V.

Before the race had been run, a solitary man with a dog at his heels had

crossed the Downs on his way back to the railway station. Jealousy and

rage possessed his heart between them, but he would not recognise these

passions; he believed his emotions to be horror and pity and shame.

John Storm had seen Glory on the race-course, in Drake's company, under

Drake's protection: he proud and triumphant, she bright and gay and

happy.

“O Lord, help me! Help me, O Lord!”

“And now, dragging along the road, in his mind's eye he saw her again

as the victim of this man, his plaything, his pastime to takeup or

leave--no better than any of the women about her, and where they were

going she would go also. Some day he would find her where he had found

others--outcast, deserted, forlorn, lost; down in the trough of life, a

thing of loathing and contempt!

“O Lord, help her! Help her, O Lord!”

There were few passengers by the train going back to London, nearly all

traffic at this hour being the other way, and there was no one else in

the compartment he occupied. He threw himself down in a corner, consumed

with indignation and a strange sense of dishonour. Again he saw her

bright eyes, her red lips--the glow of her whole radiant face and a

paroxysm of jealousy tore his heart to pieces. Glory was his. Though a

bottomless abyss was yawning between them, her soul belonged to him, and

a great upheaval of hatred for the man who possessed her body surged

up to his throat. Against all this his pride as well as his religion

rebelled. He crushed it down, and tried to turn his mind to another

current of ideas. How could he save her? If she should go down to

perdition, his remorse would be worse to bear than flames of fire and

brimstone. The more unworthy she was, the more reason he should strive

to rescue her soul from the pangs of eternal torment.

The rattling of the carriage broke in upon these visions, and he got up

and paced to and fro like a bear in a cage. And, like a bear with its

slow, strong grip, he seemed to be holding her in his wrath and saying:

“You shall not destroy yourself; you shall not, you shall not, for I, I,

I forbid it!” Then he sank back in his seat, exhausted by the conflict

which made his soul a battlefield of spiritual and sensual passions.

Every limb shook and quivered. He began to be afraid of himself, and he

felt an impulse to fly away somewhere. When he alighted at Victoria his

teeth were chattering, although the atmosphere was stifling and the sky

was now heavy with black and lowering clouds.

To avoid the eyes of the people who usually followed him in the streets,

he cut through a narrow thoroughfare and went back to Brown's Square by

way of the park. But the park was like a vast camp. Thousands of people

seemed to cover the grass as far as the eye could reach, and droves of

workmen, followed by their wives and children, were trudging to other

open spaces farther out. It was the panic terror. Afterward it was

calculated that fifty thousand persons from all parts of London had

quitted the doomed city that day to await the expected catastrophe under

the open sky.

The look of fierce passion had faded from his face by the time he

reached his church, but there another ordeal awaited him. Though it

still wanted an hour of the time of evening service a great crowd had

gathered in the square. He tried to escape observation, but the people

pressed upon him, some to shake his hand, others to touch his cassock,

and many to kneel at his feet and even to cover them with kisses. With a

sense of shame and hypocrisy he disengaged himself at length, and joined

Brother Andrew in the sacristy. The simple fellow was full of marvellous

stories. There had been wondrous manifestations of the workings of the

Holy Spirit during the day. The knocker-up, who was a lame man, had

shaken hands with the Father on his way home that morning, and now he

had thrown away his stick and was walking firmly and praising God.

The church was large and rectangular and plain, and looked a well-used

edifice, open every day and all day. The congregation was visibly

excited, but the service appeared to calm them. The ritual was full,

with procession and incense, but without vestments, and otherwise

monastic in its severity. John Storm preached. The epistle for the day

had been from First Corinthians, and he took his text from that source

also: “Deliver him up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that

the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

People said afterward that they had never heard anything like that

sermon. It was delivered in a voice that was low and tremulous with

emotion. The subject was love. Love was the first inheritance that God

had given to his creatures--the purest and highest, the sweetest and

best. But man had degraded and debased it, at the temptation of Satan

and the lust of the world. The expulsion of our first parents from Eden

was only the poetic figure of what had happened through all the ages. It

was happening now--and London, the modern Sodom, would as surely pay its

penalty as did the cities of the ancient East. No need to think of flood

or fire or tempest--of any given day or hour. The judgment that would

fall on England, like the plagues that fell on Egypt, would be of a kind

with the offence. She had wronged the spirit of love, and who knows but

God would punish her by taking out of the family of man the passion by

which she fell, lifting it away with all that pertained to it--good and

bad, spiritual and sensual, holy and corrupt?

The burning heat clouds of the day seemed to have descended into the

church, and in the gathering darkness the preacher, his face just

visible, with its eyes full of smouldering fire, drew an awful picture

of the world under the effects of such a curse. A place without

unselfishness, without self-sacrifice, without heroism, without

chivalry, without loyalty, without laughter, and without children!

Every man standing alone, isolated, self-centred, self-cursed, outlawed,

loveless, marriageless, going headlong to degeneracy and death! Such

might be God's punishment on this cruel and wicked city for its sensual

sins.

Then the preacher lost control of his imagination and swept his hearers

along with him as he fabricated horrible fancies. The people were

terror-stricken, and not until the last hymn was given out did they

recover the colour of their blanched faces. Then they sang as with

one voice, and after the benediction had been pronounced and they were

surging down the aisles in close packs, they started the hymn again.

Even when they had left the church they could not disperse. Out in the

square were the thousands who had not been able to get inside the doors,

and every moment the vast proportions of the crowd were swelled. The

ground was covered, the windows round about were thrown up and full of

faces, and people had clambered on to the railings of the church, and

even on to the roofs of the houses.

Somebody went to the sacristy and told the Father what was happening

outside. He was now like a man beside himself, and going out on to the

steps of the church where he could be seen by all, he lifted his hands

and pronounced a prayer in a sonorous and fervent voice:

“How long, O Lord, how long? From the bosom of God, where thou reposest,

look down on the world where thou didst walk as a man. Didst thou not

teach us to pray 'Thy kingdom come'? Didst thou not say thy kingdom was

near; that some who stood with thee should not taste of death till

they had seen it come with power; that when it came the poor should be

blessed, the hungry should be fed, the blind should see, the heavy-laden

should find rest, and the will of thy Father should be done on earth

even as it is done in heaven? But nigh upon two thousand years lave

gone, O Lord, and thy kingdom hath not come. In thy name now doth the

Pharisee give alms in the streets to the sound of a trumpet going before

him. In thy name now doth the Levite pass by on the other side when a

man has fallen among thieves. In thy name now doth the priest buy and

sell the glad tidings of the kingdom, giving for the gospel of God the

commandments of men, living in rich men's houses, faring sumptuously

every day, praying with his lips, 'Give us this day our daily bread,'

but saying to his; soul: 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many

years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' How long, O Lord, how

long?”

Hardly had John Storm stepped back when the heavy clouds broke into

mutterings of thunder. So low were the sounds at first that in the

general tumult they were scarcely noticed; but they came again and

again, louder and louder with every fresh reverberation, and then the

excitement of the people became intense and terrible. It was as if the

heavens themselves had spoken to give sign and assurance of the calamity

that had been foretold.

First a woman began to scream as if in the pains of labour. Then a young

girl cried out for mercy, and accused herself of countless and nameless

offences. Then the entire crowd seemed to burst into sobs and moans and

agonizing expressions of despair, mingled with shouts of wild laughter

and mad thanksgiving. “Pardon, pardon!” “O Jesus, save me!” “O Saviour

of sinners!” “O God, have mercy upon me!” “O my heart, my heart!” Some

threw themselves on the ground, stiff and motionless and insensible as

dead men. Others stood over the stricken people and prayed for their

relief from the power of Satan. Others fell into convulsions, and yet

others, with wild and staring eyes, rejoiced in their own salvation.

It was now almost dark and some of the people who had been out to the

Derby were returning home in their gigs and coster's carts, laughing,

singing, and nearly all of them drunk. There were wild encounters. A

young soldier (it was Charlie Wilkes) came upon Pincher the pawnbroker.

“Wot tcher, myte? Wot's yer amoosemint now?”

“Silence, you evil liver, you gambler, you son of Belial!”

“Stou thet now--d'ye want a kepple er black eyes or a pench on the

nowze?”

At nine o'clock the police of Westminster, being unable to disperse the

crowd, seat to Scotland Yard for the mounted constabulary.