The clocks of London were striking one when Paul and Greta descended the
steps in front of St. Pancras Station. The night was dark and bitterly
cold. Dense fog hung in the air, and an unaccustomed silence brooded
over the city. A solitary four-wheeled cab stood in the open square. The
driver was inside, huddled up in his great-coat, and asleep. A porter
awakened him, and he made way for Greta and Paul. He took his apron from
the back of his horse, wrapped it about his waist, and snuffed the wicks
of his lamps--they burned low and red, and crackled in the damp
atmosphere.
"What hotel, sir?"
"The convent, Westminster."
"Convent, sir? Did you say the convent, sir? St. Margaret's,
Westminster, sir?"
"The Catholic convent."
Greta's hand pressed Paul's arm.
The cabman got on to his box, muttering something that was inaudible. As
he passed the gate lodge he drew up while the porter on duty came out
with a lamp, and took the number of the cab.
The fog grew more dense at every step, and the pace at which they
traveled was slow. To avoid the maze of streets that would have helped
them to a shorter cut on a clearer night, the driver struck along Euston
Road to Tottenham Court Road, and thence south toward Oxford Street.
This straighter and plainer course had the disadvantage of being more
frequented. Many a collision became imminent in the uncertain light.
The cabman bought a torch from a passer-by, and stuck it in his
whip-barrel. As they reached the busier thoroughfares he got down from
his box, took the torch in one hand and the reins in the other, and
walked at his horse's head.
The pace was now slower than before. It was like a toilsome passage
through the workings of an iron mine. Volumes of noisome vapor rolled
slowly past them. The air hung close over their heads like an unseen,
vaulted roof. Red lights gleamed like vanishing stars down the elastic
vista. One light would turn out to be a coffee-stall, round which a
group of people gathered--cabmen muffled to the throat, women draggled
and dirty, boys with faces that were old. Another would be a
potato-engine, with its own volumes of white vapor, and the clank of its
oven door like the metallic echo of the miner's pick. The line of
regular lamps was like the line of candles stuck to the rock, the cross
streets were like the cross-workings, the damp air settling down into
streaks of moisture on the glass of the cab window was like the ceasless
drip, drip of the oozing water from overhead.
And to the two laden souls sitting within in silence and with clasped
hands, the great city, nay, the world itself, was like a colossal mine,
which human earthworms had burrowed underground, while the light and
the free air were both above.
At one point, where a patch of dry pavement indicated a bake-house under
the street, three or four squalid creatures crouched together and slept.
The streets were all but noiseless. It would be two hours yet before the
giant of traffic would awake. The few cabmen hailed each other as they
passed unrecognized, and their voices sounded hoarse. When the many
clocks struck two, the many tones came muffled through the dense air.
The journey was long and wearisome, but Paul and Greta scarcely felt it.
They were soon to part; they knew not when they were to meet again.
Perhaps soon, perhaps late; perhaps not until a darkness deeper than
this should cover the land.
Turning into Oxford Street, the cabman struck away to the west, in order
to come upon Westminster by the main artery of Regent Street. The great
thoroughfare was quiet enough now. Fashion was at rest, but even here,
and in its own mocking guise, misery had its haunt. A light laugh broke
the silence of the street, and a girl, so young as to be little more
than a child, dressed in soiled finery, and reeling with unsteady step
on the pavement, came up to the cab window and peered in.
At the open door of a hotel, from whence a shaft of light came out into
the fog, the cabman drew up. "Comfortable hotel, sir; think you'd like
to put up, sir?"
Paul dropped the window. "We want the Catholic convent at Westminster,
my man."
The cabman had put up his torch and was flapping his arms under his
armpits. "Cold job, sir. Think I've had enough of it. Ha'past two, and a
mile from St. Margaret's yet, sir. Got a long step home, sir, and the
missis looking out for me this hour and more."
The night porter of the hotel had opened the cab door, but not for an
instant did Paul's purpose waver. "I'm sorry, my good fellow, but we
must reach the convent, as I tell you."
"Won't to-morrow do, sir? Comfortable quarters, sir. Can recommend 'em,"
with a tip of his hand over his shoulder.
"We must get to the convent to-night, my man."
The cabman returned to his horse's head with a grunt of dissatisfaction.
"Porter, can you keep a bed for me here? I shall be back in an hour,"
said Paul. The porter signified assent, and once again the cab moved off
on its slow journey.
As it passed out of Trafalgar Square by way of Charing Cross, the air
suddenly lightened. It was as if waves of white mist rolled over the
yellow vapor. The cabman threw away his torch, mounted his box, and set
off at a trot. When he reached Parliament Square the fog was gone. The
great clock of Westminster was striking three; the sky was a dun gray
behind the clocktower, and the dark mass of the abbey could be dimly
seen.
The cab drew up on the south-west of Abbey Gardens and before a portico
railed in by an iron gate. The lamp burning on the sidewalk in front
cast a hazy light on what seemed to be a large brick house plain in
every feature.
"This is Saint Margaret's, sir. Eight shillings, sir, if you please."
Paul dismissed the cabman and rang the bell; the hollow tongue sent out
a startling reverberation into the night. The sky to the east was
breaking; thin streaks of a lighter gray foretold the dawn.
The door opened and the iron gate swung back. A sister carrying an open
oil lamp motioned them to enter.
"Can I see the superior?" said Paul.
"She is newly risen," said the sister, and she fixed the lamp to a
bracket in the wall and went away. They were left in a bare, chill,
echoing hall.
The next moment a line of nuns in their coifs passed close by them with
quick and silent steps. At that gray hour they had risen for matins.
Some of them were pale and emaciated, and one that was palest and most
worn went by with drooping head and hands that inlaced her rosary. Paul
stepped back a pace. The nun moved steadily onward with the rest. Never
a sign of recognition, never an upward glance, only the quivering of a
lip--but it was his mother!
He, too, dropped his head, and his own lips trembled. The mother
superior was standing with them before he was aware. For an instant his
voice was suspended, but he told her at length that a great calamity had
befallen them, and begged her to take his wife for a time into her care.
"Charity is our office," said the mother, when she had heard his story.
"Come, my sister, the Church is peace. Your poor laden soul may put off
its load while you are here."
Paul begged to be allowed a moment to say farewell, and the good mother
left them together.
Then from an inner chamber came the solemn tones of an organ and the
full voices of a choir. The softened harmonies seemed to float into
their torn hearts, and they wept. The gray dawn was creeping in. It
blurred the red light of the lamp.
"Good-bye, darling, good-bye!" Paul whispered; but even while he spoke
he clung the closer.
"Good-bye for the present, dear husband," said Greta, and smiled.
"Who would have thought that this calamity could wait for you at the
very steps of God's altar?"
"A day will turn all this evil into good."
"At the threshold of our life together to be torn apart!"
"Think of it no more, dearest. Our lives will yet be the brighter for
this calamity. Do you remember what Parson Christian used to say? The
happiest life is not that which is always in the sunlight, but rather
that over which a dark cloud has once lowered and passed away."
Paul shook his head. "My lips are sealed. You do not know all. It is a
cruel lie that separates us. But what if it can not be disproved?"
Greta's eyes were full of a radiant hopefulness. "It can, and shall!"
Paul bent his head and touched her forehead with his lips. "The past is
a silence that gives back no answer," he said. "My mother alone could
disprove it, and she is dead to the world."
"Not alone, dearest. I can disprove it. Wait and see!"
Paul smiled coldly, and once more shook his head. "You don't know all,"
he said again, and kissed her reverently. "What if to-morrow, and
to-morrow, and to-morrow brings no light to unravel this mystery?"
"Never fear it. The finger of Heaven is in this," said Greta.
"Say, rather, the hand of destiny. And how little we are in the presence
of that pitiless power!"
"God sees all," said Greta. "He has led me in here, and He will guide me
out again."
"What if I brought you for a day, and you remain for a year, for life?"
"Then think that God Himself has taken your wife at your hands."
Paul's face, that had worn a look of deep dejection, became distorted
with pain. "Oh, it is horrible! And this cloister is to be your
marriage-bed!"
"Hush! All is peace here. Good-bye, dearest Paul. Be brave, my husband."
"Brave? Before death a man may be brave; but in the face of a calamity
like this, what man could be brave?"
"God will turn it away."
"God grant it. But I tremble to ask for the truth. The future is not
more awful to me now than the past."
"Keep up heart, dear Paul. You know how pleasant it is to fall asleep
amid storms that shake the trees, and to awake in the stillness and the
sunshine, and amid the songs of the birds. To-morrow the falsehood will
be outfaced, and you will return to fetch me."
"Yes," said Paul, "or else drag out my days as an outcast in the world."
"No, no, no. Good-bye, dearest." Then the voice of the comforter failed
her, and she dropped her head on his breast.
The choir within chanted the matin service. Paul removed the iron bar
that crossed the door, and opened it. The opposite side of the street
was a blank wall, with gaunt boughs of leafless trees behind it and
above it, and beyond all was the dim sanctuary. Traffic's deep buzz
flowed in the distance. The dawn had reddened the eastern sky, and the
towers of the abbey were black against the glory of the coming day.
"It may be that there is never a sunrise on this old city but it awakens
some one to some new calamity," said Paul; "yet surely this is the
heaviest stroke of all Good-bye, my darling!"
"Good-bye, my husband!"
"Yonder gray old fabric has looked on the scarred ruins of many a life,
but never a funeral that has passed down its aisles was so sad as this
parting. Good-bye, dearest wife, good-bye!"
"Good-bye, Paul!"
He struck his breast and drew his breath audibly, "I must go. The thing
is not to be thought of and endured!"
"Good-bye, Paul!" Her face was buried in his breast, to hide it from his
eyes.
"They say that the day a dear friend is lost to us is purer and calmer
in remembrance than the day before. May it be so with us!"
"Hush! You will soon be back to take me away." And Greta nestled closer
to his breast.
"If not--if not"--his hot breathing beat fast on her drooping head--"if
not, then--as the world is dead to both without the other's love--remain
here--in this house--forever. Good-bye! Good-bye!"
He disengaged her clinging arms. He pressed her cold brow with his
quivering lips. Her fears conquered her brave heart at last. A mist was
fast hiding her from him.
"Good-bye! good-bye!"
A moment's silence, a breaking sigh, a rising sob, a last lingering
touch of the inlaced fingers, and then the door closed behind him. She
was alone in the empty hall; her lips were cold; her eyes were shut. The
rosy hues of morning were floating in the air, now rich and sweet and
balmy and restful, with the full, pure, holy harmonies of the choir.