The Devil's Paw Part 18

"I blame you for being what you are," she answered breathlessly. "If you were a person who understood, who felt the great stir of humanity outside your own little circle, who could look across your seas and realise that nationality is accidental and that the brotherhood of man throughout the world is the only real fact worthy of consideration--ah!

if you could realise these things, I could talk, I could explain."

"You judge me in somewhat arbitrary fashion."

"I judge you from your life, your prejudices, even the views which you have expressed."

"There are some of us," he reminded her, "to whom reticence is a national gift. I like what you said just now. Why should you take it for granted that I am a narrow squireen? Why shouldn't you believe that I, too, may feel the horror of these days?"

"You feel it personally but not impersonally," she cried. "You feel it intellectually but not with your heart. You cannot see that a kindred soul lives in the Russian peasant and the German labourer, the British toiler and the French artificer. They are all pouring out their blood for the sake of their dream, a politician's dream. Freedom isn't won by wars. It must be won, if ever, by moral sacrifice and not with blood."

"Then explain to me," he begged, "exactly what you are doing? What your reason is for being in communication with the German Government?

Remember that the dispatch I intercepted came from no private person in Germany. It came from those in authority."

"That again is not true," she replied. "I would ask for permission to explain all these things to you, if it were not so hopeless."

"The case of your friends will probably be more hopeless still," he reminded her, "after to-night."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"We shall see," she said solemnly. "The Russian revolution surprised no one. Perhaps an English revolution would shake even your self-confidence."

He made no reply. Her blood tingled, and she could have struck him for the faint smile, almost of amus.e.m.e.nt, which for a moment parted his lips. He was already on his feet, collecting their belongings.

"Can you help me," he asked, "with reference to the explanations which it will be necessary to make to your aunt and to my own people? We left this morning, if you remember, in order that you might visit the Russian Emba.s.sy and announce our betrothal. You are, I believe, under an engagement to return and stay with my mother."

"I cannot think about those things to-day," she replied. "You may take it that I am tired and that you had business. You know my address. May I be favoured with yours?"

He handed her a card and scribbled a telephone number upon it. They were in the station now, and their baggage in the hands of separate porters.

She walked slowly down the platform by his side.

"Will you allow me to say," he ventured, "how sorry I am--for all this?"

The slight uncertainty of his speech pleased her. She looked up at him with infinite regret. As they neared the barrier, she held out her hand.

"I, too, am more sorry than I can tell you;" she said a little tremulously. "Whatever may come, that is how I feel myself. I am sorry."

They separated almost upon the words. Catherine was accosted by a man at whom Julian glanced for a moment in surprise, a man whose dress and bearing, confident though it was, clearly indicated some other status in life. He glanced at Julian with displeasure, a displeasure which seemed to have something of jealousy in its composition. Then he grasped Catherine warmly by the hand.

"Welcome back to London, Miss Abbeway! Your news?"

Her reply was inaudible. Julian quickened his pace and pa.s.sed out of the station ahead of them.

CHAPTER X

The Bishop and the Prime Minister met, one afternoon a few days later, at the corner of Horse Guards Avenue. The latter was looking brown and well, distinctly the better for his brief holiday. The Bishop, on the contrary, was pale and appeared hara.s.sed. They shook hands and exchanged for a moment the usual inanities.

"Tell me, Mr. Stenson," the Bishop asked earnestly, "what is the meaning of all this Press talk, about peace next month? I have heard a hint that it was inspired."

"You are wrong," was the firm reply. "I have sent my private secretary around to a few of the newspapers this morning. It just happens to be the sensation, of the moment, and it's fed all the time from the other side."

"There is nothing in it, then, really?"

"Nothing whatever. Believe me, Bishop--and there is no one feeling the strain more than I am--the time has not yet come for peace."

"You politicians!" the Bishop sighed. "Do you sometimes forget, I wonder, that even the p.a.w.ns you move are human?"

"I can honestly say that I, at any rate, have never forgotten it," Mr.

Stenson answered gravely. "There isn't a man in my Government who has a single personal feeling in favour of, or a single benefit to gain, by the continuance of this ghastly war. On the other hand, there is scarcely one who does not realise that the end is not yet. We have pledged our word, the word of the English nation, to a peace based only upon certain contingencies. Those contingencies the enemy is not at present prepared to accept. There is no immediate reason why he should."

"But are you sure of that?" the Bishop ventured doubtfully. "When you speak of Germany, you speak of William of Hohenzollern and his clan. Is that Germany? Is theirs the voice of the people?"

"I would be happy to believe that it was not," Mr. Stenson replied, "but if that is the case, let them give us a sign of it."

"That sign," declared the Bishop, with a gleam of hopefulness in his tone, "may come, and before long."

The two men were on the point of parting. Mr. Stenson turned and walked a yard or two with his companion.

"By the bye, Bishop," he enquired, "have you heard any rumours concerning the sudden disappearance of our young friend Julian Orden?"

The Bishop for a moment was silent. A pa.s.ser-by glanced at the two men sympathetically. Of the two, he thought, it was the man in spiritual charge of a suffering people who showed more sign of the strain.

"I have heard rumours," the Bishop acknowledged. "Tell me what you know?"

"Singularly little," Mr. Stenson replied. "He left Maltenby with Miss Abbeway the day after their engagement, and, according to the stories which I have heard, arranged to dine with her that night. She came to call for him and found that he had disappeared. According to his servant, he simply walked out in morning clothes, soon after six o'clock, without leaving any message, and never returned. On the top of that, though, there followed, as I expect you have heard, some very insistent police enquiries as to Orden's doings on the night he spent with his friend Miles Furley. There is no doubt that a German submarine was close to Blakeney harbour that night and that a communication of some sort was landed."

"It seems absurd to connect Julian with any idea of treasonable communication with Germany," the Bishop said slowly. "A more typical young Englishman of his cla.s.s I never met."

"Up to a certain point I agree with you," Mr. Stenson confessed, "but there are some further rumours to which I cannot allude, concerning Julian. Orden, which are, to say the least of it, surprising."

The two men came to a standstill once more.

Stenson laid his hand upon his companion's shoulder. "Come," he went on, "I know what is the matter with you, my friend. Your heart is too big.

The cry of the widow and the children lingers too long in your ears.

Remember some of your earlier sermons at the beginning of the war.

Remember how wonderfully you spoke one morning at St. Paul's upon the spirituality to be developed by suffering, by sacrifice. 'The hand which chastises also purifies.' Wasn't that what you said? You probably didn't know that I was one of your listeners, even--I myself, in those days, scarcely looked upon the war as I do now. I remember crawling in at the side door of the Cathedral and sitting unrecognised on a hard chair. It was a great congregation, and I was far away in the background, but I heard. I remember the rustle, too, the little moaning, indrawn breath of emotion when the people rose to their feet. Take heart, Bishop. I will remind you once more of your own words 'These are the days of purification.'"

The two men separated. The Bishop walked thoughtfully towards the Strand, his hands clasped behind his back, the echo of those quoted words of his still in his ear. As he came to the busy crossing, he raised his head and looked around him.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "my eyes have been closed. Perhaps there are things to be seen."

He called a taxicab and, giving the man some muttered directions, was driven slowly down the Strand, looking eagerly first on one side of the way and then on the other. It was approaching the luncheon hour and the streets were thronged. Here seemed to be the meeting place of the Colonial troops,--long, sinewy men, many of them, with bronzed faces and awkward gait. They elbowed their way along, side by side with the queerest collection of people in the world. They stopped and talked in little knots, they entered and left the public houses, stood about outside the restaurants. Here and there they walked arm in arm with women. Taxicabs were turning in at the Savoy, taxicabs and private cars.

Young ladies of the stage, sometimes alone, very often escorted, were everywhere in evidence. The life of London was flowing on in very much the same channels. There were few, if any signs of that thing for which he sought. The taxicab turned westwards, crossed Piccadilly Circus and proceeded along Piccadilly, its solitary occupant still gazing into the faces of the people with that same consuming interest. It was all the same over again--the smiling throngs entering and leaving the restaurants, the smug promenaders, the stream of gaily dressed women and girls. Bond Street was even more crowded with shoppers and loiterers.

The shop windows were as full as ever, the toilettes of the women as wonderful. Mankind, though khaki-clad, was plentiful. The narrow thoroughfare was so crowded that his taxicab went only at a snail's crawl, and occasionally he heard sc.r.a.ps of conversation. Two pretty girls were talking to two young men in uniform.