A Son of Hagar Part 62

Turning into Oxford Street, the cabman struck away to the west, in order to come upon Westminster by the main artery of Regent Street. The great thoroughfare was quiet enough now. Fas.h.i.+on was at rest, but even here, and in its own mocking guise, misery had its haunt. A light laugh broke the silence of the street, and a girl, so young as to be little more than a child, dressed in soiled finery, and reeling with unsteady step on the pavement, came up to the cab window and peered in.

At the open door of a hotel, from whence a shaft of light came out into the fog, the cabman drew up. "Comfortable hotel, sir; think you'd like to put up, sir?"

Paul dropped the window. "We want the Catholic convent at Westminster, my man."

The cabman had put up his torch and was flapping his arms under his armpits. "Cold job, sir. Think I've had enough of it. Ha'past two, and a mile from St. Margaret's yet, sir. Got a long step home, sir, and the missis looking out for me this hour and more."

The night porter of the hotel had opened the cab door, but not for an instant did Paul's purpose waver. "I'm sorry, my good fellow, but we must reach the convent, as I tell you."

"Won't to-morrow do, sir? Comfortable quarters, sir. Can recommend 'em,"

with a tip of his hand over his shoulder.

"We must get to the convent to-night, my man."

The cabman returned to his horse's head with a grunt of dissatisfaction.

"Porter, can you keep a bed for me here? I shall be back in an hour,"

said Paul. The porter signified a.s.sent, and once again the cab moved off on its slow journey.

As it pa.s.sed out of Trafalgar Square by way of Charing Cross, the air suddenly lightened. It was as if waves of white mist rolled over the yellow vapor. The cabman threw away his torch, mounted his box, and set off at a trot. When he reached Parliament Square the fog was gone. The great clock of Westminster was striking three; the sky was a dun gray behind the clocktower, and the dark ma.s.s of the abbey could be dimly seen.

The cab drew up on the south-west of Abbey Gardens and before a portico railed in by an iron gate. The lamp burning on the sidewalk in front cast a hazy light on what seemed to be a large brick house plain in every feature.

"This is Saint Margaret's, sir. Eight s.h.i.+llings, sir, if you please."

Paul dismissed the cabman and rang the bell; the hollow tongue sent out a startling reverberation into the night. The sky to the east was breaking; thin streaks of a lighter gray foretold the dawn.

The door opened and the iron gate swung back. A sister carrying an open oil lamp motioned them to enter.

"Can I see the superior?" said Paul.

"She is newly risen," said the sister, and she fixed the lamp to a bracket in the wall and went away. They were left in a bare, chill, echoing hall.

The next moment a line of nuns in their coifs pa.s.sed close by them with quick and silent steps. At that gray hour they had risen for matins.

Some of them were pale and emaciated, and one that was palest and most worn went by with drooping head and hands that inlaced her rosary. Paul stepped back a pace. The nun moved steadily onward with the rest. Never a sign of recognition, never an upward glance, only the quivering of a lip--but it was his mother!

He, too, dropped his head, and his own lips trembled. The mother superior was standing with them before he was aware. For an instant his voice was suspended, but he told her at length that a great calamity had befallen them, and begged her to take his wife for a time into her care.

"Charity is our office," said the mother, when she had heard his story.

"Come, my sister, the Church is peace. Your poor laden soul may put off its load while you are here."

Paul begged to be allowed a moment to say farewell, and the good mother left them together.

Then from an inner chamber came the solemn tones of an organ and the full voices of a choir. The softened harmonies seemed to float into their torn hearts, and they wept. The gray dawn was creeping in. It blurred the red light of the lamp.

"Good-bye, darling, good-bye!" Paul whispered; but even while he spoke he clung the closer.

"Good-bye for the present, dear husband," said Greta, and smiled.

"Who would have thought that this calamity could wait for you at the very steps of G.o.d's altar?"

"A day will turn all this evil into good."

"At the threshold of our life together to be torn apart!"

"Think of it no more, dearest. Our lives will yet be the brighter for this calamity. Do you remember what Parson Christian used to say? The happiest life is not that which is always in the sunlight, but rather that over which a dark cloud has once lowered and pa.s.sed away."

Paul shook his head. "My lips are sealed. You do not know all. It is a cruel lie that separates us. But what if it can not be disproved?"

Greta's eyes were full of a radiant hopefulness. "It can, and shall!"

Paul bent his head and touched her forehead with his lips. "The past is a silence that gives back no answer," he said. "My mother alone could disprove it, and she is dead to the world."

"Not alone, dearest. I can disprove it. Wait and see!"

Paul smiled coldly, and once more shook his head. "You don't know all,"

he said again, and kissed her reverently. "What if to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow brings no light to unravel this mystery?"

"Never fear it. The finger of Heaven is in this," said Greta.

"Say, rather, the hand of destiny. And how little we are in the presence of that pitiless power!"

"G.o.d sees all," said Greta. "He has led me in here, and He will guide me out again."

"What if I brought you for a day, and you remain for a year, for life?"

"Then think that G.o.d Himself has taken your wife at your hands."

Paul's face, that had worn a look of deep dejection, became distorted with pain. "Oh, it is horrible! And this cloister is to be your marriage-bed!"

"Hus.h.!.+ All is peace here. Good-bye, dearest Paul. Be brave, my husband."

"Brave? Before death a man may be brave; but in the face of a calamity like this, what man could be brave?"

"G.o.d will turn it away."

"G.o.d grant it. But I tremble to ask for the truth. The future is not more awful to me now than the past."

"Keep up heart, dear Paul. You know how pleasant it is to fall asleep amid storms that shake the trees, and to awake in the stillness and the suns.h.i.+ne, and amid the songs of the birds. To-morrow the falsehood will be outfaced, and you will return to fetch me."

"Yes," said Paul, "or else drag out my days as an outcast in the world."

"No, no, no. Good-bye, dearest." Then the voice of the comforter failed her, and she dropped her head on his breast.

The choir within chanted the matin service. Paul removed the iron bar that crossed the door, and opened it. The opposite side of the street was a blank wall, with gaunt boughs of leafless trees behind it and above it, and beyond all was the dim sanctuary. Traffic's deep buzz flowed in the distance. The dawn had reddened the eastern sky, and the towers of the abbey were black against the glory of the coming day.

"It may be that there is never a sunrise on this old city but it awakens some one to some new calamity," said Paul; "yet surely this is the heaviest stroke of all Good-bye, my darling!"

"Good-bye, my husband!"