Deyes bowed.
"You remind me, if I may be permitted to say so," he continued, "of the prophet who went about with sackcloth and ashes on his head, crying "Woe! woe! woe!" but who was either unable or unwilling to suggest any means by which that doleful cry might be replaced by one of more cheerful import. In plain words, sir, according to your lights--what must we do to be saved?"
There was a murmur of interest amongst the audience. There were many upon whom Macheson"s stinging words and direct denunciation had left their mark. They sat up eagerly and waited for his answer. He came to the edge of the platform and looked thoughtfully into their faces.
"In this city," he said, "it should not be necessary for any one to ask that question. My answer may seem trite and hackneyed. Yet if you will accept it, you may come to the truth. Take a hansom cab, and drive as far, say, as Whitechapel. Walk--in any direction--for half a mile. Look into the faces of the men, the women and the children. Then go home and think. You will say at first nothing can be done for these people. They have dropped down too low, they have lost their humanity, they only justify the natural law of the survival of the fittest. Think again! A hemisphere may divide the East and the West of this great city; but these are human beings as you are a human being, they are your brothers and your sisters. Consider for a moment this natural law of yours. It is based upon the principle of the see-saw. Those who are down, are down because the others are up. Those men are beasts, those women are uns.e.xed, those children are growing up with dirt upon their bodies and sin in their hearts, because you others are what you are. Because!
Consider that. Consider it well, and take up your responsibility. They die that you may flourish! Do you think that the see-saw will be always one way? A revolution in this world, or justice in the next! Which would you rather face?"
Deyes bowed slightly.
"You have given me an answer, sir, for which I thank you," he answered.
"But you must allow me to remind you of the great stream of gold which flows all the while from the West to the East. Hospitals, mission houses, orphanages, colonial farms--are we to have no credit for these?"
"Very little," Macheson answered, "for you give of your superfluity.
Charity has little to do with the cheque-book. Besides, you must remember this. I am not here to-day to plead the cause of the East. I am here to talk to you of your own lives. I represent, if you are pleased to have it so, the Sandow of your spiritual body. I ask you to submit your souls to my treatment, as the professor of physical culture would ask for your bodies. This is not a matter of religion at all. It is a matter, if you choose to call it so, of philosophy. Your souls need exercise. You need a course of thinking and working for the good of some one else--not for your own benefit. Give up one sin in your life, and replace it with a whole-hearted effort to rescue one unfortunate person from sin and despair, and you will gain what I understand to be the desire of all of you--a new pleasure. Briefly, for your own sakes, from your own point of view, it is a personal charity which I am advocating, as distinguished from the charity of the cheque-book."
"One more question, Mr. Macheson," Deyes continued quietly. "Where do we find the lost souls--I mean upon what principle of selection do we work?"
"There are many excellent inst.i.tutions through which you can come into touch with them," Macheson answered. "You can hear of these through the clergyman of your own parish, or the Bishop of London."
Deyes thanked him and sat down. The lecture was over, and the people slowly dispersed. Macheson pa.s.sed into the room at the back of the platform. Drayton, who was waiting for him there, pushed over a box of cigarettes. He knew that Macheson loved to smoke directly he had finished talking.
"Macheson," he said solemnly, "you"re a marvel. Why, in my country, I guess they"d come and scratch your eyes out before they"d stand plain speaking like that."
Macheson was looking away into vacancy.
"I wonder," he said softly, "if it does any good--any real good?"
Drayton, who was looking through a cash-book with gleaming eyes, opened his lips to speak, but thought better of it. He pointed instead towards the table.
The usual pile of notes was there--all the latest novelties in fancy stationery were represented there, crested, coroneted, scented. Macheson began to tear them open and as rapidly destroy them with a little gesture of disgust. They were mostly of the same type. The girls were all so anxious to do a little good, so tired of the wearisome round of Society, wouldn"t Mr. Macheson be very kind and give them some personal advice? Couldn"t he meet them somewhere, or might they come and see him?
They did hope that he wouldn"t think them bold! It would be such a help to talk to him. The married ladies were bolder still. They felt the same craving for advice, but their proposals were more definite. Mr. Macheson must come and see them! They would be quite alone (underlined), there should be no one else there to worry him. Then followed times and addresses. One lady, whose coronet and motto were familiar to him, would take no denial. He was to come that afternoon. Her carriage was waiting at the side door and would bring him directly to her. Macheson looked up quickly. Through the window he could see a small brougham, with c.o.c.kaded footman and coachman, waiting outside. He swept all the notes into the flames.
"For Heaven"s sake, go and send that carriage away, Drayton," he begged.
Drayton laughed and disappeared. On the table there remained one more note--a square envelope, less conspicuous perhaps than the others, but more distinguished-looking. Macheson broke the seal. On half a sheet of paper were scrawled these few lines only.
"For Heaven"s sake, come to me at once.--Wilhelmina."
He started and caught up his hat. In a few minutes he was on his way to Berkeley Square.
CHAPTER XII
JEAN LE ROI
Over a marble-topped table in a retired corner of the cafe Stephen Hurd listened to the story of the man whom Macheson had delivered over to him, and the longer he listened the more interesting he found it. When at last all was told, the table itself was strewn with cigarette stumps, and their gla.s.ses had three times been replenished. The faces of both men were flushed.
"You see," the little man said, glancing for a moment at his yellow-stained fingers, and then beginning to puff furiously at a fresh cigarette, "the time is of the shortest. Jean le Roi--well, his time is up! He may be here to-morrow, the next day, who can tell? And when he comes he will kill her! That is certain!"
Hurd shuddered and drank some of his whisky.
"Look here," he said, "we mustn"t have that. Revenge, of course, he will want--but there are other ways."
The little man blinked his eyes.
"You do not know Jean le Roi," he said. "To him it is a pastime to kill!
For myself I do not know the pa.s.sions as he would know them. Where there was money I would not kill. It would be as you have said--there are other ways. But Jean le Roi is different."
"Jean le Roi, as you call him, must be tamed, then," Hurd said. "You speak of money. I have been her agent, so I can tell you. What do you think might be the income of this lady?"
Johnson was deeply interested. He leaned across the table. His little black eyes were alight with cupidity.
"Who can tell?" he murmured. "It might be two, perhaps three, four thousand English pounds a year. Eh?"
Stephen Hurd laughed scornfully.
"Four thousand a year!" he repeated. "Bah! She fooled you all to some purpose! Her income is--listen--is forty thousand pounds a year! You hear that, my friend? Forty thousand pounds a year!"
The little man"s face was a study in varying expressions. He leaned back in his chair, and then crouched forward over the table. His beady eyes were almost protruding, a spot of deeper colour, an ugly purple patch, burned upon his cheeks. The words seemed frozen upon his lips. Twice he opened his mouth to speak and said nothing.
Stephen Hurd took off his hat and placed it upon the table before him.
His listener"s emotion was catching.
"Forty thousand pounds," he said softly, "livres you call it! It is a great fortune. She has deceived you, too! You must make her pay for it."
Johnson was recovering himself slowly. His voice when he spoke shook, but it was with the dawn of a vicious anger!
"Yes!" he muttered, speaking as though to himself, "she has deceived us!
She must pay! G.o.d, how she must pay!"
His fingers twitched upon the table. He was blinking rapidly.
"There is the money," he said softly, "and there is Jean le Roi!"
It was a night of shocks for him. Again his eyes were dilated. He shrank back in his chair and clutched at Hurd"s sleeve.
"It is himself!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "It is Jean le Roi! G.o.d in Heaven, he will kill us!"
Johnson collapsed for a moment. In his face were all the evidences of an abject fear, and Stephen Hurd was in very nearly as evil a plight. The man who was threading his way through the tables towards them was alarming enough in his appearance and expression to have cowed braver men.
"Jean le Roi--he fears nothing--he cares for nothing, not even for me, his father," Johnson muttered with chattering teeth. "If he feels like it he will kill us as we sit here."
Hurd, who was facing the man, watched him with fascinated eyes. He was over six feet high, and magnificently formed. Notwithstanding his ready made clothes, fresh from a French tailor, his brown hat ludicrously too small and the blue stubble of a recently cropped beard, he was almost as impressively handsome as he was repulsive to look at. He walked with the grace of a savage animal in his native woods; there was something indeed not altogether human in the gleam of his white teeth and stealthy, faultless movements. He came straight to where they sat, and his hand fell like a vice upon the shoulder of the shrinking elder man. It was further characteristic of this strange being that when he spoke there was no anger in his tone. His voice indeed was scarcely raised above a whisper.