"It is coming to that, my child; but blood is thicker than water, you know, and after all----"
It was at this moment the footman entered the room to ask if the canon could see Mr. Storm.
"Ah, the man himself!" said the canon, rising. "Jenkyns, remove the tray." Dropping his voice: "Felicity, I will ask you to leave us together. After what occurred this morning at the hospital anything like a scene----" Then aloud: "Bring him in, Jenkyns.--Say something, my dear. Why don"t you speak?--Come in, my dear Storm.--You"ll see to that matter for me, Felicity. Thanks, thanks! Sorry to send you off, but I"m sure Mr. Storm will excuse you. Good-bye for the present."
Felicity went out as John Storm came in. He looked excited, and there was an expression of pain in his face.
"I am sorry to disturb you, but I need not detain you long," he said.
"Sit down, Mr. Storm, sit down," said the canon, returning to the sofa.
But John did not sit. He stood by the chair vacated by Felicity, and kept beating his hat on the back of it.
"I have come to tell you, sir, that I wish to resign my curacy."
The canon glanced up with a stealthy expression, and thought: "How clever of him! To resign before he is told plainly that he has to go--that is very clever."
Then he said aloud: "I am sorry, very sorry. I"m always sorry to part with my clergy. Still--you see I am entirely frank with you--I have observed that you have not been comfortable of late, and I think you are acting for the best. When do you wish to leave me?"
"As soon as convenient--as early as I can be spared."
The canon smiled condescendingly. "That need not trouble you at all.
With a staff like mine, you see---- Of course, you are aware that I am ent.i.tled to three months" notice?"
"Yes."
"But I will waive it; I will not detain you. Have you seen your uncle on the subject?"
"No."
"When you do so please say that I always try to remove impediments from a young man"s path if he is uncomfortable--in the wrong place, for example."
"Thank you," said John Storm, and then he hesitated a moment before stepping to the door.
The canon rose and bowed affably. "Not an angry word," he thought. "Who shall say that blood does not count for something?"
"Believe me, my dear Storm," he said aloud, "I shall always remember with pride and pleasure our early connection. Perhaps I think you are acting unwisely, even foolishly, but it will continue to be a source of satisfaction to me that I was able to give you your first opportunity, and if your next curacy should chance to be in London, I trust you will allow us to maintain the acquaintance."
John Storm"s face was twitching and his pulses were beating violently, but he was trying to control himself.
"Thank you," he said; "but it is not very likely----"
"Don"t say you are giving up Orders, dear Mr. Storm, or perhaps that you are only leaving our church in order to unite yourself to another. Ah!
have I touched on a tender point? You must not be surprised that rumours have been rife. We can not silence the tongues of busybodies and mischief-makers, you know. And I confess, speaking as your spiritual head and adviser, it would be a source of grief to me if a young clergyman, who has eaten the bread of the Establishment, and my own as well, were about to avow himself the subject and slave of an Italian bishop."
John Storm came back from the door.
"What you are saying, sir, requires that I should be plain spoken. In giving up my curacy I am not leaving the Church of England; I am only leaving you."
"I am so glad, so relieved!"
"I am leaving you because I can not live with you any longer, because the atmosphere you breathe is impossible to me, because your religion is not my religion, or your G.o.d my G.o.d!"
"You surprise me. What have I done?"
"A month ago I asked you to set your face as a clergyman against the shameful and immoral marriage of a man of scandalous reputation, but you refused; you excused the man and sided with him. This morning you thought it necessary to investigate in public the case of one of that man"s victims, and you sided with the man again--you denied to the girl the right even to mention the scoundrel"s name!"
"How differently we see things! Do you know I thought my examination of the poor young thing was merciful to the point of gentleness! And that, I may tell you--notwithstanding the female volcano who came down on me--was the view of the board and of his lordship the chairman."
"Then I am sorry to differ from them. I thought it unnecessary and unmanly and brutal, and even blasphemous!"
"Mr. Storm! Do you know what you are saying?"
"Perfectly, and I came to say it."
His eyes were wild, his voice was hoa.r.s.e; he was like a man breaking the bonds of a tyrannical slavery.
"You called that poor child a prost.i.tute because she had wasted the good gifts which G.o.d had given her. But G.o.d has given good gifts to you also--gifts of intellect and eloquence with which you might have raised the fallen and supported the weak, and defended the downtrodden and comforted the broken-hearted--and what have you done with them? You have bartered them for benefices, and peddled them for popularity; you have given them in exchange for money, for houses, for furniture, for things like this--and this--and this! You have sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, therefore _you_ are the prost.i.tute!"
"You"re not yourself, sir; leave me," and, crossing the room, the canon touched the bell.
"Yes, ten thousand times more the prost.i.tute than that poor fallen girl with her taint of blood and will! There would be no such women as she is to fall victims to evil companionship if there were no such men as you are to excuse their betrayers and to side with them. Who is most the prost.i.tute--the woman who sells her body, or the man who sells his soul?"
"You"re mad, sir! But I want no scene----"
"You are the worst prost.i.tute on the streets of London, and yet you are in the Church, in the pulpit, and you call yourself a follower of the One who forgave the woman and shamed the hypocrites, and had not where to lay his head!"
But the canon had faced about and fled out of the room.
The footman came in answer to the bell, and, finding no one but John Storm, he told him that a lady was waiting for him in a carriage at the door.
It was Mrs. Callender. She had come to say that she had called at the hospital for Polly Love, and the girl had refused to go to the home at Soho.
"But whatever"s amiss with ye, man?" she said. "You might have seen a ghost!"
He had come out bareheaded, carrying his hat in his hand.
"It"s all over," he said. "I"ve waited weeks and weeks for it, but it"s over at last. It was of no use mincing matters, so I spoke out."
His red eyes were ablaze, but a great load seemed to be lifted off his mind, and his soul seemed to exult.
"I have told him I must leave him, and I am to go, immediately. The disease was dire, and the remedy had to be dire also."
The old lady was holding her breath and watching his flushed face with strained attention.
"And what may ye be going to do now?"
"To become a religious in something more than the name; to leave the world altogether with its idleness and pomp and hypocrisy and unreality."