Part 96 (1/2)

”Yes,” said Rosa, across the dinner table, ”the sudden fall of a man who has filled a large s.p.a.ce in the public eye is always pitiful. It is like the fall of a great tree in the forest. One never realized how big it was until it was down.”

”It's awful! awful!” said Glory.

”Whether one liked the man or not, such a downfall seems hard to reconcile with the idea of a beneficent Providence.”

”Hard? Impossible, you mean!”

”Glory!”

”Oh, I'm only a pagan, and always have been; but I can't believe in a G.o.d that does nothing--I won't, I won't!”

”Still, we can't see the end yet. After the cross the resurrection, as the Church folks say; and who knows but out of all this----”

”What's to become of his church?”

”Oh, there'll be people enough to see to that, and if the dear Archdeacon--but he's busy with Mrs. Macrae, bless him! She has gone to wreck at last, and is living hidden away in a farmhouse somewhere, that she may drink herself to death without detection and interruption. But the Archdeacon and Lord Robert have found her out, and there they are hovering round like two vultures, waiting for the end.”

”And his orphanage?”

”Ah, that's another pair of shoes altogether, dear. Being an inst.i.tution that asks for an income instead of giving one, there'll be n.o.body too keen to take it over.”

”O G.o.d! O G.o.d! What a world it is!” cried Glory.

After dinner she went off to Westminster in search of the orphanage.

It stood on a corner of the church square. The door was closed, and the windows of the ground floor were shuttered. With difficulty she obtained admission and access to the person in charge. This was an elderly lady in a black silk dress and with snow-white hair.

”I'm no the matron, miss,” she said. ”The matron's gone--fled awa' like a' the lave o' the grand Sisters, thinking sure the mob would mak' this house their next point of attack.”

”Then I know whom _you_ are--you're Mrs. Callender,” said Glory.

”Jane Callender I am, young leddy. And who may ye be yersel'?”

”I'm a friend of John's, and I want to know if there's anything----”

”You're no the la.s.sie hersel', are ye? You are, though; I see fine you are! Come, kiss me--again, la.s.sie! Oh, dear! oh, dear! And to think we must be meeting same as this! For a' the world it's like clasping hands ower the puir laddie's grave!”

They cried in each other's arms, and then both felt better.

”And the children,” said Glory, ”who's looking after them if the matron and Sisters are gone?”

”Just me and the puir bairns theirsel's, and the wee maid of all wark that opened the door til ye. But come your ways and look at them.”

The dormitory was in an upper story. Mrs. Gallender had opened the door softly, and Glory stepped into a large dark room in which fifty children lay asleep. Their breathing was all that could be heard, and it seemed to fill the air as with the rustle of a gentle breeze. But it was hard to look upon them and to think of their only earthly father in his cell.

With full hearts and dry throats the two women returned to a room below.

By this time the square, which before had only shown people standing in doorways and lounging at street corners, was crowded with a noisy rabble. They were shouting out indecent jokes about ”monks,” ”his reverend lords.h.i.+p,” and ”doctors of diwinity”; and a small gang of them had got a rope which they were trying to throw as a la.s.so round a figure of the Virgin in a niche over the porch. The figure came down at length amid shrieks of delight, and when the police charged the mob they flung stones which broke the church windows.

Again Glory felt an impulse to throw herself on the cowardly rabble, but she only crouched at the window by the side of Mrs. Callender, and looked down at the sea of faces below with their evil eyes and cruel mouths.