Part 77 (1/2)

”However did you find it out?” he said, with looks of astonishment.

”Tut, laddie, love and a cough can not be hidden. And to think a woman couldna see through you, too! But come,” tapping the table with both hands, ”who is she?”

”Guess.”

”Not one of your Sisters--no?” with hesitation.

”No,” with emphasis.

”Some other simpering thing, na doot-they're all alike these days.”

”But didn't you say the girls were all tomboys now?”

”And if I did, d'ye want a body to be singing the same song always? But come, what like is she? When I hear of a la.s.sie I like fine to know her colour first. What's her complexion?”

”Guess again.”

”Is she fair? But what a daft auld dunce I am!--to be sure she's fair.”

”Why, how did you know that, now?”

”Pooh! They say a dark man is a jewel in a fair woman's eye, and I'll warrant it's as true the other way about. But what's her name?”

John's face suddenly straightened and he pretended not to hear.

”What's her name?” stamping with both feet.

”Dear me, auntie, what an ugly old cap you're wearing!”

”Ugly?” reaching up to the gla.s.s. ”Who says it's ugly?”

”I do.”

”Tut! you're only a bit boy, born yesterday. But, man, what's all this botherment about telling a la.s.sie's name?”

”I'll bring her to see you, auntie.”

”I should think you will, indeed! and michty quick, too!”

This was on Sunday, and by the first post on Monday John Storm received Glory's letter. It fell on him like a blast out of a cloud in the black northeast, and cut him to the heart's core. He read it again, and being alone he burst into laughter. He took it up a third time, and when he had finished there was something at his throat that seemed to choke him.

His first impulse was fury. He wanted to rush off to Glory and insult her, to ask her if she was mad or believed him to be so. Because she was a coward herself, being slave-bound to the world and afraid to fight it face to face, did she wish to make a coward of him also--to see him sneak away from the London that had kicked him, like a cur with its tail between its legs?

After this there came an icy chill and an awful consciousness that mightier forces were at work than any mere human weakness. It was the world itself, the great pitiless world, that was dividing them again as it had divided them before, but irrevocably now-not as a playful nurse that puts petted children apart, but as a torrent that tears the cliffs asunder. ”Leave the world, my son, and return to your unfinished vows.”

Could it be true that this was only another reminder of his broken obedience?

Then came pity. If Glory was slave-bound to the world, which of us was not in chains to something? And the worst slavery of all was slavery to self. But that was an abyss he dared not look into; and he began to think tenderly of Glory, to tell himself how much she had to sacrifice, to remember his anger and to be ashamed.

A week pa.s.sed, and he went about his work in a helpless way, like a derelict without rudder or sail and with the sea roaring about it. Every afternoon when he came home from Soho Mrs. Callender would trip into the hall wearing a new cap with a smart bow, and finding that he was alone she would say, ”Not to-day, then?”

”Not to-day,” he would answer, and they would try to smile. But seeing the stamp of suffering on his face, she said at last, ”Tut, laddie! they love too much who die for love.”