Then he lay back on the bed, and thought that he roared with laughter.

The situation seemed irresistibly comic. He only chuckled feebly, but to him it seemed as if he were shrieking in an ecstasy of mirth.

Suddenly he got up and fell on his knees, praying aloud, "Oh, G.o.d, help me! G.o.d forgive me!" All the time that he knelt and tried to pour out an impa.s.sioned prayer for forgiveness he knew that it was only an attempt to bring some poetry, some pathos, into his last moments. Again he got up and laughed wildly. His face grew ashen grey and horribly drawn in his attempts to deceive himself, to pose once more.

"Is there nothing, NOTHING? Good G.o.d!... why can't I feel? Why? why? Ah!

ahh!" He tore at the bed-quilt wildly, snarling like a beast.

In the middle of his paroxysm he stopped suddenly and stiffened. Once more the weird horror of another presence in the room came over him. He whimpered like a dog, shrinking into a corner, with staring eyes, not knowing what he did, muttering "Mother--mother!" Then with a complete change of tone and manner, he said, "A nonent.i.ty with most seductive hair."

He took the little bottle from the table, and hung it mouth downwards in the sling.

He took off his coat and waistcoat, mechanically winding up his watch and placing it on the mantel.

"This is not at all what I had hoped. It is _most_ unsatisfactory, quite commonplace, in fact," he said as he lay down on the bed.

He felt a little splash on his cheek, and moved his face out of the direct course of the liquid, which now began to fall more rapidly.

CHAPTER IX.

_TWENTY YEARS AFTER. AN EPILOGUE IN TWO PICTURES._

THE FIRST PICTURE.

_The Art of Religion._

The church was very full. It was the vigil of All Saints, and Father Scott was to preach.

Far away, the culminating point of the long vista of shadowy arches, stood the High Altar, blazing with lights. The choir had just taken their stalls, and every head was bent low.

An orchestra was reinforcing the organ, and the long silver trumpets, loved of old Purcell, shouted jubilantly, echoing away down the dim clerestory.

Father Scott felt a strange thrill, an uplifting of the heart, at the melody. He stood up in his stall with the rest, a man whose face still showed a trend to the commonplace, but sweetened, almost refined away by something else.

The little sisters of St. Cecily, sweet souls with whom he worked, said among themselves that he had had a dear friend once whom he had loved, and for whom he still mourned and prayed, and that it was this that made him such an eminently lovable man.

Indeed, Sister Eliza had even read a novel he had written in his early days, a mystic romance of a glorious youth who had never come to prime.

The music of the stately anthem swelled up in a burst of praise, the trumpets singing high over all with keen vibratory notes that told of an inner mystery to ears initiate. Then, when Father Gray, an old priest whose days were nearly done, read the lesson, Scott leant back with crossed hands, thinking of old times, of his youth. It seemed to him on this great night of the Church that other and less earthly forms and voices thronged the building. In the Creed, the words "communion of saints" touched him strangely, as they always did; but to-night they came home to him with a deeper meaning.

"G.o.d is so good," he thought simply. "Surely He has pardoned him for that one sin. He was so pure and beautiful--very pleasant hast thou been to me." His thoughts wandered disconnectedly, recalling sentences that had struck him, old scenes and sc.r.a.ps of verse. The smell of the incense brought back Cowley or the Sunday evening services at St. Barnabas. He rejoiced in his heart at the stateliness and circ.u.mstance of worship around him, and he recalled some old articles in the _Church Chimes_, defending eloquently the "true ritual of holy Church." He had thought them so good, he remembered, such a dignified answer to the other side.

The prayers began, each with its deep harmonized "Amen," which seemed to him in his excited mind long-drawn gasps of thankfulness and worship. He bent his head low in his hands, and prayed humbly for the Church's welfare, and then, with an uplifting of his heart and a great pa.s.sionate yearning, for his dead friend. He felt very near to him on this feast of the departed.

The time came for him to speak to the long rows of faces. He mounted to the high pulpit in the sweep of the chancel arch, and looked down on the congregation.

He began quietly enough, but gathered power and sonance as his feelings swayed him, drawing for them a picture, an ideal, to which they might all attain, telling them of the sweetness that comes with goodness. He thought of the friend of his youth, and drew an exalted picture of him, while the people sat breathless at the beauty of his words.

Then he said in a hushed voice how he had thought, and liked to think, that round them to-night were the dear ones who had died, that they were watching over them and praying with them that holy night.

Everyone felt the spell of the hour and the voice of the priest, it was most unearthly, dramatic, and effective. Sister Eliza wiped her eyes and thought of the novel, and only poor old Father Gray, worthy man, was fast asleep in the chancel, tired by the long ceremonial day.

Then came the great procession round the church, with its acolytes and crosses, Father Scott walking last in flowered cope. They sang, "For all the saints who from their labours rest," waking a responsive echo in every heart.

Last, and most impressive of all, the long spell of silent prayer, broken at last by the crashing music, and the shuffling feet of the congregation as they left the building. Sister Eliza, as she went out into the cutting night wind, could not help thinking of the novel. It was not a bad novel, but this is the true account.

THE SECOND PICTURE.

_A dinner in honour of the law._

"Well, my dear, and who have you got?" said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"First of all there's Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, the new Q.C., _quite_ a nice person."

"He is," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "I've met him. Such eyes! Eliza Facinorious said that he made her 'feel quite funny when he looked at her.' You know the sort of person--makes you feel b-r-r-r-r-r! like that."

"I know," said the hostess. "Then Marjorie Burness is coming--such a dear! knows all the latest stories about everyone."

"I don't think I've met her," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "is she quite?"

"Not exactly; she was a Miss Lovibond--Lovering--some name like that.

Parson's daughter, Kensington people, dontcherknow; but so amusin'--fat, too, she is."

"Oh!" said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Then there's a Mr. Sanderson Tom asked. He keeps a school board, or wants the poor to live n.o.ble lives in Hackney--somethin' of that sort.

Eliza Facinorious and the Baron, Lady Darwin Swift, Mr. Justice Coll, Bradley Bere, the new writin' boy, Lord Saul Horridge, and of course the girls. That's all, I think."

"Oh!" said the d.u.c.h.ess again.

She was rather a damaged d.u.c.h.ess, and very impertinent, but Mrs.

Chitters was exceedingly glad to get her. She really _was_ a d.u.c.h.ess, which, if a woman has no brains, money, or comeliness, is the best thing she can be. She was staying for a week with Colonel Chitters and his wife.

The dinner was for the joy of Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, who had just taken silk. The most eminent member of the criminal bar, he would have been Queen's Counsel long ago if it had not been for some vague rumours of his early life.

A footman opened the door, the d.u.c.h.ess her eye-gla.s.ses, and Mrs.

Chitters the conversation. Mr. Bradley Bere was announced, a youth apparently of seventeen, but of a great name; the rich uncleanness of his life almost rivalling his stories, and both being given undue prominence by his friends on the weekly press. Then came Lord Saul Horridge, a tall melancholy man, whose life was crushed by an energetic mother, whose forte was teetotalism, and whose weakness was omniscience.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burness came in, were effusively greeted by the hostess, and pa.s.sed on to amuse the d.u.c.h.ess. Mrs. Burness, _nee_ Marjorie Lovering, had grown too stout for flirtation, and feeling the want of a _metier_, had turned her thoughts to scandal, and achieved a great success. Her husband, a clerk in the War Office, used to say that his wife had a higher regard for truth than anyone he knew--she used it so economically.

Mordaunt Sturtevant and Mr. Justice Coll came in arm in arm, and soon after they went down to dinner.