Part 27 (1/2)

”May I leave it in your care, porter, until I am able to call for it?”

”Certingly, nurse. Sorry you're goin'. I'll miss your face, too.”

”Thank you. I'll call for my letters also.”

”There's one just come.”

It was from Aunt Anna, and was full of severe reproof and admonition.

Glory was not to think of leaving the hospital; she must try to be content with the condition to which G.o.d had called her. But why had her letters been so few of late? and how did it occur that she had never told them about Mr. Storm? He had gone for good into that strange Brotherhood, it seemed. Not Catholic, and yet a monastery. Most extraordinary! They were all eagerly waiting to hear more about it.

Besides, the grandfather was anxious on Glory's account. If half they heard was true, the dangers of London----

The house-surgeon came down to say good-bye. He had always been as free and friendly as Sister Allworthy would allow. They stood a moment at the door together.

”Where are you going to?” he asked.

”Anywhere--nowhere--everywhere; to 'all the airts the wind can blaw.'”

It was a clear, bright morning, with a light, keen frost. On looking out, Glory saw that flags were flying on the public buildings.

”Why, what's going on?” she said.

”Don't you know? It's the ninth of November--Lord Mayor's Day.”

She laughed merrily. ”A good omen. I'm the female d.i.c.k Whittington! Here goes for it! Good-bye, hospital nursing.--By-bye, doctor.”

She dropped him a playful curtsy at the bottom of the steps, and then tripped along the street.

”What a girl it is!” he thought. ”And what is to become of her in this merciless old London?”

She had taken less than a score of steps from the hospital when blinding teardrops leaped from her eyes and ran down her cheeks; but she only dropped her veil and walked on boldly.

SECOND BOOK.

_THE RELIGIOUS LIFE._

I.

The Society of the Holy Gethsemane, popularly called the Bishopsgate Fathers, was one of the many conventual inst.i.tutions of the English Church which came as a sequel to the great upheaval of religious feeling known as the Tractarian or Oxford movement. Most of them gave way under the pressure of external opposition, some of them broke down under the strain of internal dissension, and a few lived on as secret brotherhoods, in obedience to a rule which was never divulged by their members, who were said to wear a hair s.h.i.+rt next the skin and to scourge themselves with the lash of discipline.

Of these conventual inst.i.tutions the Society of the Holy Gethsemane had been one of the earliest, and it was now quite the oldest, although it had challenged not only the traditions of the Reformed Church but the spirit of the age itself by establis.h.i.+ng its place of prayer at the very doors of the Stock Exchange--that crater of volcanic emotions, that generating house for the electric currents of the world.

Its founder and first Superior had been a man of iron will, who had fought his way through ecclesiastical courts and popular anger, and even family persecution, which had culminated in an effort of his own brother to shut him up as a lunatic. His first disciple and most stanch supporter had been the Rev. Charles Frederic Lamplugh, a fellow of Corpus, newly called to orders after an earlier career which had been devoted to the world, and, according to rumour, nearly wrecked in an affair of the heart.

When the community had proved its legal right to exist within the Establishment and public clamour had subsided, this disciple was despatched to America, and there he established a branch brotherhood and became great and famous. At the height of his usefulness and renown he was recalled, and this exercise of authority provoked a universal outcry among his admirers. But he obeyed; he left his fame and glory in America and returned to his cell in London, and was no more heard of by the outer world until the founder of the society died, when he was elected by the brothers to the vacant place of Superior.

Father Lamplugh was now a man of seventy, so gentle in his manner, so sweet in his temper, so pious in his life, that when he stepped out of his room to greet John Storm on his arrival in Bishopsgate Street it seemed as if he brought the air of heaven in the rustle of his habit, and to have come from the holy of holies.

”Welcome! welcome!” he said. ”I knew you would come to us; I have been expecting you. The first time I saw you I said to myself: 'Here is one who bears a burden; the world can not satisfy the cravings of a heart like that; he will surrender it some day.'”