The Christian Part 42

"Yes, yes," said the Father, "I see quite plainly how it has been. He was like tinder, ready to take fire at a spark, and you were thinking I had been hard and cruel and in-human."

It was the truth; John could not deny it; he held down his head and was silent.

"But shall I tell you why I refused that poor boy's pet.i.tion? Shall I tell you who he was, and how he came to be here? Yes, I will tell you.

n.o.body in this house has heard it until now, because it was his secret and mine and G.o.d's alone--not given me in confession, no, or it would have to be locked in my breast forever. But you have thrust yourself in between us, so you must hear everything, and may the Lord pity and forgive you and help you to bear your burden!"

John felt that a cold damp was breaking out on his forehead, but he clinched his moist hands and made ready to control himself.

"Has he ever spoken of another sister?"

"Yes, he has sometimes mentioned her."

"Then perhaps you have been told of the painful and tragic event that happened?"

"No," said John, but something that he had heard at the board meeting at the hospital returned at that moment with a stunning force to his memory.

"His father, poor man, was one of my own people--one of the lay a.s.sociates of our society in the world outside. But his health gave way, his business failed him, and he died in a madhouse, leaving his three children to the care of a friend. The friend was thought to be a worthy, and even a pious man, but he was a scoundrel and a traitor. The younger sister--the one you know--he committed to an orphanage; the elder one he deceived and ruined. As a sequel to his sin, she lived a life of shame on the streets of London, and died by suicide at the end of it."

John Storm put up one hand to his head as if his brain was bursting, and with the other hand he held on to the Father's chair.

"That was bad enough, but there was worse to follow. Our poor Paul had grown to be a man by this time, and Satan put it into his heart to avenge his sister's dishonour. 'As the whirlwind pa.s.seth, so the wicked are no more.' The betrayer of his trust was found dead in his room, slain by an unknown a.s.sa.s.sin. Brother Paul had killed him."

John Storm had fallen to his knees. If h.e.l.l itself had opened at his feet he could not have been stricken with more horror. In a voice strangled by fear he stammered: "But why didn't you tell me this before?

Why have you hidden it until now?"

"Pa.s.sions, my son, are the same in a monastery as outside of it, and I had too much reason to fear that the saintliest soul in our Brotherhood would have refused to live and eat and sleep in the same house with a murderer. But the poor soul had come to me like a hunted beast, and who was I that I should turn my back upon him? Before that he had tramped through the streets and slept in the parks, under the impression that the police were pursuing him, and thereby he had contracted the lung disease from which he suffers still. What was I to do? Give him up to the law? Who shall tell me how I could have held the balance level?

I took him into my house; I sheltered him; I made him a member of our community; Heaven forgive me, I suffered myself to receive his vows.

It was for me to comfort his stricken body, for the Church to heal his wounded soul; and as for his crime, that was in G.o.d's hands, and G.o.d alone could deal with it."

The Father had risen to his feet, and he spoke the last words with uplifted hand.

"Now you know why I refused that poor boy's pet.i.tion. I loved him as a son, but neither the disease of his body nor the weakness of his mind could break the firmness of the rule by which I held him. I knew that Satan was dragging him away from me, and I would not give him up to the sufferings and dangers which the Evil One was preparing for him in the world. But how subtle are the temptations of the devil! He found the weak place in my armour at last. He found you, my son--you; and he tempted you by all your love, by all your pity, by all your tenderness, and you fell, and this is the consequence."

The Father clasped his hands at his breast and walked to and fro in the little room.

"The bitterness of the world against religious houses is great already; but if anything should happen now, if a crime should be committed, if our poor brother, clad in the habit of our Order----"

He stopped and crossed himself and lifted His eyes, and said in a tremulous whisper: "O G.o.d, whom have I in heaven but thee? My flesh and my heart faileth; but G.o.d is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

John had staggered to his feet like a drunken man. "Father," he said, "send me away from you. I am not fit to live by your side."

The Father laid both hands on his shoulders. "And shall I lower my flag to the enemy like that? There is only one way to defeat the devil, and that is to defy him. No, no, my son, you shall remain with me to the last."

"Punish me, then. Give me penance. Let me be the lowest of the low and the meanest of the mean. Only tell me what I am to do and I will do it."

"Go back to the door and resume your duty as doorkeeper."

John looked at the Father with an expression of bewilderment.

"I thought you had done with it, my son, but Heaven knew better. And promise that when you are there you will pray for our wandering brother, that he may not be allowed to fulfil the errand on which you sent him out; pray that he may never find his sister, or anybody who knows her and can tell him where she is and what has become of her; pray that she may never cross his path to the last hour of life and the first of death's sundering; promise to pray for this, my son, night and day, morning and evening, with all your soul and strength, as you would pray for G.o.d's mercy and your soul's salvation."

John did not answer; he was like a man in a stupor. "Is it possible?" he said. "Are you sending me back to the door? Can you trust me again?"

The Father stepped to the side of the bed and took the key of the gate from its place under the shelf. "Take this key with you, too, because for the future you are to be the keeper of the gate as well."

John had taken the key mechanically, hardly hearing what was being said.

"Is it true, then--have you got faith in me still?"

The Father put both hands on his shoulders again and looked into his face. "G.o.d has faith in you, my child, and who am I that I should despair?"

When John Storm returned to the door his mind was in a state of stupefaction. Many hours pa.s.sed during which he was only partly conscious of what was taking place about him. Sometimes he was aware that certain of the brothers had gathered around, with a tingling, electrical atmosphere among them, and that they were asking questions about the escape, and whispering together as if it had been something courageous and almost commendable, and had set their hearts beating.

Again, sometimes he was aware that big Brother Andrew was sitting by his side on the form, stroking his arm from time to time, and talking in his low voice and aimless way about his mother and the last he saw of her.

"She followed me down the street crying," he said, "and I have often thought of it since and been tempted to run away." Also he was aware that the dog was with him always, licking the backs of his stiff hands and poking up a cold snout into his downcast face.

All this time he was doing his duties automatically and apparently without help from his consciousness, opening and closing the door as the brothers pa.s.sed in and out on their errands to the dead and dying, and saying, "Praise be to G.o.d!" when a stranger knocked. It may be that his body was merely answering to the habits of its intellect, and that his soul, which had sustained a terrible blow, was lying stunned and swooning within.

When it revived and he began to know and to feel once more, there was no one with him, for the brothers were asleep in their beds and the dog was in the courtyard, and the house was very quiet, for it was the middle of the night. And then it came back to him, like a dream remembered in the morning, that the Father had asked him to pray for Brother Paul that he might fail in the errand on which he had sent him out into the world, and though with his lips he had not promised, yet in his heart he had undertaken to do so.

And being quite alone now, with no one but G.o.d for company, he went down on his knees in his place by the door and clasped his hands together.

"O G.o.d," he prayed, "have pity on Paul, and on me, and on all of us!

Keep him from all danger and suffering and from the snares and a.s.saults of the Evil One! Grant that he may never find his sister--or anybody who knows her--or anybody who can tell him where she is and what has become of her----"

But having got so far he could get no farther, for suddenly it occurred to him that this was a prayer which concerned Glory and himself as well.

It was only then that he realized the magnitude and awfulness of the task he had undertaken. He had undertaken to ask G.o.d that Paul might not find Glory either, and therefore that he on his part might never hear of her again. When he put it to himself like that, the sweat started from his forehead and he was transfixed with fear.

He rose from his knees and sat on the form, and for a long hour he laboured in the thought of a thousand possibilities, telling himself of the many things which might befall a beautiful girl in a cruel and wicked city. But then again he thought of Paul and of his former crime and present temptation, and remembered the shadow that hung over the Brotherhood.

"O G.o.d, help me," he cried; "strengthen me, support me, guide me!"

He tried to frame another prayer, but the words would not come; he tried to kneel as before, but his knees would not bend. How could he pray that Glory also might be lost--that something might have happened to her--that somewhere and in some way unknown to him----

No, no, a thousand times no! The prayer was impossible. Let come what would, let the danger to Paul and to the Brotherhood be what it might, let Satan and all his legions fall on him, yet he could not and would not utter it.

XIII.

The stars were paling, but the day had not yet dawned, when there came a knock at the door. John started and listened. After an interval the knock was repeated. It was a timid, hesitating tap, as if made with the tips of the fingers low down on the door.

"Praise be to G.o.d!" said John, and he drew the slide of the grating. He had expected to see a face outside, but there was nothing there.

"Who is it?" he asked, and there came no answer.

He took up the lamp that was kept burning in the hall and looked out through the bars. There was nothing in the darkness but an icy mist, which appeared to be rising from the ground.

"Only another of my dreams," he thought, and he laid his hand on the slide to close it.