“But to tell you the truth at last, dear Aunt Rachel, there is something
I have kept back until now, because I couldn't bear the thought of any
of you being anxious on my account, especially grandfather, who thinks
of Glory so much too often as things are. Can't you guess what it is?
I couldn't help taking up my life of Wandering Jew, because I was
dismissed from the hospital! Didn't you understand that, my dears? I
thought I was telling you over and over again. Yes, dismissed as unfit
to be a nurse, and so I was, according to the order of the institution
first, and human love and pity last. But all's well that ends well, you
know, and now that my wanderings seem to be over and I am in my
right place at length, I feel like one who is coming out of a long
imprisonment, a great peril, a darkness deeper even than John Storm's
cell. And if I ever become a famous woman, and good men will listen to
me, I will tell them to be tender and merciful to poor girls who are
trying to live in London and be good and strong, and that the true
chivalry is to band themselves together against the other men who are
selfish and cruel and impure. Oh, this great, glorious, devilish, divine
London! It must stand to the human world as the seething, boiling,
bubbling waters of Niagara do to the world of Nature. Either a girl
floats over its rapids like a boat, and in that case she draws her
breath and thanks God, or she is tossed into its whirlpool like a
dead body and goes round and round until she finds the vortex and is
swallowed up!
“There! I have blown off my steam, and now to business. Mr. Drake is to
give a luncheon party in his rooms on the twenty-fourth, in honour of
my experiment, but the great event itself will not come off until nearly
half-past nine that night. By that time the sun will have set over the
back of the sea at Peel, the blackbird will have given you his last
'guy-smook,' and all the world will be dropping asleep. Now, if you'll
only remember to say just then, 'God bless Glory!' I'll feel strong and
big and brave.
“Your poor, silly, sentimental girlie, Glory.”
XX.
Some weeks had passed, and it was the morning of the last day of John
Storm's residence at Bishopsgate Street. After calling the Brotherhood,
the Father had entered John's room and was resting on the end of the
bed.
“You are quite determined to leave us?”
“Quite determined, Father.”
The Father sighed deeply, and said in broken sentences: 'Our house is
passing through terrible trials, my son. Perhaps we did wrong to come
here. There is no cross in our foundations, and we have built on a
worldly footing. 'Unless the Lord build the house--' It was good of
you to delay the execution of your purpose, but now that the time
has come--I had set my heart on you, my son. I am an old man now, and
something of the affection of the natural father----”
“Father, if you only knew----”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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