She did not seem surprised at the incongruity of his shabbiness producing money.
"Well, now," she said, "I WAS wonderin" an" askin". I"d like "er clean an" nice, an" there"s milk wanted bad for the biby."
In the room they mounted to Glad was trying to feed the child with bread softened in tea. Polly sat near her looking on with restless, eager eyes. She had never seen anything of her own baby but its limp newborn and dead body being carried away out of sight. She had not even dared to ask what was done with such poor little carrion. The tyranny of the law of life made her want to paw and touch this lately born thing, as her agony had given her no fruit of her own body to touch and paw and nuzzle and caress as mother creatures will whether they be women or tigresses or doves or female cats.
"Let me hold her, Glad," she half whimpered. "When she"s fed let me get her to sleep."
"All right," Glad answered; "we could look after "er between us well enough."
The thief was still sitting on the hearth, but being full fed and comfortable for the first time in many a day, he had rested his head against the wall and fallen into profound sleep.
"Wot"s up?" said Glad when the two men came in. "Is anythin"
"appenin"?"
"I have come up here to tell you something," Dart answered. "Let us sit down again round the fire. It will take a little time."
Glad with eager eyes on him handed the child to Polly and sat down without a moment"s hesitance, avid of what was to come. She nudged the thief with friendly elbow and he started up awake.
""E"s got somethin" to tell us," she explained. "The curick"s come up to "ear it, too. Sit "ere, Polly," with elbow jerk toward the bundle of sacks. "It"s got its stummick full an" it"ll go to sleep fast enough."
So they sat again in the weird circle. Neither the strangeness of the group nor the squalor of the hearth were of a nature to be new things to the curate. His eyes fixed themselves on Dart"s face, as did the eyes of the thief, the beggar, and the young thing of the street. No one glanced away from him.
His telling of his story was almost monotonous in its semi-reflective quietness of tone. The strangeness to himself--though it was a strangeness he accepted absolutely without protest--lay in his telling it at all, and in a sense of his knowledge that each of these creatures would understand and mysteriously know what depths he had touched this day.
"Just before I left my lodgings this morning," he said, "I found myself standing in the middle of my room and speaking to Something aloud. I did not know I was going to speak. I did not know what I was speaking to. I heard my own voice cry out in agony, "Lord, Lord, what shall I do to be saved?""
The curate made a sudden movement in his place and his sallow young face flushed. But he said nothing.
Glad"s small and sharp countenance became curious.
""Speak, Lord, thy servant "eareth,"" she quoted tentatively.
"No," answered Dart; "it was not like that. I had never thought of such things. I believed nothing. I was going out to buy a pistol and when I returned intended to blow my brains out."
"Why?" asked Glad, with pa.s.sionately intent eyes; "why?"
"Because I was worn out and done for, and all the world seemed worn out and done for. And among other things I believed I was beginning slowly to go mad."
From the thief there burst forth a low groan and he turned his face to the wall.
"I"ve been there," he said; "I "m near there now."
Dart took up speech again.
"There was no answer--none. As I stood waiting--G.o.d knows for what--the dead stillness of the room was like the dead stillness of the grave. And I went out saying to my soul, "This is what happens to the fool who cries aloud in his pain.""
"I"ve cried aloud," said the thief, "and sometimes it seemed as if an answer was coming--but I always knew it never would!" in a tortured voice.
""T ain"t fair to arst that wye," Glad put in with shrewd logic.
"Miss Montaubyn she allers knows it WILL come--an" it does."
"Something--not myself--turned my feet toward this place," said Dart. "I was thrust from one thing to another. I was forced to see and hear things close at hand. It has been as if I was under a spell. The woman in the room below--the woman lying dead!" He stopped a second, and then went on: "There is too much that is crying out aloud. A man such as I am--it has FORCED itself upon me--cannot leave such things and give himself to the dust. I cannot explain clearly because I am not thinking as I am accustomed to think. A change has come upon me. I shall not use the pistol--as I meant to use it."
Glad made a friendly clutch at the sleeve of his shabby coat.
"Right O!" she cried. "That"s it! You buck up sime as I told yer. Y"
ain"t stony broke an" there"s "allers to-morrer."
Antony Dart"s expression was weirdly retrospective.
"I did not think so this morning," he answered.
"But there is," said the girl. "Ain"t there now, curick? There"s a lot o" work in yer yet; yer could do all sorts o" things if y" ain"t too proud. I"ll "elp yer. So "ll the curick. Y" ain"t found out yet what a little folks can live on till luck turns. Me, I"m goin" to try Miss Montaubyn"s wye. Le"s both try. Le"s believe things is comin". Le"s get "er to talk to us some more."
The curate was thinking the thing over deeply.
"Yer see," Glad enlarged cheerfully, "yer look almost like a gentleman.
P"raps yer can write a good "and an" spell all right. Can yer?"
"Yes."
"I think, perhaps," the curate began reflectively, "particularly if you can write well, I might be able to get you some work."
"I do not want work," Dart answered slowly. "At least I do not want the kind you would be likely to offer me."
The curate felt a shock, as if cold water had been dashed over him.
Somehow it had not once occurred to him that the man could be one of the educated degenerate vicious for whom no power to help lay in any hands-- yet he was not the common vagrant--and he was plainly on the point of producing an excuse for refusing work.
The other man, seeing his start and his amazed, troubled flush, put out a hand and touched his arm apologetically.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "One of the things I was going to tell you--I had not finished--was that I AM what is called a gentleman. I am also what the world knows as a rich man. I am Sir Oliver Holt."
Each member of the party gazed at him aghast. It was an enormous name to claim. Even the two female creatures knew what it stood for. It was the name which represented the greatest wealth and power in the world of finance and schemes of business. It stood for financial influence which could change the face of national fortunes and bring about crises. It was known throughout the world. Yesterday the newspaper rumor that its owner had mysteriously left England had caused men on "Change to discuss possibilities together with lowered voices.
Glad stared at the curate. For the first time she looked disturbed and alarmed.
"Blimme," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ""e"s gone off "is nut, pore chap!--"e"s gone off it!"
"No," the man answered, "you shall come to me"--he hesitated a second while a shade pa.s.sed over his eyes--"TO-MORROW. And you shall see."
He rose quietly to his feet and the curate rose also. Abnormal as the climax was, it was to be seen that there was no mistake about the revelation. The man was a creature of authority and used to carrying conviction by his unsupported word. That made itself, by some clear, unspoken method, plain.
"You are Sir Oliver Holt! And a few hours ago you were on the point of--"
"Ending it all--in an obscure lodging. Afterward the earth would have been shovelled on to a work-house coffin. It was an awful thing." He shook off a pa.s.sionate shudder. "There was no wealth on earth that could give me a moment"s ease--sleep--hope--life. The whole world was full of things I loathed the sight and thought of. The doctors said my condition was physical. Perhaps it was--perhaps to-day has strangely given a healthful jolt to my nerves--perhaps I have been dragged away from the agony of morbidity and plunged into new intense emotions which have saved me from the last thing and the worst--SAVED me!"
He stopped suddenly and his face flushed, and then quite slowly turned pale.