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The Christian, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Book 4. Sanctuary - Chapter 15 |
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_ FOURTH BOOK. SANCTUARY CHAPTER XV There was a crowd of people of all sorts outside the tenement house when Glory returned to Brown's Square, and even the stairs were thronged with them. "The nurse!" they whispered as Glory appeared, and they made a way for her. Aggie was on the landing, wiping her eyes and answering the questions of strangers, being half afraid of the notoriety her poor room was achieving and half proud of it. "The laidy 'as came, Miss Gloria, and she sent me to tell you to wyte 'ere for 'er a minute." Then putting her head in at the open doer she beckoned and Mrs. Callender came out. "Hush! He's coming to. The poor laddie! He's been calling for ye, and calling and calling. But he thinks ye're in heaven together, seemingly, so ye must no say anything to shock him. Come your ways in now, and tak' care, lassie." John was still wandering, and the light of another world was in his eyes, but he was smiling, and he appeared to see. "Where is she?" he said in the toneless voice of one who talks in his sleep. "She's here now. Look! She's close beside ye." Glory advanced a step and stood beside the bed, struggling with herself not to fall upon his breast. He looked at her with a smile, but without any surprise, and said: "I knew that you would come to meet me, Glory! How happy you look! We shall both be happy now." Then his eyes wandered about the poor, ill-furnished apartment, and he said: "How beautiful it is here! And how lightsome the air is! Look! The golden gates! And the seven golden candlesticks! And the sea of glass like unto crystal! And all the innumerable company of the angels!" Aggie, who had returned to the room, was crying audibly. "Are you crying. Glory? Foolish child to cry! But I know--I understand! Put your dear hand in mine, my child, and we will go together to God's throne and say: 'Father, you must forgive us two. We were but man and woman, and we could not help but love each other, though it was a fault, and for one of us it was a sin.' And God will forgive us, because he made us so, and because God is the God of love." Glory could bear no more. "John!" she whispered. He raised himself on his elbow and held his head aslant, like one who listens to a sound that comes from a distance. "John!" "That's Glory's voice." "It _is_ Glory, dearest."' The serenity in his face gave way to a look of bewilderment. "But Glory is dead." "No, dear, she is alive, and she will never leave you again." "What place is this?" "This is Aggie's room." "Aggie?" "Don't you remember Aggie? One of the poor girls you fought and worked for." "Is it your spirit, Glory?" "It is myself, dearest, my very, very self." Then a great joy came into his eyes, his breast heaved, his breath came quick, and without a word more he stretched out his arms. * * * * * "It is Glory! She is alive! My God! O my God!" * * * * * "Do you forgive me, Glory?" "Forgive? There is nothing to forgive you for--except loving me too well." "My darling! My darling!" * * * * * "I thought I was in heaven, Glory, but I am like poor Buckingham--only half way to it yet. Have I been unconscious?" Glory nodded her head. "Long?" "Since last night." "Ah, I remember everything now. I was knocked down in the streets, wasn't I? The men did it--Pincher, Hawking, and the rest." "They shall be punished, John," said Glory in a quivering voice. "As sure as heaven's above us and there's law in the land----" "Aye, aye, laddie" (from somewhere by the door), "mak' yersel' sure o' that. There'll be never a man o' them but he'll hang for it same as a polecat on a barn gate." But John shook his head. "Poor fellows! They didn't understand. When they come to see what they've done---- 'Lord, Lord! lay not this sin to their charge.'" * * * * * She had wiped away the tears that sprung to her eyes and was sitting by his side and smiling. Her white teeth were showing, her red lips were twitching, and her face was full of sunshine. He was holding her hand and gazing at her constantly as if he could not allow himself to lose sight of her for a moment. "But I'm half sorry, for all that, Glory," he said. "Sorry?" "That we are not both in the other world, for there you were my bride, I remember, and all our pains were over." Then her sweet face coloured up to the forehead, and she leaned over the bed and whispered, "Ask me to be your bride in this one, dearest." "I can't! I daren't!" "Are you thinking of the vows?" "No!" emphatically. "But--I am a dying man--I know that quite well. And what right have I----" She gave a little gay toss of her golden head. "Pooh! Nobody was ever married because he had a _right_ to be exactly." "But there is your own profession--your great career." She shook her head gravely. "That's all over now." "Eh?" reaching up on his elbow. "When you had gone and nearly everybody was deserting your work, I thought I should like to take up a part of it." "And did you?" She nodded. "Blessed be God! Oh, God is very good!" and he lay back and panted. She laughed nervously. "Well, are you determined to make me ashamed? Am I to throw myself at your head, sir? Or perhaps you are going to refuse me, after all." "But why should I burden all the years of your life with the name of a fallen man? I am dying in disgrace, Glory." "No, but in honour--great, great honour! These few bad days will be forgotten soon, dearest--quite, quite forgotten. And in the future time people will come to me and say--girls, dearest, brave, brave girls, who are fighting the battle of life like men--they will come and say: 'And did you know him? Did you really, really know him?' And I will smile triumphantly and answer them 'Yes, for he loved me, and he is mine and I am his forever and forever!'" "It would be beautiful! We could not come together in this world; but to be united for all eternity on the threshold of the next----" "There! Say no more about it, for it's all arranged anyhow. The Father has been persuaded to read the service, and the Prime Minister is to bring the Archbishop's license, and it's to be to-day--this evening--and--and I'm not the first woman who has settled everything herself!" Then she began to laugh, and he laughed with her, and they laughed together in spite of his weakness and pain. At the next moment she was gone like a gleam of sunshine before a cloud, and Mrs. Callender had come back to the bedside, tying up the strings of her old-fashioned bonnet. "She's gold, laddie, that's what yon Glory is--just gold!" "Aye, tried in the fire and tested," he replied, and then the back of his head began to throb fiercely. Glory had fled out of the room to cry, and Mrs. Callender joined her on the landing. "I maun awa', lassie. I'd like fine to stop wi' ye, but I can't. It minds me of the time my Alec left me, and that's forty lang years the day, but he seems to have been with me ever syne." * * * * * "Where's Glory?" "She's coming, Father," said Aggie, and at the sound of her name Glory wiped her eyes and returned. "And was it by my being lost that you came here to Westminster and found me?" "Yes, and myself as well." "And I thought my life had been wasted! When one thinks of God's designs one feels humble--humble as the grass at one's feet----But are you sure you will never regret?" "Never!" "Nor look back?" She tossed her head again. "Call me Mrs. Lot at once, and have done with it." "It's wonderful! What a glorious work is before you, Glory! You'll take it up where I have left it, and carry it on and on. You are nobler than I am, and stronger, far stronger, and purer and braver. And haven't I said all along that what the world wants now is a great woman? I had the pith of it all, though I saw the true light--but I was not worthy. I had sinned and fallen, and didn't know my own heart, and was not fit to enter into the promised land. It is something, nevertheless, that I see it a long way off. And if I have been taken up to Sinai and heard the thunders of the everlasting law----" "Hush, dear! Somebody is coming." It was the great surgeon whom the Prime Minister had sent for. He examined the injuries carefully and gave certain instructions. "Mind you do this, Sister," and that, and the other. But Glory could see that he had no hope. To relieve the pain in the head he wanted to administer morphia, but John refused to have it. "I am going into the presence of the King," he said. "Let me have all my wits about me." While the doctor was there the police sergeant returned with a magistrate and the reporter. "Sorry to intrude, but hearing your patient was now conscious----" and then he prepared to take John's deposition. The reporter opened his notebook, the police magistrate stood at the foot of the bed, the doctor at one side of it and Glory at the other side, holding John's hand and quivering. "Do you know who struck you, sir?" There was silence for a moment, and then came "Yes." "Who was it?" There was another pause, and then, "Don't ask me." "But your own evidence will be most valuable; and, indeed, down to the present we have no other. Who is it, sir?" "I can't tell you." "But why?" There was no answer. "Why not give me the name of the scoundrel who took---- I mean attempted to take your life?" Then in a voice that was hardly audible, with his head thrown back and his eyes on the ceiling, John said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" It was useless to go further. Glory saw the four men to the door. "You must keep him quiet," said the doctor. "Not that anything can save him, but he is a man of stubborn will." And the police magistrate said, "It may be all very fine to forgive your enemies, but everybody has his duty to society, as well as to himself." "Yes, yes," said Glory, "the world has no room for greater hearts than its own." The police magistrate looked at her in bewilderment. "Just so," he said, and disappeared. * * * * * "Where is she now, my girl?" "She's 'ere, Father." "Hush!" said Glory, coming back to the room. "The doctor says you are not to talk so much." "Then let me look at you, Glory. Sit here--here--and if I should seem to be suffering you must not mind that, because I am really very happy." Just then an organ-man in the street began to play. Glory thought the music might disturb John, and she was going to send Aggie to stop it. But his face brightened and he said: "Sing for me, Glory. Let me hear your voice." The organ was playing a "coon song," and she sang the words of it. They were simple words, childish words, almost babyish, but full of tenderness and love. The little black boy could think of nothing but his Loo-loo. In the night when he was sleeping he awoke and he was weeping, for he was always, always dreaming of his Loo-loo, his Loo-loo! When the song was finished they took hands and talked in whispers, though they were alone in the room now, and nobody could hear them. His white face was very bright, and her moist eyes were full of merriment. They grew foolish in their tenderness and played with each other like little children. There were recollections of their early life in the little island home, memories of years concentrated into an hour--humorous stories and touches of mimicry. "'O Lord, open thou our lips----Where are you, Neilus?' 'Aw, here I am, your riverence, and my tongue shall shew forth thy praise.'" All at once John's face saddened and he said, "It's a pity, though!" "A pity!" "I suppose the man who carries the flag always gets 'potted,'as they say. But somebody must carry it." Glory felt her tears gathering. "It's a pity that I have to go before you, Glory." She shook her head to keep the tears from flowing, and then answered gaily: "Oh, that's only as it should be. I want a little while to think it all out, you know, and then--then I'll pass over to you, just as we fall asleep at night and pass from day to day." * * * * * And then he lay back with a sigh and said, "Well, I have had a happy end, at all events." _ |
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