The Drunkard Part 72

Morton Sims took her two hands and held them, his face alight with pleasure and greeting.

"This is good," he said fervently. "I have waited for this hour. I cannot say how glad I am to see you, Julia. You have heard from Edith?"

"The dear girl! Yes. There was a letter waiting for me at the Savoy when I arrived last night. I am to come to you both on Sat.u.r.day."

"Yes. It will be so jolly, just like old times. Now let me congratulate you a thousand times on your great work in America. Every one over here has been reading of your interview with the President. It was a great stroke. And he really is interested?"

"Immensely. It is genuine. He was most kind and there is no doubt but that he will be heart and soul with us in the future. The campaign is spreading everywhere. And, most significant of all, _we are capturing the prohibitionists_."

"Ah! that will mean everything."

"Everything, because they are the most earnest workers of all. But they have seen that Prohibition has proved itself an impossibility. They have failed despite their whole-hearted and worthy endeavours.

Naturally they have become disheartened. But they are beginning to see the truth of our proposal. The scientific method is gaining ground as they realise it more and more. In a year or two those states which legislated Prohibition, will legislate in another way and penalise the begetting of children by known drunkards. That seems to me certain.

After that the whole land may, I pray G.o.d, follow suit."

She had taken off her heavy sable coat and was sitting in a chair by the fireside. Informed with deep feeling and that continuous spring of hope and confidence which gave her so much of her power, the deep contralto rang like a bell in the room.

Morton Sims leant against the mantel-shelf and looked down on his friend. The face was beautiful and inspired. It represented the very flower of intellect and patriotism, breadth, purity, strength. "Ah!" he thought, "the figure of Britannia upon our coins and in our symbolic pictures, or the Latin Dame of Liberty with the Phrygian cap, is not so much England or France as this woman is America, the soul of the West in all its power and beauty... ."

His reverie was broken in upon by her voice, not ringing with enthusiasm now, but sad and purely womanly.

"Tell me," she was saying, "have you heard or found out anything of Gilbert Lothian, the poet?"

Morton Sims shook his head.

"It remains an impenetrable mystery," he said. "No one knows anything."

Tears came into Mrs. Daly's eyes. "I loved that woman," she said. "I loved Mary Lothian. A clearer, more transparent soul never joined the saints in Paradise. Among the many, many things for which I have to thank you, there is nothing I have valued more than the letter from you which sent me to her at Nice. Mary Lothian was the sweetest woman I have ever met, or ever shall meet. Sometimes G.o.d puts such women into the world for examples. Her death grieved me more than I can say."

"It was very sudden."

"Terribly. We travelled home together. She was leaving her dying sister in the deepest sadness. But she was going home full of holy determination to save her husband. I never met any woman who loved a man more than Mary Lothian loved Gilbert Lothian. What a wonderful man he must have been, might have been, if the Disease had not ruined him.

I think his wife would have saved him had she lived. He is alive, I suppose?"

"It is impossible to say. I should say not. All that is known is as follows. A fortnight or so after his wife's funeral, Lothian, then in a very dangerous state, travelled to London. He was paying a call at some house in the West End when Delirium Tremens overtook him at last. He was taken to the Kensington Hospital. Most cases of delirium tremens recover but it was thought that this was beyond hope. However, as soon as it was known who he was, some of the best men in town were called. I understand it was touch and go. The case presented unusual symptoms.

There was something behind it which baffled treatment for a time."

"But he _was_ cured?"

"Yes, they pulled him through somehow. Then he disappeared. The house in Norfolk and its contents were sold through a solicitor. A man that Lothian had, a decent enough servant and very much attached to his master, has been pensioned for life--an annuity, I think. He may know something. The general opinion in the village is that he does know something--I have kept on my house in Mortland Royal, you must know.

But this Tumpany is as tight as wax. And that's all."

"He has published nothing?"

"Not a line of any sort whatever. I was dining with Amberley, the celebrated publisher, the other day. He published the two or three books of poems that made Lothian famous. But he has heard nothing. He even told me that there is a considerable sum due to Lothian which remains unclaimed. Of course Lothian is well off in other ways. But stay, though, I did hear a rumour!"

"And what was that?"

"Well, I dined at Amberley's house--they have a famous dining-room you must know, where every one has been, and it's an experience. There was a party after dinner, and I was introduced to a man called Toftrees--he's a popular novelist and a great person in his own way I believe."

Julia Daly nodded. She was intensely interested.

"I know the name," she said. "Go on."

"Well, this fellow Toftrees, who seems a decent sort of man, told me that he believed that Gilbert Lothian was killing himself with absinthe and brandy in Paris. Some one had seen him in Maxim's or some such place, a dreadful sight. This was three or four months ago, so, if it's true, the poor fellow must be dead by now."

"Requiescat," Julia Daly said reverently. "But I should have liked to have known that his dear wife's prayers in Heaven had saved him here."

Morton Sims did not answer and there was a silence between them for a minute or two.

The doctor was remembering a dreadful scene in the North London Prison.

... "If Gilbert Lothian still lived he must look like that awful figure in the condemned cell had looked--like his insane half-brother, the cunning murderer--" Morton Sims shuddered and his eyes became fixed in thought.

He had told no living soul of what he had learned that night. He never would tell any one. But it all came back to him with extreme vividness as he gazed into the fire.

Some memory-cell in his brain, long dormant and inactive, was now secreting thought with great rapidity, and, with these dark memories--it was as though some curtain had suddenly been withdrawn from a window unveiling the sombre picture of a storm--something new and more horrible still started into his mind. It pa.s.sed through and vanished in a flash. His will-power beat it down and strangled it almost ere it was born.

But it left his face pale and his throat rather dry.

It was now twenty minutes to three, as the square marble clock upon the mantel showed, and immediately, before Julia Daly and Morton Sims spoke again, two people came into the room.

Both were clergymen.

First came Bishop Moultrie. He was a large corpulent man with a big red face. Heavy eyebrows of black shaded eyes of a much lighter tint, a kind of blue green. The eyes generally twinkled with good-humour and happiness, the wide, genial mouth was vivid with life and pleasant tolerance, as a rule.

A fine strong, forthright man with a kindly personality.

Morton Sims stepped up to him. "My dear William," he said, shaking him warmly by the hand. "So here you are. Let me introduce you to Mrs.

Daly. Julia, let me introduce the Bishop to you. You both know of each other very well. You have both wanted to meet for a long time."

The Bishop bowed to Mrs. Daly and both she and the doctor saw at once that something was disturbing him. The face only held the promise and possibility of geniality. It was anxious, and stern with some inward thought; very distressed and anxious.

And when a large, fleshy, kindly face wears this expression, it is most marked.

"Please excuse me," the Bishop said to Julia Daly. "I have indeed looked forward to the moment of meeting you. But something has occurred, Mrs. Daly, which occupies my thoughts, something very unusual... ."

Both Morton Sims--who knew his old friend so well--and Julia Daly--who knew so much of the Bishop by repute--looked at him with surprise upon their faces and waited to hear more.

The Bishop turned round to where the second Priest was standing by the door.

"This is Father Joseph Edward," he said, "Abbot of the Monastery upon the Lizard Promontory in Cornwall. He has come with me this afternoon upon a special mission."

The newcomer was a slight, dark-visaged man who wore a black cape over his ca.s.sock, and a soft clerical hat. He seemed absolutely undistinguished, but the announcement of his name thrilled the man and woman by the fire.

The Priest bowed slightly. There was little or no expression to be discerned upon his face.

But the others in the room knew who he was at once.