The Christian Part 26

Good G.o.d! What did he think she had been asking of him?

"I am thinking of yourself, Glory, because I want to esteem you and honour you, and because your good name is above everything else--everything else in the world."

Her shame was now abject. It stifled her, deafened her, blinded her. She could not speak or hear or see.

He took her hand and pressed it.

"Let me go," she stammered.

"Stay--do not go yet!"

"Let me go, will you?"

"One moment----"

But with a cry like the cry of a startled bird she disappeared in the shadow of the trees.

He stood a moment where she had left him, tingling in every nerve, wanting to follow her, and overtake her, and kiss her, and abandon everything. But he b.u.t.toned up his overcoat and turned away, telling himself that whatever another man might have done in the same case he at least had done rightly, and that men like John Storm were wrong if they thought it was impossible to act on principle without the impulse of religion.

Meanwhile Glory was flying through the darkness and weeping in the bitterness of her disappointment and shame. The big trees overhead were all black now and very gaunt and grim, and the breeze was moaning in their branches.

"I had disgrace enough already," she thought; "I might have spared myself a degradation like this!"

Drake had supposed that she came to plead for herself to-night as she had pleaded for Polly a week ago. How natural that he should think so!

How natural and yet how hideous!

"I hate him! I hate him!" she thought.

John Storm had been right. In their heart of hearts these men of society had only one idea about a girl, and she had stumbled on it unawares.

They never thought of her as a friend and an equal, but only as a dependent and a plaything, to be taken or left as they liked.

"Oh, how shameful to be a woman--how shameful, how shameful!"

And Drake had renounced her! In the hideous tangle of his error he had renounced her! For honour's sake, and her own sake, and for sake of his character as a gentleman--renounced her! Oh, there was somebody who would never have renounced her whatever had happened, and yet she had driven him away, and he was gone forever!

"I hate myself! I hate myself!"

She remembered how often out of recklessness and daring and high spirits, but without a thought of evil, she had broken through the barrier of manners and given Drake occasion to think lightly of her--at the ball, at the theatre, at tea in his chambers, and by dressing herself up as a man.

"I hate myself! I hate myself!"

John Storm was right, and Drake in his different way was right too, and she alone had been to blame. But Fate was laughing at her, and the jest was very, very cruel.

"No matter. It is all for the best," she thought. She would be the stronger for this experience--the stronger and the purer too, to stand alone and to face the future.

She got back to the hospital just as the great clock of Westminster was chiming the half-hour, and she stood a moment on the steps to listen to it. Only half an hour had pa.s.sed, and yet all the world had changed!

XXI.

It was the last day of Glory's probation, and, dressed in the long blue ulster in which she came from the Isle of Man, she was standing in the matron's room waiting for her wages and discharge. The matron was sitting sideways at her table, with her dog snarling in her lap. She pointed to a tiny heap of gold and silver and to a foolscap paper which lay beside it.

"That is your month's salary, nurse, and this is your 'character.' The 'character' has given me a deal of trouble. I have done all I could for you. I have said you were bright and cheerful, and that the patients liked you. I trust I have not committed myself too far."

Glory gathered up the money, but left the "character" untouched.

"You need not be anxious, ma'am; I shall not require it."

"Have you got a situation?"

"No."

"Then where are you going next?"

"I don't know--yet."

"How much money have you saved?"

"About three months' wages."

"Only three pounds altogether!"

"It will be quite sufficient."

"What friends have you got in London?"

"None--that is to say--no, none whatever."

"Then why don't you go back to your island?"

"Because I don't wish to be a burden upon my people, and because earning my living in London doesn't depend on the will or the whim of any woman."

"That's just like you. I might have dismissed you instantly, but for the sake of the chaplain I've borne with your rudeness and irregularities, and even tried to be your friend, and yet---- I dare say you've not even told your people why you are leaving the hospital?"

"I haven't--I haven't told them yet that I'm leaving at all."

"Then I've a great mind to do it for you. A venturesome, headstrong girl who flings herself on London is in danger of ruin."

"You needn't trouble yourself, ma'am," said Glory, opening the door to go.

"Why so?" said the matron.

Glory stood at her full height and answered:

"Because if you said that of me there is n.o.body in the world would believe you!"

Her box had been brought down to the hall, and the porter, who wished to be friendly, was cording it.