Part 76 (2/2)

Erreicht den Hof mit Muh und Noth In seinen Armen das Kind war todt.

”Good-night,” she whispered, and fled into the house. The lights in the dining-room were lowered, but she found a telegram that was waiting on the mantelpiece. It was from Sefton, the manager: ”Author arrived in London today. Hopes to be at rehearsal Monday. Please be there certain.”

The world was seizing her again, the imaginary Gloria was dragging her back with visions of splendour and success. But she crept upstairs and went by the drawing-room on tip-toe. ”Not to-night,” she thought. ”My face is not fit to be seen to-night.”

There was a dying fire in her bedroom, and her evening gown had been laid out on a chair in front of it. She put the gown away in a drawer, and out of a box which she drew from beneath the bed she took a far different costume. It was the nurse's outdoor cloak, which she had bought for use at the hospital. She held it a moment by the tips of her fingers and looked at it, and then put it back with a sigh.

”Gloria! is that you?” Rosa called up the stairs; and Drake's cheery voice cried, ”Won't our nightingale come down and give us a stave before I go?”

”Too late! Just going to bed. Good-night,” she answered. Then she lit a candle and sat down to write a letter.

”It's no use, dear John, I can not! It would be like putting bad money into the offertory to put me into that holy work. Not that I don't admire it, and love it, and wors.h.i.+p it. It is the greatest work in the world, and last week I thought I could count everything else as dross, only remembering that I loved you and that nothing else mattered. But now I know that this was a vain and fleeting sentiment, and that the sights and scenes of your work repel me on a nearer view, just as the hospital repelled me in the early mornings when the wards were being cleaned and the wounds dressed, and before the flowers were laid about.

”Oh, forgive me, forgive me! But if I am fit to join your life at all it can not be in London. That 'old serpent called the devil and Satan'

would be certain to torment me here. I could not live within sight and sound of London and go on with the life you live. London would drag me back. I feel as if it were an earlier lover, and I must fly away from it. Is that possible? Can we go elsewhere? It is a monstrous demand, I know. Say you can not agree to it. Say so at once--it will serve me right.”

The stout watchman of the New Inn was calling midnight when Glory stole out to post her letter. It fell into the letter-box with a thud, and she crept back like a guilty thing.

XVI.

Next morning Mrs. Callender heard John Storm singing to himself before he left his bedroom, and she was standing at the bottom of the stairs when he came down three steps at a time.

”Bless me, laddie,” she said, ”to see your face s.h.i.+ning a body would say that somebody had left ye a legacy or bought ye a benefice instead of taking your church frae ye!”

”Why, yes, and better than both, and that's just what I was going to tell you.”

”You must be in a hurry to do it, too, coming downstairs like a cataract.”

”You came down like a cataract yourself once on a time, auntie; I'll lay my life on that.”

”Aye, did I, and not sae lang since neither. And fools and prudes cried 'Oh!' and called me a tomboy. But, hoots; I was nought but a body born a wee before her time. All the la.s.ses are tomboys now, bless them, the bright heart-some things!”

”Auntie,” said John softly, seating himself at the breakfast table, ”what d'ye think?”

She eyed him knowingly. ”Nay, I'm ower thrang working to be bothered thinking. Out with it, laddie.”

He looked wise. ”Don't you remember saying--that work like mine wanted a woman's hand in it?”

Her old eyes blinked. ”Maybe I did, but what of it?”

”Well, I've taken your advice, and now a woman's hand is coming into it to guide it and direct it.”

”It must be the right hand, though, mind that.”

”It _will_ be the right hand, auntie.”

”Weel, that's grand,” with another twinkle. ”I thought it might be the _left_, ye see, and ye might be putting a wedding-ring on it!” And then she burst into a peal of laughter.

<script>