppose I do, Miss Murray, what then?" he interrupted, with his hand on the handle of the door. He had never heard such words from the lips of either man or woman before, and that personal vanity which is a characteristic even of the worst of men was grievously outraged.
"Never mind what I mean," she said, cutting him short again. "I have said all that I am going to say except this—if ever you meet Carol again, for her sake and yours, for your wife's and your children's when they come,don't see her. Now go!"
There was a something in her voice and in her manner which said even more than her lips had done. Something which not only struck him dumb for the time being, but which also drove home into his soul a conviction that this girl, outcast and social pariah as she was, not only held his fate in her hands, but that she possessed some unknown power over his destiny, that she knew something which, if spoken, might blast the bright promise of his life and overwhelm him in irretrievable ruin.
She had called him a cad, and as his thoughts flew back to that morning in Vane Maxwell's rooms at Oxford, a pang of self-conviction told him that she had spoken justly. He felt, too, that he was hopelessly in the wrong, that by his suggestion he had sorely insulted her, and that in exchange for his insult she had given him mercy. He would have given anything to know the real meaning of her words, and yet he dare not even ask her.
He looked round at her once and saw her, standing rigid and impassive waiting to be relieved of his presence. His thoughts went back a few months to the times when those little dinners of four had been so pleasant, and when this girl, who was nowlooking at him like an accusing angel, had matched even Carol herself in the gaiety of her conversation and the careless use she made of her mother-wit, and he tried hard to say something which should in some way cover his retreat, but the words wouldn't come, and so he just opened the door and walked out.
Dora heard the street door bang behind him, and then her tensely-strung nerves relaxed. She dropped into an easy chair, clasped her hands over her temples, and whispered:
"Oh dear, oh dear, how is all this going to end, and what would happen if they only knew! And now I've got to see Sir Arthur. Shall I tell him everything or not? No, I daren't, I daren't. It's too awful. Was there ever anything like it in the world before?"
And then her body swayed forward, her elbows dropped on to her knees, her hands clasped her temples tighter, and the next moment she had burst into a passion of tears.
Tears are a torture to men and a relief to women, so in a few minutes she lifted her head again, the storm was over and she began to look the situation over calmly. The more she thought of it the more certain it seemed that she could do nothing but irretrievable mischief by even hinting to Sir Arthur anything of what she knew. At any rate she decided that until Carol came back she would keep her knowledge absolutely to herself.
Then the train of her thoughts was suddenly broken by the postman's knock at the door. There was a London letter addressed to herself in the familiar handwriting of Mr. Bernard Falcon. As she opened it she experienced a singular mixture of relief and vexation, tinged by a suggestion of shame.
The letter began with an inquiry as to when shewas coming back to Town, and ended with an invitation to spend a week end in the round trip from London to Dover, Calais, Boulogne and Folkestone.
She had been nearly a fortnight in Worcester, and, truth to tell, she was getting a little tired of it. Falcon's letter offered her a double relief. It would save her from the ordeal of meeting Sir Arthur, and, combined with the visit of "Mr. Johnson," it would give her a good excuse to her parents for going back to Town at once; so she sat down and wrote two letters, one to Falcon telling him that he could meet her at Paddington the next evening, and the other to Sir Arthur telling him all she knew about Carol, saving only the name of her companion, and regretting that she would not be able to meet him, as she was starting for the Continent that day. For obvious reasons she, of course, said nothing of Garthorne's visit to her.
Sir Arthur was as much disappointed with his letter as Mr. Falcon was pleased by his. Dora left Worcester the day that he received it, and while she was dining with Mr. Falcon at the Globe Restaurant, Sir Arthur was telling Vane and Mark Ernshaw, who had come over to dine and sleep at the Abbey, all that he knew of Miss Carol's latest escapade.
"I'm very, very sorry," said Ernshaw when he had finished. "We've never told you before, Sir Arthur, but I may as well tell you now that, if Miss Vane had not disappeared as mysteriously as she did, Vane was to have introduced me to her, and I was going to marry her if she would have me."
Sir Arthur looked at him in silence for a few moments, and then he took his hand and said:
"I know that is true, Ernshaw, because you have said it; though I would not have believed it fromanyone else except Vane. I would willingly give everything that I possess and go back to work to make such a thing possible, but I'm afraid it isn't, and now, of course, it is more impossible than ever. Frankly, I don't believe she'd have you. It sounds a very curious thing to say, but from what I have seen of her, granted even that she fell in love with you, the more she loved you the more absolutely she would refuse to marry you. You know we offered her everything we could. Vane and I both agreed to acknowledge her and have her to live with us, but it was no use. She refused in such a way that she made me long all the more to take her for my own daughter before the world; but there was no mistaking the refusal, and the day after our last interview she clinched it by vanishing, I suppose with this young millionaire who is with her now. It's very terrible, of course, but there it is. It's done, and I'm afraid there's no mending it. Perhaps, after all, it is better for you that it should be so."
"Yes, Ernshaw," said Vane. "It's not a nice thing to say under the circumstances, but I think the governor's right."
"Possibly, but I don't agree with you," he replied. "You know I am what a good many people would call an enthusiast on the subject of this so-called social evil, for which, as I believe, Society itself is almost entirely to blame, and I am quite prepared to put my views into practice."
"Then," said Sir Arthur, smiling gravely, "I think when we get back to Town I'd better introduce you to Miss Murray, who was living with Carol in Melville Gardens, where I first saw her. She was in the Cathedral on Sunday. Her parents live in Worcester, and they believe, poor people, that she has a little millinery business in London.She says she's going on the Continent, I suppose with this friend of hers. But she has given me an address in London where she can be found.
"Now there, Ernshaw," he went on, "there I believe you would find a far better subject for your social experiment, if you are determined to make it, than poor Carol could ever be. I don't know her history, but she is evidently a lady born and educated. She is quite as good-looking as Carol, only an entirely different type, taller, darker, and with deep, mysterious brown eyes which evidently have a soul behind them. At any rate, I'm quite convinced that she would make a much better social missionary's wife than poor Carol would.
"She, I sadly fear, is 'a daughter of delight,' as the French call them, pure and simple. She told me point blank that she preferred her present mode of life to respectability, and that she considered that taking even my money or Vane's, when she had no real claim upon us, was more degrading and would hurt her self-respect a great deal more than doing what she is doing. In other respects she's as good a girl as ever walked, and as honest as the daylight, but I'm afraid there is no hope of social regeneration for her."
"Hope was once found for one a thousand times worse than she!" said Ernshaw quietly. "But as I have seen neither of them yet, no harm can be done by my making the acquaintance of Miss Murray to begin with."
"Very well," said Sir Arthur, not at all sorry to change the subject. "And now, talking about social missionaries, Vane, have you quite made up your mind to carry out this scheme of yours, this crusade against money-making and the pomps and vanities of Society? Do you really mean to show that your own father has been living in sin all theseyears; that he is not, in fact, a Christian at all, because it is impossible for anyone to be decently well off and a Christian at the same time? A nice sort of thing that, Ernshaw, isn't it?"
"If Vane honestly believes, as he does, that his is the only true definition of a Christian, it is not only his right but his duty to preach it," was the young priest's reply.
"It is my belief," said Vane quietly, "and, God helping me, I will do what I believe to be my duty."
The party at the Abbey broke up a few days after this, and in another week or so Enid and her husband were in the full swing of the great merry-go-round which is called the London season. She was unquestionably the most beautiful of the brides of the year, and she was the undisputed belle of the Drawing Room at which she was presented.
Garthorne was, of course, very proud of her, and received plenty of that second-hand sort of admiration which is accorded alike to the owner of a distinguished race-horse, a prize bull-dog, or a pretty wife.
Under the circumstances, therefore, it was perfectly natural that they should enjoy themselves very thoroughly, and though towards the end Garthorne began to get a little bored, and to think rather longingly of his yacht on the Solent and his grouse moor in Scotland, Enid, with her youth and beauty and perfect constitution, enjoyed every hour and every minute of her waking life. Society had no very distinguished lion to fall down and worship that season, and so, towards the end, things were getting a little slow, and people were thinking seriously of escaping from the heat and dust of London, when the world of wealth and fashion was suddenly thrilled into fresh life by an absolutely new sensation.
One Sunday morning, about the middle of June, the large and fashionable congregation which filled the church of St. Chrysostom, South Kensington, a church which will be recognised as one of the very "highest" in London, and which, to use a not altogether unsuitable term, "draws" all the year round by reason of the splendour of its ritual, as well as the simple earnest eloquence of its clergy, was startled by the preaching of such a sermon as no member of it had ever heard before.
The preacher for the morning was announced to be the Rev. Father Vane, a name which meant nothing to more than about half a dozen members of the congregation, but which every man and woman in the church had some cause to remember by the time the service was over.
Father Baldwin, as the vicar of St. Chrysostom's was familiarly known, was a very old friend of Father Philip's, and Vane's appearance as preacher that morning was the result of certain correspondence which had taken place between them, and of several long and earnest conversations which he had had with Vane himself.
The moment that Vane appeared in the pulpit, that strange rustling sound which always betokens an access of sensation in a church, became distinctly audible from the side where the womensat. As he stood there in cassock, cotta and white, gold-embroidered stole, he looked, as many a maid, and matron too, said afterwards, almost too beautiful to be human. Both as boy and man he had always been strikingly handsome, but the long weeks and months of prayer and fasting, and the constant struggle of the soul against the flesh, had refined and spiritualised him. To speak of an everyday man of the world, however good-looking he may be, as beautiful is rather to ridicule him than otherwise, but when such a man as Vane passes through such an ordeal as his had been, the word beauty may be justly used in the sense in which the feminine portion of the congregation of St. Chrysostom's unanimously used it that morning.
There was a hush of expectation as he opened a small Bible lying on the desk in front of him. Then he raised his right hand and made the sign of the Cross.
"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!"
"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!"
The words were not hastily and inaudibly muttered as they too often are by the clergy of the High Anglican persuasion. They rang out as clearly as the notes of a bell through the silence of the crowded church, and the congregation recognised instantly that he possessed, at least, the first qualification of a great preacher.
Then he took up his Bible, and said in a quite ordinary conversational tone:
"It will be well if those who wish to follow what I am about to say will take their Bibles and turn to the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew."
The opening was as unpromising as it was unconventional, but more than half the congregation obeyed, and when the rustling of leaves had subsided, he began to read the Sermon on the Mount.
When the first thrill of astonishment had passed, it was noticed that, after the first few verses, he ceased to look at the Bible. Every member of the congregation had heard the words over and over again, but they had never heard them as they heard them now. It was nothing like the formal reading of the lessons to which they had been accustomed, and as the clear, pure tones of his voice rang through the church, and, as his eyes and face lighted up with the radiance of an almost divine enthusiasm, there were some in his audience who began to think that he might well have been a re-incarnation of one of those disciples of the Master who heard the words as they came from His lips that day on the Judean hillside.
He went on verse after verse, never missing a word, and unconsciously emphasising each passage with gestures, slight in themselves, but eloquent and forcible in their exact suitability to the words, and very soon every man and woman in the church was listening to him, not only with rapt attention, but with a growing feeling of uneasiness and apprehension as to what was to follow.
At length he came to the twenty-third verse of the seventh chapter:
"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
There was an emphasis upon the last few words which sent a thrill of emotion, and, in many cases, one of angry expectation, through the crowded congregation. It was one of the wealthiest, and most fashionable in London, but, saving a comparatively few really earnest souls, it was composed for the most part of idlers and loungers, who came to St. Chrysostom's partly because it was one of the most fashionable churches in the West End, partly because it was the proper thing to attend Church on Sunday, and partly because the music, and singing and preaching were all so good, and the elaborate ceremonial was so perfectly performed, that it afforded the means of spending a few hours on Sunday in a very pleasant way.
The young preacher looked at the crowd of well-dressed men and women for a few moments in silence, as though he would give them time to realise the tremendous solemnity of the words they had just heard. There was dead, breathless silence at first, and then came a rustling sound, mingled with one of deep breathing. Then he began again in the same direct, conversational tone in which he had asked them to take their Bibles.
"I am addressing," he said, in a low, clear tone which could be heard as distinctly at the church doors as it could by those immediately under the pulpit, "an audience which is composed of men and women who are, nominally, at least, Christians, and now I am going to ask you, every man and woman of you, to ask your own souls the simple question, whether you really are Christians, or not.
"A good many of you, I daresay, will be a little startled, perhaps some of you may even be offended by the suggestion of such a question. With every regard for your feelings as brother men and sister women, I sincerely hope you will be. My reason for hoping that is very simple. The vast majority of people in Christian countriesare Christians simply because they have been born of Christian parents, just as they are Protestants or Catholics because their parents were such before them, and their early training has strongly predisposed their minds to the acceptance—too often the blind acceptance—of a certain set of doctrines which, with all reverence, are by themselves of no more use for the purpose of saving a human soul from eternal damnation than the multiplication table would be. These doctrines, these creeds, are aids to salvation, most potent aids, but they are not essentials, since of themselves they cannot save.
"It is far too often taken for granted that, because a man has been brought up in a Christian family, has been baptised into the Church of Christ, and has later on been admitted into the communion of that Church, that, therefore, he is justified in believing himself to be a Christian. He has, as we of the Church Catholic and Universal fervently believe, been placed in the path which leads to salvation. His vision has been cleared from the mists of error. The Church, in the fulfilment of her holy mission, has caused the white light of heaven to shine upon his eyes. His feet have been set in the strait gate and on the narrow way which leads to eternal life, but not all the priests from Abraham down to our own day, nor all the Churches that ever were founded can do any more. The way must be travelled by the man himself, his own eyes must see the light, his own feet must tread the way, no matter how steep or difficult it may be—or that man has no more right to call himself a Christian than any worshipper of any of the false gods whose reign has vanished from the earth.
"It was for the purpose of bringing this most solemn truth, this most solemn and momentous ofall truth home to you that I began by repeating the words which the Greatest of all Preachers pronounced for the guidance of those who should come after Him."
He paused, and took up his Bible again. Meanwhile, a few people, both men and women, whose dress and appearance bore unmistakable signs of worldly wealth, got up and walked out of the church.
Vane watched them go, and as he did so the rest saw a complete change of expression come over his countenance. His eyes grew sombre and sorrowful, his lips tightened, and something like a frown gathered upon his brow. He not only waited in the midst of an almost unnatural silence until they had gone, but he went on waiting for some moments longer as though he would give anyone else an opportunity of leaving the church if they desired to do so. No one stirred. The look which he turned upon them from the pulpit seemed like a spell which held them to their seats. Then his lips opened, and they heard his voice, tinged with an infinite sadness, saying:
"'The young man saith unto him: All these things have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?"'Jesus saith unto him: If thou wouldst be perfect go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me."'But when the young man heard that saying he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."'Then said Jesus unto his disciples: Verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'"
"'The young man saith unto him: All these things have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?
"'Jesus saith unto him: If thou wouldst be perfect go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.
"'But when the young man heard that saying he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
"'Then said Jesus unto his disciples: Verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'"
Then there came another pause, during which his listeners seemed almost afraid to breathe, so strong was the spell of apprehension and expectancy which he had laid upon them, and he went on:
"You have, everyone of you, heard those words read and spoken scores and hundreds of times. Has it ever struck you that they are words which, if you are a Christian man or woman, you must believe to be the words of God himself, spoken by the lips of Infallible Wisdom, and inspired by that Omniscience which sees you sitting here in this London church as plainly as It saw that other congregation which was assembled that day on the slope of the Mount of Olives, and which reads your hearts at this moment as It read theirs then? If you do not believe that, then it follows that you do not believe in the mission or the teaching of Christ. You do not believe that He spoke the truth when He told the young man that it was not only necessary to keep the commandments, as he had done from his youth up; but that it was also necessary for him to cease to be a rich man, and to distribute his wealth in relieving the necessities of the poor.
"If you believe that Christ is very God of very God, as you say every Sunday of your lives, you cannot escape the obligation which those words put upon you except at the peril of your immortal souls. Remember that it is not by your faiths and beliefs, or by the doctrines you have held that you will be judged when you stand before the Last Tribunal. These are but instruments to be used well or ill, but the final appeal will come to your works. The last question that will be asked of you will not be 'What creed have you believed?' or 'What Church have you belonged to?' but'What have you done?' and on the answer to that, as recorded in the books of God, will depend your fate for all eternity.
"Remember the words, 'Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.'
"Remember, too, that when you join in the services of the Church, and when you partake of her Sacraments, you are simply saying 'Lord, Lord'—a very good and righteous thing to say; but of no more use or benefit to your souls than an echo from a blank wall, unless you also do the will of Him who is in Heaven.
"I know that there are many specious sayings invented by those who have reasons of their own for trying to prove that when the Son of God spoke these words He didn't mean what He said; and those who have invented these things are amongst the worst enemies of God and His Church on earth, no matter whether they say these lying words in the drawing-room or from the pulpit. They seek to comfort their consciences and the consciences of such as you by saying that times have changed since these words were uttered; that it would be quite impossible to put a literal interpretation upon them now.
"Now the man who tells his fellow men that, no matter what his position in the world, is a liar and a hypocrite, and, what is worse, he is a maker of hypocrites, for it is my duty to tell you that every man and woman who professes Christianity before the world on Sunday and during the week disobeys the command of Christ as set forth here in His own words, is, consciously or unconsciously, a liar and a hypocrite also.
"Let us see what these sayings look like whentested by ordinary logic, by that faculty of distinguishing the right from the wrong, the true from the false, which is perhaps the greatest of all God's gifts to men.
"'Times have changed since the Son of God delivered the Sermon on the Mount.' That is one of those half-truths which are infinitely worse than a lie. Timeshavechanged. That is to say mortal men and mortal manners have changed; but does that warrant us in believing that the mind and will of the Immutable God have changed too; that what Christ himself declared to be fatal to salvation two thousand years ago, is compatible with salvation now? That what was unlawful then is lawful now—in short, that the Omniscient God, in whose eyes a thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years, who read the minds of men then as He reads them now, has altered the decrees of Eternal Justice and changed Eternal Truth into a lie?
"If you believe these people, then you must believe that too. That Christ himself foresaw, as He must have done, that such false teachers as these would arise both in His Church and outside it is clearly proved by His own words:
"'Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?
"'And then I will profess unto them: I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.'
"Remember that in that day when these words will be spoken hypocrisy and self-deceit will have become impossibilities. It will not be possible then for you to persuade yourselves, as no doubt you do now, that you are good Christians, or that you are Christians at all, because you believe certain doctrines and carry out certain ecclesiastical observances. You will see your own souls naked then, and the eye of Eternal and Immutable Justice will see them too—and unless you have proved that you have obedience as well as faith; that you have not only believed but also obeyed, you will most assuredly hear those words 'I never knew you; depart from me ye that work iniquity!'
"But," he went on again, after another little pause during which some of his audience began to look round at each other with something like fear in their eyes, "do not forget that there is another course open to you. It may be that the things of this world, the conventions of society, the fear of poverty and the love of wealth, have taken such a hold upon you, that, although you dare not even confess it to yourselves, you prefer these things to obedience to the Divine command and all that it may bring.
"You have it in perfectly plain language and on the highest possible authority that you cannot serve God and Mammon. Those are no empty words, they are one of the most solemn pronouncements ever made, and they affect you here and to all eternity. So long as you go on striving to increase your wealth by those means which must nowadays be employed to make money, you are not and you cannot be Christians. Those are harsh words, and yet if they are not true, the words of Christ himself are false. There is no escape from this dilemma, and if you think that devoting one day a week to the nominal service of God and six to the real, practical service of Mammon, you earn the right to call yourselves Christians, that is to say, followers of Christ, you are merely practising a pitiful piece of self-deception which would be ludicrous were its consequences not so solemn.
"But, as I have said, there is another course open to you, a course which, terrible as it is, is better than the one that you are now following, because it is more honest. Be honest with yourselves and each other, and, what is of more consequence, be honest with God too. A well-known agnostic lecturer once said that no god could afford to damn an honest man, and I am not sure that he was not right; but if the words of Christ were not the empty mouthings of a charlatan or a dreamer, there cannot be the slightest doubt about the fate of the hypocrite. Remember that on the only occasion on which the gentle nature of our Lord was roused to anger he denounced in the most terrible language that human ears have ever heard those whom He called hypocrites, and, therefore, I say to you, at whatever cost, either to your pockets or to your souls, for you can take your choice which, cease to be hypocrites.
"Cease this pitiful pretence which, though it may deceive yourselves, certainly does not deceive Him from whom no secrets are hid. If you cannot forsake the service of Mammon, if you really are so tightly bound by his golden chains to the things of this world that you cannot or will not break loose from the entrancing bondage, then, in the name of honesty, say so, say to yourselves and to your fellow men: 'I cannot do this thing. If I must give up the service of Mammon before I can call myself the servant of God, then I cannot become the servant of God, and I will make a hypocrite and a liar of myself no longer.' Then at least you would be honest and truthful, honest with yourselves and with your brother men and with your sister women and withGod. You would, as I believe, and as you are now trying to make yourselves believe, have made the wrong choice, a choice whose consequences must inevitably face you on the other side of the grave, but you would, at least, be able to face the tribunal of Eternal Justice without shame, and, with all reverence I say it, I, as a Christian man, believe that for this reason the infinite mercy of God would find a means of salvation for you.
"Be honest. For God's sake and your own, be honest, even though in becoming so, you cease to be what is commonly called respectable. If you really cannot serve God with a whole soul and without reservation, give up the attempt to serve Him and say so before all men. It would be a terrible thing to do, and yet, awful as such a step would be, it might be the first one towards your ultimate salvation. The angels might weep, but I hardly think that the devils would laugh, for the worst enemy of the Father of Lies is an honest man or woman. The gentle heart of Jesus might bleed for you, but Eternal Justice would respect you and give you your due. Once more, speaking not only as a priest of God, but as your fellow man, let me as man implore you to be honest, and as priest, warn you that the penalty of hypocrisy is eternal damnation. You have no choice in the matter. One or the other you must be, and you cannot possibly be both. Wherefore I tell you that whether you elect to be the servant of God or the servant of Mammon, you must let all men know plainly which you are. If you are reasonable beings you cannot believe in yourselves or in each other, unless you do this. Remember that, however fondly you may be deceiving yourselves, you cannot blind the eyes of Omniscience. It is a hard thing to say, and yet it is only the plain truthgiven to us by the lips of Christ himself, that you cannot believe in God unless you do the things which He says. Living your present lives you do not do them, and therefore you are not only infidels and atheists living without God, but you are worse—you are hypocrites, and woe unto you!
"I tell you, speaking as solemnly as a priest of God can do in His house and in His presence that I would rather see this and every church in Christendom attended by a score of people—of real Christians whose daily lives throughout the week were really guided and sanctified by obedience to the teachings of the Master, than I would see them crowded with throngs of men and women like you, whose acts from Monday morning to Saturday night consistently belie every word that your lips utter here in the house of God and in the presence of the Holy Trinity.
"No doubt, there is already anger against me in many of your hearts on account of what I have believed it my duty to say to you. I would not willingly incur the hatred of any man or woman, and yet I shall not altogether regret that anger, because it will be proof that my words have reached, not only your ears, but your hearts. I have spoken plainly and without regard to the conventionalities either of the world or of the pulpit, and I have done so because I believe that conventionality is the foe of truth, and therefore the enemy of religion. This, remember, is a subject of such awful solemnity, laden as it is with the eternal fate of every human soul that is baptised into the Church of God, that I have found it my duty to make it plain to you at any cost.
"When you leave this church, send your horses and your carriages away and walk home, for you are deliberately breaking the law of God by usingthem on the Sabbath, and, remember, that he who breaks one jot or tittle of the law, shall be guilty of the whole, and, instead of going to church parade in the park, you women, to excite the admiration of the men and the envy of other women by the beauty of your dress, or the splendour of your equipage, and you men, to begin the sordid work of to-morrow before you have finished the holy task of to-day, go home and take your bibles into the solitude of your own chamber. Spend the rest of God's day with God Himself. And that you may do this good thing well and truly, and find help to choose that way of life which leadeth to eternal salvation, May the peace of God which passeth all understanding be with you now henceforth and for ever, Amen."
He raised his right hand in benediction, turned towards the altar and made the sign of the Cross, and as he came down the pulpit steps and walked up the chancel to his place, some of those who saw him, said afterwards, that there was a light on his face which they had never seen on a human face before.
There was no communion after that service, and so the choir and priests formed for the recessional hymn. Father Baldwin, as the procession formed behind him, came to the front of the chancel and said:
"Instead of the hymn appointed, it will be better if we end the service with number 274."