Part 88 (1/2)

This was the final madness, and he leaped to his feet in an outburst of uncontrollable rage. All at once he shuddered with a feeling that something terrible was brewing within him. He felt cold, a s.h.i.+ver was running over his whole body. But the thought he had been in search of had come to him of itself. It came first as a shock, and with a sense of indescribable dread, but it had taken hold of him and hurried him away.

He had remembered his text: ”Deliver him up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

”Why not?” he thought; ”it is in the Holy Book itself. There is the authority of St. Paul for it. Clearly the early Christians countenanced and practised such things.” But then came a spasm of physical pain.

That beautiful life, so full of love and loveliness, radiating joy and sweetness and charm! The thing was impossible! It was monstrous! ”Am I going mad?” he asked himself.

And then he began to be sorry for himself as well as for Glory. How could he live in the world without her? Although he had lost her, although an impa.s.sable gulf divided them, although he had not seen her for six months until today, yet it was something to know she was alive and that he could go at night to the place where she was and look up and think, ”She is there.” ”It is true, I am going mad,” he thought, and he trembled again.

His mind oscillated among these conflicting ideas, until the more hideous thought returned to him of Drake and the smile exchanged with Glory. Then the blood rushed to his head, and strong emotions paralyzed his reason. When he asked himself if it was right in England and in the nineteenth century to contemplate a course which might have been proper to Palestine and the first century, the answer came instantaneously that it _was_ right. Glory was in peril. She was tottering on the verge of h.e.l.l. It would not be wrong, but a n.o.ble duty, to prevent the possibility of such a hideous catastrophe. Better a life ended than a life degraded and a soul destroyed.

On this the sophism worked. It was true that he would lose her; she would be gone from him, she who was all his joy, his vision by day, his dream by night. But could he be so selfish as to keep her in the flesh, and thus expose her soul to eternal torment? And after all she would be his in the other world, his forever, his alone. Nay, in this world also, for being dead he would love her still. ”But, O G.o.d, must _I_ do it?” he asked himself at one moment, and at the next came his answer: ”Yes, yes, for I am G.o.d's minister.”

That sent him back to his text again. ”Deliver him up to _Satan_----”

But there was a marginal reference to Timothy, and he turned it up with a trembling hand. _Satan_ again, but the Revised Version gave ”the Lord's servant,” and thus the text should read, ”Deliver him up to the Lord's servant for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” This made him cry out. He drank it in with inebriate delight. The thing was irrevocably decided. He was justified, he was authorized, he was the instrument of a fixed purpose.

No other consideration could move him now.

By this time his heart and temples were beating violently, and he felt as if he were being carried up into a burning cloud. Before his eyes rose the vision of Isaiah, the meek lamb converted into an inexorable avenger descending from the summit of Edom. It was right to shed blood at the divine command--nay, it was necessary, it was inevitable. And as G.o.d had commanded Abraham to take the life of Isaac, whom he loved, so did G.o.d call on him, John Storm, to take the life of Glory that he might save her from the risk of everlasting d.a.m.nation!

There may have been intervals in which his sense of hearing left him, for it was only now that he became conscious that somebody was calling to him from the other side of the door.

”Is anybody there?” he asked, and a voice replied:

”Dear heart, yes, this five minutes and better, but I didna dare come in, thinking surely there was somebody talking with you. Is there no somebody here then? No?”

It was Mrs. Callender, who was carrying a small glad-stone bag.

”Oh, it's you, is it?”

”Aye, it's myself, and sorry I am to be bringing bad news to you.”

”What is it?” he asked, but his tone betrayed complete indifference.

She closed the door and answered in a whisper: ”A warrant! I much mis...o...b.. but there's one made out for you.”

”Is that all?”

”Bless me, what does the man want? But come, laddie, come; you must tak'

yoursel' off to some spot till the storm blows over.”

”I have work to do, auntie.”

”Work! You've worked too much already--that's half the botherment.”

”G.o.d's work, auntie, and it must be done.”

”Then G.o.d will do it himself, without asking the life of a good man, or he's no just what I've been takin' him for. But see,” opening the bag and whispering again, ”your auld coat and hat! I found them in your puir auld room that you'll no come back to. You've been looking like another body so long that naebody will ken you when you're like yoursel' again.

Come, now, off with these lang, ugly things----”

”I can not go, auntie.”

”Can not?”