The Bishop and Catherine, a few weeks later, walked side by side up the
murky length of St. Pancras platform. The train which they had come to
meet was a quarter of an hour late, and they had fallen into a sort of
reminiscent conversation which was not without interest to both of them.
“I left Mr. Stenson only an hour ago,” the Bishop observed. “He could
talk about nothing but Julian Orden and his wonderful speeches. They say
that at Sheffield and Newcastle the enthusiasm was tremendous, and at
three shipbuilding yards on the Clyde the actual work done for the
week after his visit was nearly as much again. He seems to have that
extraordinary gift of talking straight to the hearts of the men. He
makes them feel.”
“Mr. Stenson wrote me about it,” Catherine told her companion, with
a little smile. “He said that no dignity that could be thought of or
invented would be an adequate offering to Julian for his services to
the country. For the first time since the war, Labour seems wholly and
entirely, passionately almost, in earnest. Every one of those delegates
went back full of enthusiasm, and with every one of them, Julian, before
he has finished, is going to make a little tour in his own district.”
“And after to-morrow,” the Bishop remarked with a smile, “I suppose he
will not be alone.”
She pressed his arm.
“It is very wonderful to think about,” she said quietly. “I am going to
try and be Julian’s secretary--whilst we are away, at any rate.”
“It isn’t often,” the Bishop reflected, “that I have the chance of a
few minutes’ quiet conversation, on the day before her wedding, with the
woman whom I am going to marry to the man I think most of on earth.”
“Give me some good advice,” she begged.
The Bishop shook his head.
“You don’t need it,” he said. “A wife who loves her husband needs very
few words of admonition. There are marriages so often in which one
can see the rocks ahead that one opens one’s prayer-book, even, with a
little tremor of fear. But with you and Julian it is different.”
“There is nothing that a woman can do for the man whom she loves,” she
declared softly, “which I shall not try to do for Julian.”
They paced up and down for a few moments in silence. The Bishop’s
step was almost buoyant. He seemed to have lost all that weary load
of anxiety which had weighed him down during the last few months.
Catherine, too, in her becoming grey furs, her face flushed with
excitement, had the air of one who has thrown all anxiety to the winds.
“Julian’s gift of speech must have surprised even himself,” the Bishop
remarked. “Of course, we always knew that ‘Paul Fiske’, when he was
found, must be a brilliant person, but I don’t think that even Julian
himself had any suspicion of his oratorical powers.”
“I don’t think he had,” she agreed. “In his first letter he told me that
it was just like sitting down at his desk to write, except that all the
dull material impedimenta of paper and ink and walls seemed rolled away,
and the men to whom he wished his words to travel were there waiting. Of
course, he is wonderful, but Phineas Cross, David Sands and some of the
others have shown a positive genius for organisation. That Council of
Socialism, Trades Unionism, and Labour generally, which was formed to
bring us premature peace, seems for the first time to have brought all
Labour into one party, Labour in its very broadest sense, I mean.”
“The truth of the matter is,” the Bishop pronounced, “that the people
have accepted the dictum that whatever form of republicanism is aimed
at, there must be government. A body of men who realise that,
however advanced their ideas, can do but little harm. I am perfectly
certain--Stenson admits it himself--that before very long we shall have
a Labour Ministry. Who cares? It will probably be a good ministry--good
for the country and good for the world. There has been too much juggling
in international politics. This war is going to end that, once and
for ever. By the bye,” he went on, in an altered tone, “there is one
question which I have always had in my mind to ask you. If I do so now,
will you please understand that if you think it best you need not answer
me?”
“Certainly,” Catherine replied.
“From what source did you get your information which saved us all?”
“It came to me from a man who is dead,” was the quiet answer.
The Bishop looked steadily ahead at the row of signal lights.
“There was a young foreigner, some weeks ago,” he said “a Baron
Hellman--quite a distinguished person, I believe--who was discovered
shot in his rooms.”
She acquiesced silently.
“If you were to go to the Home Office and were able to persuade them
to treat you candidly, I think that you could discover some wonderful
things,” she confided. “I wish I could believe that the Baron was the
only one who has been living in this country, unsuspected, and occupying
a prominent position, who was really in the pay of Germany.”
“It was a very subtle conspiracy,” the Bishop remarked thoughtfully,
“subtle because, in a sense, it appeared so genuine. It appealed to the
very best instincts of thinking men.”
“Good has come out of it, at any rate,” she reminded him. “Westminster
Buildings is now the centre of patriotic England. Labour was to have
brought the war to an end--for Germany. It is Labour which is going to
win the victory--for England.”
The train rolled into the station and rapidly disgorged its crowd
of passengers, amongst whom Julian was one of the first to alight.
Catherine found herself trembling. The shy words of welcome which had
formed themselves in her mind died away on her lips as their glances
met. She lifted her face to his.
“Julian,” she murmured, “I am so proud--so happy.”
The Bishop left them as they stepped into their cab.
“I am going to a mission room in the neighbourhood,” he explained. “We
have war talks every week. I try to tell them how things are going on,
and we have a short service. But before I go, Mr. Stenson has sent you
a little message, Julian. If you go to your club later on to-night, you
will see it in the telegrams, or you will find it in your newspapers in
the morning. There has been wonderful fighting in Flanders to-day. The
German line has been broken at half a dozen points. We have taken nearly
twenty thousand prisoners, and Zeebrugge is threatened. Farther south,
the Americans have made their start and have won a complete victory over
the Crown Prince’s picked troops.”
The two men wrung hands.
“This,” Julian declared, “is the only way to Peace.”
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Devil’s Paw, by E. Phillips Oppenheim