“There is only one way, Beaumont. There never has been, never will be, anyway but one. It is the _Via Crucis_—the way of the Cross. It is a way that was before Gethsemane, though men knew it not as they may know it now, if they but will. And you may put your foot on that way to-night, this very moment. What are you going to do with that whiskey bottle? You can’t carry that sort of luggage on the _Via Crucis?”_ “There’s the sink,” said Edward. “Precisely, there’s the sink, and here goes for the sink and the sewer and the rats. And those letters?” “There’s the fire.” “Exactly. Let the dead past bury its dead, or as burial is not convenient for letters, here’s for cremation. And Omar Khayyam?” “In with him.” “Now we breathe a purer air. Now put on your hat and coat and come with me to a place I wot of where you can get the juiciest steak in all London town, with fried onions and roast potatoes and a cup of very decent coffee, piping hot. And then we’ll talk of things, and I may be able to put you in the way of doing a bit of useful work and earning a modest shilling or two by doing it. And that’s something to be thankful for in this vale of tears, I can tell you.” CHAPTER X. THE LAST. Denis Caird was as good as his word, and better. He stuck to Beaumont like a leech. In those hours of depression that always come to him who has abandoned alcoholic stimulant—those hours in which every fibre of the being seems to clamour for the wonted drug, the good clergyman was to Beaumont a man and a brother, cheering him, rallying him, exhorting him, appealing to all the better forces of his nature, and aiding him in the bitter fight, till, after anxious months, both could feel the victory was won. And Beaumont got work, work to his heart’s desire, work for his pen and work for what gift of speech he had. “Go into the slums, go to the bottommost pit in this London hell,” said Mr. Caird. “Go and see for yourself what the teaching of your Omar Khayyam makes of men and women. See human beings turned into beasts and devils by yielding to the beast and devil latent within every man and every woman. You believe in evolution, you say. Well, what has made men and women only a little lower than the angels? Why, nought but myriads of years of beating down Satan under their feet, beating down the animal basis on which the moral and the spiritual superstructure is reared. Go, learn your lesson, and then, and not till then, with pen and tongue preach your lesson. I’m a Socialist, you know I am. But ere ever the masses enter into their kingdom of economic justice, ere ever they win the full heritage of their toil, I pray and labour that they may be worthy of that kingdom and of that heritage, that they may learn the right use of wealth; else will all their gains be but added curses.”