The Bond of Black Part 33

"We are friends," she responded simply. "Not enemies."

Then for the first time the terrible thought flashed upon me that by making the agreement I had made with her I might be aiding the murderer of poor Roddy to escape. She had set a seal upon my lips.

Next day was Sunday, and as Jack Yelverton had not called upon me, and I did not know his address, I suddenly, early in the evening, resolved to go down to Walworth and see whether I could find him.

Having no idea where the church of St Peter was situated, I took a cab through Newington to a point halfway along the Walworth Road, that great artery of Transpontine London, and there alighted. Some of those who read these lines may know that road, one of the busiest in the whole metropolis. Even on a Sunday evening, when the shops are closed, the traffic in that broad thoroughfare never ceases. From the overcrowded districts of Peckham and Camberwell, districts which within my own memory were semi-rural, this road is the main highway to the City, and while on week-days it is crowded with those hurrying thousands of daily workers who earn their bread beyond the river, on Sunday evenings those same workers take out their wives and families for a breath of air on Camberwell Green, Peckham Eye, or some other of those open s.p.a.ces which have aptly been termed "the lungs of London." Only the worker knows the felicity of the Sunday rest. People of means and leisure may talk of the pleasure and brightness of the Continental Sunday, but for the worker in the great city it would be a sad day indeed if the present custom were altered. It is now a day of rest; and a.s.suredly rest and relaxation are required in the ceaseless, frantic hurry of the life of London's toilers. The opening of places of amus.e.m.e.nt would be but the thin end of the wedge. It would be followed, as in France and Italy, by the opening of shops until noon, and later, most probably, by the half-day working of factories.

The leisure of the English Sunday was well ill.u.s.trated in the Walworth Road, that centre of lower and middle-cla.s.s life, on that evening, as I walked alone until, by direction, I entered a narrow, rather uninviting-looking turning, and proceeding some distance came to a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned church with pointed spire, surrounded by a s.p.a.cious, disused burying-ground, where the gravestones were blackening.

The bell, of peculiarly doleful tone, was quite in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood, for the houses in the vicinity were mostly one-storied, dingy abodes, little more than cottages, let out in floors, many of their inhabitants being costermongers and factory hands.

The old church, cracked and smoke-blackened, was a substantial and imposing relic of bygone times. Once, as was shown by the blackened, rain-stained tombstones in G.o.d's-acre, the residents in that parish were well-to-do citizens, who had their rural residences in that quarter; but during the past half-century or so a poor, squalid parish had sprung up in the market gardens which surrounded it, one of those gloomy, miserable, mean, and dreary districts wherein life seems so full of sadness, and disease stalks hand-in-hand with direst poverty.

I was shown by the verger to a pew well in front, and found that the congregation was by no means a small one, comprising many who appeared to be tradespeople from the Walworth Road. Yet there was about the place a damp, mouldy smell, which rendered it a very depressing place of wors.h.i.+p.

As I had hoped, my friend, Yelverton, conducted the service, and afterwards preached a striking sermon upon "Brotherliness," a discourse so brilliant that he held his not too educated congregation breathless in attention.

At length, when the Benediction had been p.r.o.nounced, and the congregation rose to leave, I made my way into the vestry, where I found him taking off his surplice.

"Hulloa, Clifton!" he cried, welcoming me warmly, "so you've found me out, eh?"

"Yes," I answered. "Why haven't you called, as you promised?"

I simply uttered the first words that arose to my lips, for truth to tell, I had a moment before made a surprising and unexpected discovery.

As I had risen from my seat I saw behind me a tall, thin lady in deep mourning, wearing a veil.

I could not see the face, but by her figure and her gait as she turned to make her way out I recognised her.

It was Aline Cloud. She had come there to listen to the preaching of the man she loved. Once again, then, had she come into the life of this man who had fled from her as from a temptress.

The verger went back into the church, and my friend pushed to the door in order that whoever remained should not witness us, then answered--

"I've been busy--terribly busy, my dear fellow. Forgive me."

"Of course," I answered. "But it was a surprise to me to hear that you had left Duddington, although, of course, we couldn't expect you to bury yourself down there altogether."

"Well, I had this offer," he answered, hanging up his surplice in the cupboard, "and being so much interested in the work here, I couldn't refuse."

"It seems a dismal place," I observed, "a terribly dismal place."

"Yes," he sighed. "There's more misery and poverty here than even in the East End. Here we have the deserving poor--the people who are too proud to throw themselves on the parish, yet they haven't a few coppers to get the bare necessaries of life with. If you came one round with me, Clifton, you'd witness scenes which would cause your heart to bleed.

And this in London--the richest city in the world! While at the Cafe Royal or Jimmy's you will cheerfully give a couple or three pounds for a dinner with a friend, here, within fifty yards of this place, are people actually starving because they can't get a herring and a pennyworth of bread. Ah! you who have had no experience in the homes of these people can't know how despairing, how cheerless, is the life of the deserving poor."

"And you live here?" I asked. "You prefer this cramped, gloomy place to the fresh air and free life of the country? You would rather visit these overcrowded slums than the homely cottages of the agricultural labourer?"

"Certainly," he responded simply. "I entered the Church with the object of serving the Master, and I intend to do so."

"And the lady who was once a parish-worker here," I said, with some hesitancy. "Have you seen her?"

"Ah!" he sighed, as a dark shadow crossed his thoughtful brow, and his lips compressed. "You alone know my secret, old fellow, you alone are aware of the torment I am suffering."

"What torment?" I inquired, surprised.

At that instant, however, the old verger, a man who spoke with a p.r.o.nounced South London drawl, interrupted by das.h.i.+ng in alarmed and pale-faced, saying--

"There's been a robbery, sir--an awful sacrilege!"

"Sacrilege!" echoed Yelverton, starting up.

"Yes, sir. The chalice you used this morning at Communion I put in the niche beside the organ, meaning to clean it to-night. I've always put it there these twelve years. But it's gone."

My friend went forth into the church, and I followed until we came to the niche which the old verger indicated.

There was no chalice there, but in its place only white ashes and a few pieces of metal melted out of all recognition.

All three of us stood gazing at the fused fragments of the sacramental cup, astonished and amazed.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE RESULT OF THE COMPACT.

"There's some Devil's work been performed here!" gasped the newly-appointed vicar, turning over the ashes with trembling hands, while at the same time I, too, bent and examined the fused fragments of the Communion cup.

The recollection of the miraculous changes effected in my own room was fresh within my memory, and I stood amazed. The agency to which was due the melting of the chalice was still a mystery, but had I not seen Aline, the Woman of Evil, leave the church?

It was apparent that Yelverton had not detected her presence, or he would most probably have referred to it. He loved her with an all-absorbing love, yet, like myself, he seemed to hold her in some mysterious dread, the reason of which I always failed to discover. His theory that the clergy should not marry was, I believe, a mere cloak to hide his terror of her. This incident showed me that now he had come back to his old parish she haunted him as she had done in the past, sometimes unseen, and at others boldly greeting him. That night she had sat a few pews behind me listening to his brilliant discourse, veiled and unrecognised in the half-lighted church, and had escaped quickly, in order that none should be aware of her presence.

But I had caught a glimpse of her, and knowledge of her visit had been immediately followed by this astounding discovery. Her evil influence had once more a.s.serted itself upon a sacred object and destroyed it.

Truly her power was Satanic. Yet she was so calm, so sweet, so eminently beautiful, that I did not wonder that he loved her. Indeed, I recollected how enthusiastically I once had fallen down and wors.h.i.+pped her.

And now had I not a compact with her? Had I not given myself over to her, body and soul, to become her puppet and her slave?

I shuddered when I recollected that hour of my foolishness. This Woman of Evil held me irrevocably in her power.

"How strange!" I exclaimed at last, when I had thoroughly examined the ashes. I would have told him of Aline's presence, but, with my lips sealed by my promise, I feared to utter a word, lest I might be stricken by her deadly hate, for she certainly was something more than human.

"Strange!" he cried. "It's marvellous. Feel! The ashes are quite warm! The heat required to melt and fuse a heavy vessel like that would be enormous. It couldn't have been done by any natural means."

"How, then, do you account for it?" I inquired quickly.

"I can't account for it," he answered in a hoa.r.s.e voice, gazing about the darkened church, for the lights had been nearly all extinguished, and the place was weird and eerie. Then, with his lips compressed for a moment, he looked straight at me, saying in a strange, hard voice: "Clifton, such a change as this could not be effected by any human means. If this had happened in a Roman Catholic church, it would have been declared to be a miracle."

"A miracle wrought by the Evil One!" I said.

And he bowed his head, his face ashen, his hands still trembling.

"I cannot help thinking," he said after a pause, "that this is a bad augury for my ministry here. It is the first time I have, as vicar, administered the Sacrament, and the after result is in plain evidence before us--a result which absolutely staggers belief."

"Yes," I said pensively. "It is more than extraordinary. It is an enigma beyond solution; an actual problem of the supernatural."